Deborah Meier, founder of Central Park East in New York City and the Mission Hill school in Boston, explains the rationale for tenure and seniority from her perspective as a principal:
“Tenure and seniority are often attacked by people of good will. As a former principal of several schools, I embrace it. The culture of Central Park East and Mission Hill depended on both, even if there were occasions when I wished otherwise. I’m not alone, as a principal, in this view.
The kind of noncompetitive shared “ownership” over the school that the staff and faculty displayed over and over and over again rested in large measure on their not having to balance their personal self-interest and their devotion to the school. There is nothing evil in our desire to have a steady paycheck, to feel secure even if you irritate those in charge, and to want to be able to plan one’s life ahead. These are healthy qualities that human beings should not be ashamed of. As FDR once noted, “freedom from fear” is one of the basics that democracy rests on—–fear makes for bad practice of teaching and democracy.
My capacity to provide leadership where needed, and build a strong staff rested on the fact that there were some rules of the game we couldn’t change, and were not available to our temporary biases. I could be strong and as persuasive as I could be without fear of intimidating others to follow my lead, or silence even young and inexperienced staff from venturing forth with their opinions—as long as I did not have the power to wreak havoc on their lives—and cut off the lively ideas that might otherwise inconvenience me. Experience close to home reminds me that even tenured teachers can lose their jobs if they annoy the principal too much in settings where staff cohesion is weak. Only such “irritation” is sufficient to get many principals to take the trouble to “get rid” of a staff member—-and cause can always be dug up when the desire is strong enough.
Finally, it’s hard to believe that some wouldn’t be influenced by having to pay senior teachers so much more than first year teachers, thus creating a tendency to punish experienced teachers who have to constantly outperform newer and younger colleagues. If we want people to stay we need to offer them a good shot at making decent pay as they get older. Given that most newbies leave within the first 5 years—perhaps inevitable—it makes sense to pay them less as they learn the craft, and while they have fewer adult responsibilities. But once again, as with tenure, if decisions about pay are made by one’s principal there is a never-ending tendency to “please the boss”. When someone should not be teaching there should be peer reviews, with the principal being a part of the process, for weeding out those who, at the present time, do not seem ready to be teachers.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Tenure offers a certain level of security to both teachers and school districts. Tenured teachers return each year so districts can plan staffing and long range district goals. In my experience with tenure, teachers become fiercely loyal to their students and school. In my district tenured teachers volunteered for fund raising for the PTA, after school and even week-end meetings without additional compensation. As far as removal of incompetent staff, our district had a policy of “intensive monitoring.” During this process a teacher was observed frequently and met with the principal and union representative to discuss the outcome. In my long career I have seen about three or four people terminated as a result. The myth of the “Bad Teacher” is over stated. “Reform” acts like senior teachers phone in their work. My experience is that senior staff were some of the most dedicated, and among the first to arrive and last to leave. Without young children at home, senior teachers carried the bulk of the curriculum and committee work after school often without additional compensation. They did it because the district was their school community. They wanted the best for the students of the community because they were part of it.
Absolutely!
Thank you Retired Teacher for stating the facts.
With all due respect to Deborah Meier, I have yet to see any “good will” or good faith demonstrated by so-called reformers who oppose tenure and seniority.
Instead, I see nothing but lies, duplicity and manipulation.
It seems she was being as kind as possible to those who wish to discard tenure.
This.
I assumed she was not referring to reformers interested in $$$$. I assumed she was referring to the portion of the general public who believe the hype and simply don’t understand what tenure actually is. For the last few years, I have spent a lot of time explaining the reasons for tenure to well-meaning, but uneducated, friends who believe that tenure means a job for life because they believe the reformers’ false narrative. They think that this kind of security causes teachers to be lazy and that administrators have no way of getting rid of lazy or incompetent teachers. I now point out to them what has been happening in Boston over the past few years. Some veteran teachers who were previously rated “proficient,” and sometimes exemplary, are now being “evaluated out.” It is personally devastating for those teachers, their co-workers, the children and the schools. Teachers a year or two from retirement are being fired to save money. It’s bogus. The rumor is that principals were instructed to do this, and some are and some have ignored the directive. It’s just a crap shoot for veteran teachers.
Yes, Annat…most people do not understand the difference of tenure (“for life”) and due process for all teachers.
I sat down and write out all the reasons I support teacher tenure when the Vergara case in California against teacher tenure came out.
And here, at last, is my list of:
Reasons that I support teacher tenure:
(gathered from my own and close colleagues’ personal professional experiences)
I can advocate for students when I stand up and talk to my administration and make a complaint when they are not giving recent newcomer refugee students access to qualified teachers and curriculum. I can take this complaint to others and make my administration change course.
I can advocate for students when I write a letter to the PTO and complain about an administrator not managing students well at a dance, and thus allowing sexual harassment to occur.
I can advocate for students when I complain that it is 15 degrees hotter in my room than it is outside and that learning isn’t happening and the students need a fan.
I can advocate for students when I demand that a qualified substitute teacher get paid a full professional salary during an extended leave of absence because that substitute teacher is creating lesson plans, grading and communicating with parents and doing due diligence in her role as mandated reporter and noticing when a student is self-harming.
I can advocate for students when I consistently ask for lower class sizes so that I can give more individual attention to students and give their papers more attention.
I can advocate for students when I can take time off when I am sick and go to a doctor so that I make myself well again in order to teach.
I can advocate for students when I demand that a student be suspended from my class for a day because her behavior has disrupted other students’ learning.
I can advocate for students when students must earn the grades that they receive and I am not persuaded by political pressures to inflate the grade.
I can advocate for students when I push for authentic assessments that other teachers and I create, can use easily, have time to grade, and are not multiple choice.
I can advocate for students when I complain to my students’ parents and my principal that we do not have a librarian and that the district should pay for a full time qualified librarian.
I can advocate for students when I gather teachers’ signatures in a letter to the district requesting more transparency about the handling of discipline issues.
I can advocate for students when I ask for compensation for the extra work that teachers as club advisors, writing letters of recommendation, and otherwise supporting our students and our communities outside of class.
I can advocate for students when I sometimes simply have to say no to one more responsibility so that I don’t burn out and stop teaching.
I can advocate for students when I receive a professional salary commensurate with my Masters in Education degree, a professional salary that honors my years of experience in the classroom, and a salary that recognizes the efforts that I have made to better my practice through Professional Development workshops and participating as a leader in my school, district and professional community.
Teacher tenure has granted me and many other teachers like me to advocate continuously for students by giving us protection when we question, complain, and respond to actions and policies that affect students’ rights.
Teacher tenure has granted us the right to advocate continuously for students by giving us protection when we ask for better working conditions and compensation to do our jobs better for the benefit of our students.
maestra malinche: ya ha dado en el blanco!/you’ve hit the bullseye!
One of the main reasons that corporate education reform targets teachers is to remove even the possibility that they can advocate for their students.
Thank you for your comments.
😎
Well SAID.
Excellent, maestra. I have put this on my bulletin board as a reminder to keep fighting the Vergara deformers such as Eli Broad, David Welch, Campbell Brown, the Waltons…and all those who are so absorbed by greed that they cannot see the real issues.
Watch out for Great Public Schools Now, Broad’s new 501c3 onslaught to take over 50% of LAUSD. This week Lynton/Campbell Brown’s LA School Report lauded them for already giving over $4 million in grants to three groups, with the largest donation to TFA.
In other words, tenure gives courage to tell the truth, to speak up for the kids and colleagues.
Even tenure does not always work. You can do work better than anyone in your state, as administrator have people all over your own and an adjoining state come to see your teachers in action etc etc etc
but
if the school board gets ignorant, self righteous people ad nauseum the you are in trouble.
Without even tenure you are at the mercy of these ignorant self righteous opinionated people.
Or the principal gets ignorant and self righteous.
Deborah Meier is a national treasure. Her well reasoned piece speaks of a culture of cooperation that the Ayn-Rand-competition-acolytes in neoliberal corporate education reform camp are incapable of grasping.
While I agree with Michael Fiorillo supra regarding the intentions and actions of the reformers, I do realize that some of us (clearly not me) need to write for an audience that isn’t quite ready to call monsters what they really are.
Tenure is the only thing standing between young minds and the false consciousness promulgated by the self-serving ownership class. Tenure allows educators the ability to tell the truth, and this ability to speak truth to power is the “thing is chiefly what [reformers] hate”. As I wrote in a 2015 essay for truth-out.org:
“Our rulers don’t just want exclusive control over the governance and finances of our schools, they want to control both what is taught and by whom.”
When I use the term “adminimal” it does not include Deborah Meier!
“. . . fear makes for bad practice of teaching and democracy.”
And right now public education is dominated by fear or its flip side dominated by coercion, power abuse, bullying and threats to name a few. The culture of fear by definition is a top down phenomena which filters (trickles or perhaps better said cascades) down onto the students who ultimately bear the brunt of fear dominated policies and malpractices.
“Terrorism”
The fear is what’s desired
The goal is simply terror
Of being VAMmed and fired
For policy in error
should be quotes around “error”
Deborah Meier is the kind of person every teacher wishes they could have as a leader. After an early stint in a private school, I learned to teach in a district that prided itself on its progressive history. Perhaps foolishly, I believed the hype because I believed in the philosophy. Unfortunately, the district did not live up to its reputation and now is little better than most top down districts especially now that the state has destroyed tenure. I never did quite understand how ugly school culture could be until I had worked for a couple of districts, one of which was known for its adversarial relationship with its teachers and the other that was marred by corruption and cronyism. It wasn’t until I gave up trying to find a teaching job that I finally realized how little respect teachers receive. I got a glimpse of the progressive world Deborah Meier’s championed; naively, I believed others truly championed it as well.
One of the main reasons for tenure was to protect academic freedom. In case of teachers, this means to teach students the “truth”, independently from any third party interest and influence.
Loss of tenure means the teacher will be much less willing to teach anything different from the textbook and from the standards for fear of losing her job; she’ll become more machine like, and hence will become more replaceable by other teachers and even machines.
This is a disaster since teachers constantly have to experiment. No two classes are equal, and the teaching has to adjust to the given set of kids. There is no universal recipe to follow, the teacher has to be willing and able to experiment, and the tools she’ll choose depend a great deal on the kids’ and her own personality.
Daring to put individuality into teaching is essential for good education. For the student, the personality of the teacher is as important as the material she teaches.
Nothing is worse than a boring teacher, but that’s exactly what the elimination of the tenure system produces: stressed out, boring teachers who barely dare to do more than recite the text book.
It’s another, but related matter, that the third party that influences teaching more and more are our own federal and state governments. Unlike at universities, private interests don’t force themselves directly between teachers and kids in K-12 schools. Instead, private corporations influence governments and the governments establish rules about teacher evaluations, elimination of tenure, standards, technology.
For example, in Tennessee, despite the recent Common Core testing failures, the TNDOE still insisted on administering the exams because of fear of losing federal support if they didn’t do so. Hence they wasted tens of millions of dollars, and thousands of hours of learning and teaching time just to please the ultimate third party—the federal government.
Since the decision making of the federal government about Common Core exams has been largely influenced by Gates, we can understand why Gates is against the tenure system: it’s a very important tool of resistance against his program of transforming public education to machine learning.
There is value in continuity and familiarity. There is value in experience.
Cross posted at Oped News http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Deborah-Meier-The-Value-o-in-Life_Arts-Academic-Tenure_Democracy_Diane-Ravitch_Public-Education-160627-974.html
with this comment:
Tenure was never a tool to keep underperforming teachers on the payroll. it was a way to ensure educated, experienced, talented professionals WHO KNOW WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE, AND HOW TO MAKE IT HAPPEN, stay in a career where salaries are low, and rewards a re few.
Let’s be clear, one does not choose to go to a newly licensed professional lawyer or doctor, over an experienced practitioner — but the media has convinced our citizens that ‘teaching (i.e. educating) is NOT a professional discipline, and teachers can be trained, like salesmen and thrown into classrooms. Most are gone in 3 years, and the rest in five. TFA has failed, for this reason.
This rant over a decade- ended the professional practice and the careers of teachers who, like doctors, learn what works best for each individual brain.. Learning is complex and showing children how to do it requires, skill, dedication and experience.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Learning-not-Teacher-evalu-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-111001-956.html
The narrative in this nation, the rant of the privatizers who OWN the media, and who want the schools to fall demonized the profession of pedagogy. All those ‘bad’ teachers’ had to go, and then, when hundreds of thousands were thrown out the school doors, they were replaced by an ever changing stream of barely trained novices.
Who will want to teach? Well, no one who wants to time, energy and money to educate oneself, in order to be thrown away, discarded at will.
TENURE is not a reward, it is a guarantee that an experienced practitioner can continue!