Political Science

Several states have put in place new policies in teacher tenure since 1990s. According to the falderals act of No Child Left Behind of 2001, all classrooms are to be staffed with teachers who are highly qualified. Political and scholarly attention has been focused on teacher recruitment, preparation, compensation, and distribution. The subject of teacher tenure has been ignored despite its potential significance in improving teacher quality (Goldberg, 2009).

The tenure for k-12 teachers cannot be achieved through collective bargaining, at the same time it is not present in the teacher union contracts. The tenure for teachers is in the state laws and it started way back before the teachers unions started collective bargaining rights. Tenure for teachers was put in place for academic freedom, but in k-12 education, it has revolved about patronage in which the administrators replace the teachers with their allies. Tenure for k-12 teachers do not assure them of lifetime employment.  Tenured teachers who have been evaluated for about three years cannot be fired without proper reasons. The principal is supposed to document teachers problems, inform himher about them, allow the teacher some time to correct the mistakes found, and check later to see any progress. The teachers cannot be fired at will by the administrators if all these steps are followed. For teachers who have been in the service for many years and have proved effective, then there is need for good management practice (Hancock, 2010).

Tenure ensures academic freedom. It allows teachers to engage themselves in controversial issues without the fear of losing their jobs. Professor Bertrand Russell was denied teaching positions because he produced some articles which were considered controversial. Tenure was therefore put in place to allow professors to carry out research without getting worried about the choice of the subject or the position will affect their jobs. The academic freedom which comes with tenure is not necessary for primary and secondary school teachers. This is because teachers do not carry out any research and publishing but are just involved in teaching duties. They do not have full freedom to write curriculum, but if they have, they are always advised to refrain from controversial subjects. Because of this, there appears to be no reasons for tenure for primary and secondary school teachers (Kantrowitz, 2010).

Reasons to abolish tenure
Tenure has received criticism at any level of education. Goldberg (2009) argues that tenure makes it difficult to fire ineffective teachers. A teacher or a professor with the tenure is free from market pressure to perform. The pressure of termination at times acts as a motivator to employees who are bound to lose their jobs should they fail to perform. There has been a case of incompetent teachers who fail to meet the target set but cannot be fired because they have the tenure of job. Recently, Stanley Fish wrote about a professor who was supposed to be teaching physics but boldly told his students that he could only teach what he felt like. Such teachers are most of the times political activists (Goldberg, 2009).

Kantrowitz (2010) argues that although tenure protects incompetent teachers from firing, majority feels that it is valuable at university and college levels since it will enable the scholars to carry out their research without the fear of losing their employment.  At primary and secondary level, it should be abolished since these teachers do not engage in research. Since the main duties of teachers are in the classroom, this is the only place they can be controversial. Being controversial in classroom is not allowed and most teachers have lost their jobs because of this. There is totally no reason for granting k-12 teachers tenure. If tenure is meant for academic freedom, then k-12 teachers do not have such concerns to deserve the tenure (Kantrowitz, 2010).

The beginning of tenure movement occurred at the same time with labor struggles of the late 19th century. Steel and auto workers were engaged in struggles to ensure that they are granted good working condition and better wages teachers too wanted protection from parents and administrators who would try to impose lesson plans and remove controversial materials from the teaching materials. Example of a material which was excluded from the reading list was Huck Finn. It is very uncommon for a teacher to be fired over a lesson plan or to control reading materials. It is the administration which is involved in the development of the curriculum and therefore the inclusion of Huck Finn as one of the materials is not the teachers concern. In addition, the lesson plans of teachers in public schools are dictated by the curriculum they teach in which they did not take part in writing. The decision to dictate the lesson plan in public schools is right and if it will be the reason for request of tenure, then it is not a valid reason (Kirby, 2004).

People in support of tenure in primary and secondary school teachers argue that it protects against managerial caprice in educational establishment. According to Kirby (2004), managerial caprice does not only exist in educational establishment and protection of teachers against it is not a valid reason to support tenure in k-12 teachers. The only valid argument should be that good teachers might be fired because they are not their seniors favorites, but this can also happen in any organization like bank, law firm or even a restaurant. It is not coming out clear why schools should need a unique protection against managerial caprice unless it was vulnerable to political decision making.

Termination of services because of unpopular opinions is only common in colleges and universities professors but not in primary and secondary teachers. Some people have argued that teachers work very hard and would require job security for life. According to Hancock (2010), good teachers would not require tenure to protect their jobs but their good work will surely do that. There are also workers in other professions who also work hard and if this is the reason for tenure, then it should be applied across the professions not only to teachers.

Reasons to support tenure system
As much as the benefits of tenure to k-12 teachers seem unnecessary, there are also reasons why it should be left in place. Unfortunately, politics raises its ugly head even in elementary schools. Teachers who fail to follow administrators steps or union representatives are most of the times exposed to unfair punishments. Abolishing the tenure system will strengthen the bully bureaucrats. Elimination of tenure from elementary and high school teachers will be far fetched and an extreme decision (Kantrowitz, 2010).

A teacher who tries to raise the standards in hisher classes can create several problems with his her boss. It will be much worse if the standard in that school was very low and this teacher puts more demand on the students who are not used to such kind of rigorous learning. Students and their parents can report such a teacher to the principal. Although this is likely to result in good grades for the students, the principal can decide to fire such a teacher because of the challenge heshe is likely to face from himher. Without the tenure, education standards cannot be raised in such schools (Kirby, 2004).

Principals cannot be experts in everything. They may only be specialized in mathematics, but owing to the fact that they are the school heads, they may interfere with another teachers subject in which they do not have any knowledge at all. He may not approve the approach another teacher is using to teach their students. Such kind of interference is likely to result in fallout between the teacher and the principal and also affect the performance in the subject interfered with. Such a teacher is likely to face blowback from his seniors and the parents (Goldberg, 2009).

Supporters of teacher tenure cite the increasing teacher shortage as a reason to retain teacher tenure. They argue that with the retention of tenure, more people will be attracted to the teaching profession. Fear of being fired for incompetence is likely to scare away young energetic and mid career switchers who can join the teaching profession. Better pay for teachers does not serve its purpose of retaining them with the full knowledge of job insecurity. Job security should be the main aim of education advocates but not high salaries which cannot be accounted for (Hancock, 2010).

Possible recommendations
There are a number of recommendations for federal and state governments that would be very useful in reforming state and district tenure laws. The federal government should continue to control education financial support to force states to form and set up efficient teacher evaluation systems founded on a precise description of teacher efficiency. The evaluation systems are important prerequisites for efficient tenure reform, but have been ignored in the past tenure reform proposals (Kirby, 2004).

There is also need for the US department of education to fund research and pilot demonstration programs that will provide practical proof of how efficient various types of teacher tenure policies can improve teacher quality and students performance. Practical evidence should be the foundation for the serious and exceptional discussion between policy makers and the general public about the costs and benefits of teacher tenure and situations under which it should be contracted or denied.

States should also change their tenure laws to clearly state that teacher retention and dismissal decisions should take into account teacher effectiveness information. On the other hand, states that prefer to use local control should relax rigid state tenure policies and grant the districts flexibility to try with new approaches to teacher evaluation and tenure. State level tenure reforms should not get overridden by local collective bargaining agreements (Goldberg, 2009).

Teachers unions should support efforts to restructure the termination process for inefficient teachers and only pursue those dismissals that obviously dishonored the legal dismissal process or were unproven by the teacher evaluation process (Kantrowitz, 2010).

Conclusion
Justification of tenure system for primary and secondary teachers is not wise. As compared to college professors, these teachers are supposed to refrain from controversial subjects in the classroom which can lead to their dismissal. These teachers are also not in control of the curriculum therefore they do not need academic freedom. Managerial caprice is not a strong point to justify teacher tenure since this can happen in any profession. Argument that teachers need tenure because they work hard is not valid since there are other professionals who work even harder but do not request for tenure.