Mar 11 2009
Tenure Has me Spinning
President Obama unveiled his education plan on Tuesday that included merit based pay for teachers. I read reports searching for his opinion of tenure, but, alas, couldn’t find it mentioned.
I’m sure that I completely misunderstand the whole concept of tenure, or else why would I be so completely against a policy that has been embraced for decades? Any enlightenment from readers would be appreciated.
Please explain why we would build a provision into the contracts of our educators that would allow them job security in exchange for the bare minimum of effort required. It seems like a tenured teacher only has to show up to work and not break any laws.
We’re talking about the people we trust with our nation’s children. The generation we’re counting on to face the challenges of the future.
I don’t mean to lump all teachers together. The majority of teachers are underpaid for the responsibility they have undertaken, and struggle to be successful in underfunded schools while incorporating unrealistic governmental mandates. For this I am grateful.
The point is bad teachers shouldn’t be protected just because they’ve been doing a poor job, but they’ve been doing it for a long time.
Our children deserve better. Our nation depends on better educators.
Hmmmm, sounds like ‘tenure’ is a bad concept regardless of the work one does (mailman, auto worker, politician, etc.). It promotes mediocrity and incompetence - performance based pay is the only way (capitalism at its finest)! OBTW, unions are the biggest roadblock to implementing performance based reward systems and in my opinion are one of the reasons our country’s economy is in the toilet.
“It seems like a tenured teacher only has to show up to work and not break any laws.”
Why do you think that about our teachers? Is that what you’d do?