Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/04/29
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On 4/29/02 Ken Wilcox wrote: >Your are talking nonsense! Tenure laws do not protect incompetent >teachers! Tenured teacher can be and are removed easily under the >law. Tenure only protects them from dismissal without cause. The >process is simple. a teacher receives notice of a deficiency in the >performance of their duties. They are given specific step which must >be taken to correct the deficiency. If they fail to do so they can be >dismissed. > >There are administrators that complain that tenure protects bad >teachers. Not true! This is simply and excuse used by poor >administrators. Tenure was intended, and is usualy sucessful in >reducing the politics of hiring and firing. It allows teacher to do >the job of teaching without the necessity of grandstanding to keep >their jobs. Ken I really have to disagree with you on this one. I'd first suggest that tenure is outdated given the current state of employment law. To remove a tenured teacher takes years and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why? Because the school district pays not only their own lawyers but the teacher's as well! Certainly this is true in California and is probably true in other places. Teaching is one of the few professions where it is very very difficult to fire a person once tenure has been established -- often in as few as two years. Tendure DOES protect bad teachers because the labor required to remove them is more than most site administrators can afford. To suggest otherwise is a flat out misrepresentation of the facts. I wish this were not the case but it most certainly is. I've watched the process happen, or attempt to happen. The union gets involved of course which further polarizes the process. Tenure may have been great and needed when teachers will little ol' school marms but today's body of employment law covers teachers as well and prevents capricious administrators and boards of education from firing willy-nilly. It doesn't prevent teachers from claiming they were treated poorly while still given due process in an environment designed to protect their privacy. So give the indignant cries a bit of a rest. The reality is tenure gives the incompetent a free ride while protecting darn few, IF ANY, who otherwise aren't protected at all. Adam Bridge - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html