Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Tenure for Teachers



Should (k-12) teachers receive tenure?  I suppose a better question to ask is what aspect makes the teaching profession so sacred that state governments should erect these guarantees? 
 
According to some, in the absence of tenure morale would suffer.  Two thoughts here: First, nearly all private sector employees work without such protections, and they seem fine.  Second, without the incentive to perform well, a school could become a catch basin for slackers and in turn foster a negative work environment.

Another question is how would tenure hamper free choice in education?  Suppose that tomorrow parents are given free school choice.  I can take my tax dollars and my kid and shop for the best school in town.  Schools must now compete for my tax dollars.  Well performing schools win and poorly performing ones lose.  However, if principals can’t effectively manage their labor force, that is fire bad performing teachers and replace them with better ones, turning a bad school into a better one could prove challenging.
 
Our education system is broken, and tenure is just one aspect that needs reforming.

2 comments:

  1. On a bit of tear are you? That's great. I haven't had time to a damn thing since August, much less blog.

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  2. Yeah - I felt a little guilty for neglecting our blog. I have several Korean topics I want to cover, but I want to throw in some pictures and I haven't taken the time to snap any.

    For whatever reason, I feel like I have less time to blog here than when I lived in San Antonio. I imagine this winter will offer more time.

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