Teacher%20Tenure[1] - Teacher Tenure David Ditzler Michael...

Teacher Tenure
David Ditzler, Michael Flanagan, Josh Jaeger, Steve Kircher, and David Wineburner
AD LDSP 732 - The Politics of Education
May 8, 2011

Policy Brief – Teacher Tenure ABSTRACT
Important factors to leading to great schools are a rigorous curriculum and highly
qualified teachers. School administrators can do much to affect the curriculum, but based on
current contractual conditions in most schools, ensuring that effective teachers are in every
classroom is rather difficult. The practice of teacher tenure has hindered school leaders’ abilities
to move teachers out of classrooms when needed, and because of this, students miss out on
effective instruction. School administrators can, and do, run schools well, and with the absence
of a tenure system, can run schools even better. This brief advocates for school districts to
abolish the collectively bargained agreement that gives teachers tenure protections and
implement a highly structured merit pay system that measures teacher success and rewards them
accordingly.
ISSUE
According to Kingdon (2008), “Demonstrating that there is indeed a problem to which
one’s solution can be attached is a very real preoccupation of participants in the policy process”
(p. 93). Teacher tenure is a form of job security for teachers who complete a probationary
period, which is typically three years. Opponents of the tenure system claim that it makes
dismissal of ineffective teachers much too difficult; however, proponents counter that tenure is
essential to protect teachers from arbitrary dismissal and tenured teachers are entitled to due
process. Clearly, due process was the linchpin of the original purpose of tenure, prompting
unionized units to fight to prevent arbitrary dismissal. This fight is unnecessary though because
a person’s employment as a public employee is recognized as a property right under the Fifth
Amendment of the US Constitution. However, the dismissal of tenured teachers seems to be
extremely rare, in fact, only an extremely low amount of teachers are dismissed. On average the
percentage of tenured teachers who lose their job is between 0.1 % and 1% (Center for American
Progress, 2008). In fact, “very few research studies exist that combine issues of recruitment and
retention with the issue of teacher quality. The primary reasons for the scarcity of this research
are that (a) it is difficult to establish an agreed-upon definition of teacher quality, and (b) few

sources of data exist that permit researchers to identify effective teachers and examine the factors
that promote their recruitment and retention” (Guarino, Santibanez, & Daley, 2006, p. 176).
With the growing movement to hold educators responsible for student achievement, policy
makers at the national state and local levels are focusing their attention to issues on
nontraditional educational reforms. Political opposition has historically prevented tenure reform
efforts from advancing, but opposition has decreased in recent years.