A few weeks ago, I wrote about the firing of a charter school founder who had written an essay that offended some students and/or teachers at his charters, who accused him of “white supremacy.” At the time, I commented in response to my own post that Steven Wilson of Ascend should be more sympathetic to teacher “due process rights” (tenure) in light of what happened to him.
Checker Finn and Rick Hess wrote about this situation and blamed it on “woke” reformers. They concluded it was time to “stand up” against this sort of injustice.
Peter Greene writes that Finn and Hess made the case for teacher tenure. Steven Wilson and future Wilsons won’t be saved by expecting anyone to “stand up” for them. No one will.
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2019/11/finn-and-hess-accidentally-argue-for.html
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think you have the wrong link to Peter Greene. I get a post on personal data and big dumb computers.
http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2019/11/finn-and-hess-accidentally-argue-for.html
When I hit the home button on his site I got the Teacher tenure post also.
Here’s the link: http://curmudgucation.blogspot.com/2019/11/finn-and-hess-accidentally-argue-for.html
Finn and Hess make a pretty weak case for their assertion that schools everywhere are being taught to hate white people. Nonwithstanding their assertion that their points are supported by Obama, they fail to make the case that society is listing so far to the left that the ship of state is about to roll over and sink. This is contrasted with Greene’s case for tenure.
Greene makes a strong case for tenure based on accepting the ideas in the Finn and Hess article. I do not. I have seen no evidence that what they describe is going on in any college. Demonstrations against hatred are hardly revolution. Where are left wing extremists killing church-going conservatives? There are places where right-wing extremists, emotionally fueled by misinformation and unsupported claims, have shot up churches and walmarts. Nor have I seen real evidence that these schools they talk about are filled with the only children in the country who are learning.
Greene is right. Tenure, the granting of the natural right of fairness under the law, is a good idea. It should be the right of any person working for someone else to be able to do that work without suffering the indignity of having to believe certain ideas. Conscience is inviolate. Wilson is inherently accorded the right to his opinion, just as we all are. Along with this right comes the responsibility to treat others with kindness and deference. When your rights begin to impinge upon the rights of others, you have stepped over the line. So far the only agency we have invented that cures this problem is government. If agents of government attempt to rectify situations by asking to look at our biases and prejudices, and assert the necessity of examination of these human attributes, it does not mean tyranny.
I like your reasoning, Roy, especially the care you take with making sure that we understand that with rights come responsibilities. It seems especially important now that we respect the rights of people we may not always agree with (or never agree with). I so admire people who can remove themselves from a heated discussion and listen and respond without rancor or defensiveness to the issues that have led to the tension.
What Finn and Hess are really upset about is that students are being taught in school to hate ignorance, whichFinn and Hess epitomize.
Chester Finn is full of crap.
Tenure arrived in K–12 education as a trickle-down from higher ed. Will the demise of tenure follow a similar sequence? Let us earnestly pray for it—for tenure’s negatives today outweigh its positives—but let us not count on it.
https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/will-teacher-tenure-die
These people never ever address the very origin of tenure: protection of academic freedom. Tenure was introduced in the US because US higher ed was not doing well in the beginning of the 20th century: higher ed was at the mercy of businesses and business leaders. When US profs looked around in the world why countries like Germany are doing well in higher ed, especially in basic medical research, they learned that they need to protect academic freedom so that researchers do their work as science dictates and not what businessmen want to be done. Academic freedom also needs protection in the classroom, or students won’t hear the truth in the subject.
Today, those people who want to eliminate tenure in higher ed or K-12, they simply want to turn the wheels of time backwards by 100 years.
Checker and others on the right don’t believe that teachers in K-12 of higher education need tenure. They believe in the gig economy, where management decides. It’s just ironic to see one of their own felled for exercising academic freedom, then realizing it doesn’t exist in charter schools.
crucial understanding: they are NOT interested in academic freedom
They are primarily interested in their own salaries.
That’s why they write for wanker tanks.