Lesson plans, meetings, late night grading papers, test prep, and other things are all involved in teaching and make it a difficult field, but why would people decide to work in a difficult field? For teachers and some staff in school districts a benefit that draws them to the job is tenure. Tenure is a policy that teachers gain after a probationary period that protects from being dismissed for reasons such as conflicts with other staff or school board, personal beliefs, race, gender, and personal activities while giving teachers academic freedo. It is considered a ‘permanent’ job but there are ways that people are dismissed such as inappropriate behavior with students or selling of products to the students. When I was in third grade I encountered a teacher that had tenure but was very inadequate. He would forget to take us to lunch and our social studies scores went down because he was too busy having inappropriate encounters in online chatrooms while he was supposed to be teaching social studies and making sure we went to lunch. This teacher was never fired because he gained tenure. Tenure needs to be reformed to not be based on the time served but the progress teachers create in probationary periods and in later years, although if an educator is accused of being inadequate they should have to go through programs to keep their job or go back into a probationary period. Tenure was established in schools around the late 1960s but there had been discussion of a policy that would protect teachers from being dismissed for political agendas, personal activities, race, or gender. In an article called “Do You Have Tenure, And Do You Really Want It?” by Debra V. Baucom, Patricia L. Marshall, and Allison L. Webb, the authors discuss the background of tenure as well as if tenure harms or benefits the teaching profession. Although tenure has been discussed since 1884 it was not until 1915 that the National Education Association (NEA) began to expand and explore policies that would protect teachers from being dismissed by adverse decisions of school boards and would become “an integral part of classroom teachers’ employment agreement” (Baucom, Marshall, and Webb 1). The basics of tenure is a teacher being put up for rehire for a certain number of years after that allotted time the teacher has gained tenure. After the passing in 1960, each state could change the laws to fit what they saw best for their systems. For example, North Carolina, Arkansas, Ohio, California, and New York have three year probationary periods as opposed to Virginia and Illinois’ two-year requirement. Another change is in Tennessee that a superintendent can apply for tenure if the school board is notified (Baucom, Marshall, and Webb 2). Tenure became a vital part of teaching and a very attractive benefit of the profession but it has been abused. The continuing of tenure policies have been under fire for the past few years due to claims that teachers are becoming inadequate and not caring since people think they have a job for life. This can be seen in the ongoing political battle in Missouri on if tenure should be kept. In the article “We Have to Do Better: Attacking Teacher Tenure Is Not the Way to Solve Education Inequity” by Ellen Henrion, the author argues that removing tenure is not the optimal choice but rather to reform it or increase funds to high poverty/minority schools as an incentive for teachers to stay. In Missouri, recent attempts
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Many school districts are underfunded and that creates stress on teachers which harms their performance in the classroom. In an article called, “The problem with the ‘problem with tenure’ for teachers” by Valerie Strauss, the author refutes the article “The Trouble With Tenure” by Frank Bruni by explaining that the way to help teachers succeed is to help reduce classroom stress. In the article, Strauss refers to a blog post by David B. Cohen, he is National Board Certified and is the associate director of the Accomplished California Teachers group. Cohen argues that current talks about tenure fails to address other reforms that need to happen in school systems to reduce the strain on teacher and instead only blames them for the faulty system (Strauss). Cohen strongly
Many school districts are underfunded and that creates stress on teachers which harms their performance in the classroom. In an article called, “The problem with the ‘problem with tenure’ for teachers” by Valerie Strauss, the author refutes the article “The Trouble With Tenure” by Frank Bruni by explaining that the way to help teachers succeed is to help reduce classroom stress. In the article, Strauss refers to a blog post by David B. Cohen, he is National Board Certified and is the associate director of the Accomplished California Teachers group. Cohen argues that current talks about tenure fails to address other reforms that need to happen in school systems to reduce the strain on teacher and instead only blames them for the faulty system (Strauss). Cohen strongly