Why should Teachers get Tenure? No One else in the Work Force gets it.
 

You are a little behind the times. Florida stopped giving tenure to teachers 4 years ago for the very reason you said.

I agree with you.

Not sure about Florida, but in NY custodians at the University were tenured as were firemen and probably others I can't think of at the moment..during the probationary period an employee can be let go without any given cause..it's up to the admn to do their job and weed out the poor employees during this period..most often three years. Employee's jobs are NOT secure once tenure is granted..just more difficult to let them go..documentation is needed.

a union is a union is a union....ugh

I couldn't agree more. Our daughter is a tenured teacher with 8 years on the job. She hates the fact there are so many good teachers that can't get jobs and other teachers (not always the older ones!) sit back and forget why they got into the profession. In PA around 1995 in order to become a teacher, a student had to graduate from college with 3.0. On the surface that is a good idea, but it also produced teachers that were book smart, but had no concept how to give the love of learning to their class.

The main issue is how to evaluate a teacher and get away from the tenure system.

tenure or no tenure,if you're not doing a good job,they'll find a way to get rid of you-it's usually an ultimatum "resign or else"

Well, I'm tenured, but teach on the university level. No union. And if I don't perform, tenure or not, my university will find a way to remove me. Tenure can breed lazy teaching, but it also protects those of us who want to try new things, push our students to greater heights without fear of the negative student evaluations (many which are from students who were coddled in the lower grades), and an administration that likes to terminate older professors because they cost more to keep. And if I don't publish every year and go to conferences to present papers, you can also bet that I not only won't get a raise, but they will start to compile a file on me that will lead to early retirement or termination based on not upholding the minimum standards. Teaching is just hard work, physically and mentally, and certainly, it's not for everyone. You must LOVE it if you're going to be good because you must put your heart and soul into it.

I love and respect academicians at the college and postgrad level, but not unions. My favorite contractual inclusion is termination for "contumacious" behavior.

Do you want the best and the brightest in the classroom or in business?
Should school administrators get tenure?
Do you want the board of education to run the school district and do the hiring and firing?

Anyone elected, at least in NJ can be on the board of education.

I taught with a lady whose son was president of our school board.She once said to me "I'm surprised Jimmy wanted to run for school board,he always hated school." Many times people run because they have a bone to pick about something.They have the mindset that that they'll get elected and fix what they were upset about.On the other I've known many members who did have student's best interests in mind. But as I said before tenure is just a word.If you're doing a poor job they'll find a way to get rid of you.And that's a good thing.

Bravo for unions!!!!

Any principal who is worth his/her salary can remove an unsatisfactory teacher if he just does his/her job.
Sometimes they spend a little too much time "chewing the fat" with the PE teachers instead of having a presence in the building and dropping into classrooms. I have been on both sides. It is not that hard.
Sometimes districts decide to save some money by hiring a bunch of new teachers, instead of retaining veterans. Tenure can prevent this.
What if hospitals decided to give no security to experienced Doctors, and hired fresh new ones every few years?

All of the reasons you favor tenure apply to teachers of all grades, not just universities. You are right that you have to love it because you have to put up with lots of negative reactions, difficult parents, time constraints, ridiculous testing of students and poor behavior. Additional education is also a component. Very few other union jobs require any college, much less 4+++ years. I looked forward to going to work every single day and never took a sick day in 25 years. It was wonderful!

Actually, there IS another job that has tenure like that, but with much better pay, insurance benefits, and pension available sooner for fewer years served.

Like teachers, these people WE hire often get stale and unresponsive/unaccountable, too……..

Longest serving U.S. Senators:
http://www.senate.gov/senators/Biogr...st_serving.htm

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives who have served 40 years or longer:
Members Who Have Served 40 Years or Longer in the House | US House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives

You are a bit behind the times if you are not familiar with the new teacher evaluation system. Teachers are subject to stricter evaluations than in the past which include classroom observations, continuing education and student performance on state and federal mandated tests. Half of the evaluation in my district is student performance. Under-performing teachers will not be around long, tenure or not. I have an administrator in my room nearly once a week. If a teacher is not doing their job, they will be on their way out. Principals and schools are under the gun with the new standards, Common Core in most states, to raise test scores so you will see some significant changes.
Finally, you are the ones that elect the officials that negotiate with the school union and you get what you deserve.....

Now now kids, let's not have finger pointing or the principal will be in here giving everyone a time out :)

Federal employees, at least State Dept. Foreign Service, are tenured.

Exactly why there are so many contractors working for the Federal Government. Contractors are "at will" employees.

Hospitals don't give "security" to doctors. Most physicians are independent practitioners or work with others in a group practice. The aggregate medical staff of a hospital is typically in an independent, but affiliated, organization with its own bylaws, rules and regulations.

GG, didn't you have tenure in Ohio? And while you were a teacher did you see other teachers fake it for a couple of years? BTW, my parents sent me to a Catholic school for the first few years. I'm not sure if the nuns had tenure, but I doubt they faked anything in the classroom. It was brutal.

My experience as a school board member is it is hard to get rid of poor teachers and it can cause a new teacher to be terminated if there performance is questionable and they would get tenure if they were not fired.

I think the real question should be - why don't teachers get paid better?

What is it with people.....always coming down on teachers (summers off, class day ends at 3pm, tenure, etc.). With such perks, everyone should want to be a teacher...you'd think! Not so, you work long ours off the clock, you invest your own income on materials to inhance that classroom, you deal with: children with many and varied problems, parents that are helicopter types to those who's interest is none existing, administrations that offen don't stand by you, a community that is ready to "hang you high" for anything and everything. You'd wonder why anyone would teach! Teaching is a vocation...a craft that starts with enthusiasm and later is perfected with experience (hence tenure). Sure their are teachers who lose the fight swimming against the current and become mediocre at best. But the majority work tiredlessly for and with the next generation. So throw them the tidbit....tenure! Oh, by the way I worked in a special needs preschool and my husband taught 35 years with high schoolers. We know of which we speak. We both loved being in the classroom...would not want to do anything else, but it is NOT the easy job non-teachers make it out to be!

Exactly!
Tenure was initiated as a way to attract teachers since the pay was not very good. So...the pay isn't great, but we can offer you job security.
Teachers overpaid? I don't think so.

Not to sound flippant, but the short answer is supply and demand. The skill set required to perform that job is not so unique or difficult to attain that the market must pay a higher (attracting) wage.


(Back to the OP: From my lay perspective, it's nearly impossible to get terrible K-12 teachers fired in CA. With tenure being recently overturned in CA, there's f-i-n-a-l-l-y hope.)

I agree with almost everything you say and I can tell that you KNOW and lived dedication. But I don't think any job should be sealed in. I don't think our good teachers are paid enough and I don't think our lack luster teachers need to continue on. It used to be that teachers always attended the PTA meetings and that they went out of their way to do extra things.

I wish I could thank almost all of my teachers for the dedicated effort that somehow propelled this motherless child.

State Avg. Starting Salary 2012-2013

Alabama $36,198
Alaska $44,166
Arkansas $32,691
Arizona $31,874
California* $41,259
Colorado $32,126
Connecticut $42,924
District of Columbia* $51,539
Delaware $39,338
Federal Education Association $45,751
Florida $35,166
Georgia $33,664
Hawaii $41,027
Iowa $33,226
Idaho $31,159
Illinois $37,166
Indiana $34,696
Kansas $33,386
Kentucky $35,166
Louisiana $38,655
Massachusetts $40,600
Maryland $43,235
Maine $31,835
Michigan $35,901
Minnesota $34,505
Missouri $30,064
Mississippi $31,184
Montana $27,274
North Carolina $30,778
North Dakota $32,019
Nebraska $30,844
New Hampshire $34,280
New Jersey $48,631
New Mexico $31,960
Nevada $35,358
New York $43,839
Ohio $33,096
Oklahoma $31,606
Oregon $33,549
Pennsylvania $41,901
Rhode Island $39,196
South Carolina $32,306
South Dakota $29,851
Tennessee $34,098
Texas $38,091
Utah $33,081
Virginia $37,848
Vermont $35,541
Washington $36,335
Wisconsin $33,546
West Virginia $32,533
Wyoming $43,269

A serf is a serf is a serf...ugh

Thought I'd bring this back on subject.

Tenure is there to protect good teachers from the whims of politicians, parents, donors, and prejudice. Prior to tenure it was common for a new administrator to fire teachers just to bring in his own team, parents to use their economic or social power to threaten teachers if they did not give their child an excellent grade, and especially donors to colleges who wanted to get rid of Professor Darwin for his heresy as a theoretical example with a bribe to the administration of a new building. It was strongly felt that teachers needed to be fair equally to rich and poor and free to teach within the parameters of the local laws, as they saw fit. Does an English teacher have every parent's ok to use Slaughterhouse Five, or Huckleberry Finn? Once the teacher has been hired, and vetted as an effective teacher (obviously there can be problems with that process) they are given job security to not be constantly threatened with termination without cause. It is a small incentive to get good and great people to go into a profession that now often requires a master's degree and pays about the same as a paralegal which requires a few months training after high school. But I know, never miss a chance to bash teachers. There are problems with the tenure system and it is worthwhile addressing those issues.

Teacher Tenure - ProCon.org for a balanced discussion of this issue. If the OP wants to know why teachers get tenure rather than just vent opposition then I would suggest a simple google search using the term "why do teachers get tenure" It results in over 7 million hits. Some are helpful to explain the history of why.

WOW! Our data are SIGNIFICANTLY different! :confused:


Average Salaries of Public School Teachers: 2011–12

2009–10 Rank 2010-11 Rank 2011-12 Rank State Average Annual Salary

NEW YORK $73,398
MASSACHUSETTS $71,721
CONNECTICUT $69,465
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA $68,720*
CALIFORNIA $68,531
NEW JERSEY $67,078
MARYLAND $63,634
ALASKA $62,425
RHODE ISLAND $62,186*
PENNSYLVANIA $61,934
MICHIGAN $61,560
DELAWARE $58,800*
ILLINOIS $57,636
OREGON $57,348
WYOMING $57,222
OHIO $56,715
MINNESOTA $54,959*
NEVADA $54,559*
NEW HAMPSHIRE $54,177*
HAWAII $54,070
WISCONSIN $53,792
GEORGIA $52,938
WASHINGTON $52,232
VERMONT $51,306*
INDIANA $50,516
IOWA $50,240
LOUISIANA $50,179*
KENTUCKY $49,730
COLORADO $49,049
VIRGINIA $48,703*
ARIZONA $48,691*
IDAHO $48,551*
MONTANA $48,546*
TEXAS $48,373
UTAH $48,159*
NEBRASKA $48,154
ALABAMA $48,003
SOUTH CAROLINA $47,428
MAINE $47,338
TENNESSEE $47,082
KANSAS $46,718
FLORIDA $46,479
MISSOURI $46,406*
ARKANSAS $46,314
NORTH DAKOTA $46,058
NORTH CAROLINA $45,947
NEW MEXICO $45,622
WEST VIRGINIA $45,320*
OKLAHOMA $44,391
MISSISSIPPI $41,646*
SOUTH DAKOTA $38,804

United States $55,418*
Source: National Education Association (NEA) Research, Rankings and Estimates 2010, 2011 and 2012 (tables C–9 and C–11)

* NEA estimate

ADA = Average Daily Attendance

Blueash...tenure has nothing to do with what is taught and what isn't taught. I don't see anyone bashing teachers. All dedicated teachers want to teach with other dedicated teachers.

There's a big difference between average starting salary and average salary.

Do you think it's 25%?

College students going into teaching are obviously not doing it for the money. They have a calling and a passion to teach. That being said, if you want to attract the best, brightest and most motivated individuals into teaching you have to pay more. Many college students are attracted by the higher salaries of other professions and don't want to live the frugal lifestyle required of a teacher. As a retired teacher, I can tell you of the extra duties and part time jobs I worked so I could provide for my family. It was not easy, but my real reward comes from my former students who tell me that I have impacted their lives in a positive way.

Not to be argumentative, but how does this differ from any other profession?

I have yet to read anyone on the medical board asking for a recommendation of an AVERAGE cardiologist, oncologist, or dentist? :D

Personally, I think the averages quoted sound pretty decent. A teacher making $55,000 and up is good money for a two income household - and most are two income households, I believe.

There are many misconceptions about what it means to be a teacher, what we do for a living, how much we make, and the purpose of tenure. If I had to do it over again, however, would I return to accounting, where I made more money? Nope. Now, let's talk about really, really rough jobs...like garbage picker-uppers. I also would not want to be a dentist...suicide rate is very high.