David Baxter 1 David Baxter Professor Marisue Coy English 1302 Februray 25, 2012 Tenure Trouble Tenure,

coming from the Latin word tenre meaning to hold, is most commonly heard in reference to an educator that now has job security. Tenure was started in the sixties in universities to assure professors they would not be fired because of politics or personal reasons. Some teaches abuse their gift of tenure. Although a good thing, tenure still contains flaws. I believe ways upon which tenure can improve to allow the education system in America to grow exist. In the United States a teacher in a public school receives tenure automatically after 1-7 years. The teachers essentially must do nothing but show up to class to receive tenure. The cartoon The Simpsons once portrayed a teacher standing before her class. She was counting down the seconds on her watch. And three, two, one. All right, students! I have just been granted tenure, so Im going to sit back She does so and allows a student from the class come up and teach the class. Although exaggerated and outlandish, instances not too much different than this happen all across the country; teachers doing quite literally nothing to educate the youth of the nation. In the documentary Waiting for Superman director, David Guggenheim tells the story of the failing education system in the United States. The film contains a segment where they discuss the problem of tenure. A student at a failing school in

David Baxter 2 The Bronx placed a video camera in his backpack to record what goes on in the classroom. What the camera caught was disturbing; students shooting craps in the back of the room, a fight that broke out in the room, about which the teacher did nothing, and even the teacher forcing a students head in a soiled toilet. The boy showed the principal the tape and fired the teacher immediately. The school board forced the principal to rehire the teacher with a years back pay, but only because the teacher had tenure. This happens all across America all the time. A school needs to fire an unfit teacher, but cannot due to the teachers tenure. Some school systems, however, found a few ways of managing this problem. At the end of every school year in Milwaukee, principals in the schools sit down and pinpoint their worst teachers. Then, all the principals in the system meet up and swap teachers in what they call the Dance of the Lemons. They do this in hopes that the teachers sent to their school are somehow better than the teachers they sent away. Each state deals with this in a different way. In Michigan they call it passing the trash, and Pennsylvania calls it the Turkey Trot. In New York, however, they have something else (Guggenheim). The Rubber Room houses tenured teachers awaiting disciplinary hearings for actions ranging from truancy, sexual abuse, to flat out incompetence. A teacher can wait up to three years before their hearing. On average, these hearings last eight times longer than normal court cases. So they wait in the Rubber Room collecting their teachers salary for years on end, not contributing to the education of students. New York alone spent over $100 million of taxpayer money on these teachers a year. One educator tells us in the film that if we simply eliminated the

David Baxter 3 bottom ten percent of teachers in America, we would catch up with Finland in education, which currently ranks number one in the world when it comes to education. Superman also presents us with some pretty shocking statistics about job retention from other careers in relation to teaching. One in fifty-seven doctors lose their medical license, one in ninety-seven attorneys lose their law license, but only one in 2,500 have ever lost their teaching credit. This should speak very clearly about the slacking in education. Many people, including teachers, believe that by securing tenure nothing that can take their job from them. This notion stands untrue. The process to fire a tenured teacher proves itself quite difficult. An administrator must fill out a series of paperwork called the Professional Performance Evaluation Process (P PEP). If a teacher fails this evaluation the school may pursue action to fire the teacher. The process to fire a tenured teacher includes twenty-three steps. Countless conferences, weekly assistance, and X number of observation hours, must all take place within the first ninety days of school. One misstep and the process must start all over. This very tedious process deters many school systems from doing anything to terrible teachers. Action has already begun in some states. Contracts in eighteen states regarding tenure and job security have been modified. Idaho, the most noted of the eighteen states, entirely banned tenure for teachers. Missouri legislature attempted to eliminate tenure and pay teachers on a merit-based system. The hoped-for outcome of teachers performing better in the classroom in turn for better pay

David Baxter 4 quickly dissolved. Many states now recognize the need for tenure reform and are beginning to take actions to better the system. We must continue to support them in this effort if we wish to allow the youth of America to become better educated and, once again, become the worlds leading nation in education.

David Baxter 5 Works Cited Guggenheim, Davis, dir. Waiting for Superman. Paramount Vantage, 2010. Film. 2013. Holland, Elizabethe. "Teacher Tenure is under Increased Attack." St. Louis PostDatch (MO) 20 Jan. 2012: Newspaper Source. Web. 22 Feb. 2013. The Simpsons. Writ., Matt Groening. FOX. 2009. Television.