Should we do away with tenure for teachers and make it merit based?

No, absolutely not! There are too many variables involved to base a teacher's salary on merit pay!

OH Hell Yes!!! What a nightmare for the young minds to be filled with teachers ill willed and not equipped to deal with the problems they are facing today!!!! And THEY do NOT want too!!!

tenure is wrong wrong wrong......no one else in the work force seems to get this type of ''keep the crap employees policy''.....unless of course your in a legal mafia style union.....a person should get a review and if you do well ....you stay and maybe get a pay bump...if not you go.....

Also put them on compoarable private sector pay and benefits. No more government retirement accounts but 401k' like the rest of the country!

But parents need to do a better job too.

hell yeah....spot on

I'd say make it similar to how professors gain tenure. The father of one of my friends is an engineering professor at one of the top schools in the country and had to work there for 20 years before he could even apply for tenure. Most of the other professors who have applied already have been rejected. It keeps them motivated to do better in my opinion, it doesn't eliminate the possibility of tenure on the whole, but it doesn't hand it out like free cookies either.

And make all teachers currently employed retest and reapply for a position.

Hell yes!
My 6th grade teacher had tenure when she should have been fired, and would have been if she didn't have it.
A lot of students and parents hated her and there was always complaints about her. When my sis got to 6th my mom refused to let the school put her in that class.

Merit pay doesn't work. It has been tried too many times without benefit to the kids.

I say the current system hasn't benefited kids either. I can provide you with districts that out perform most states that do use merit pay.

Show me any empirical evidence that supports merit pay. I've been in the school administration business sine 1989. I have yet to see any empirical evidence. You may have an anecdotal reason but you cannot find hard evidence to support merit pay.

http://www.washingtonpost.com...
http://host.madison.com/wsj/n...
http://www.allbusiness.com/ed...

I can find all the reason I need to support merit pay. 50% drop out rates among the highest paid teachers in the nation here in CA. Our charter and private schools are wiping the floor with traditional, clock punchers.

A quote from your Washington Post article "Look inside award-winning schools and you find teachers, coaches, counselors and aides being paid the standard rate for their districts, with some extra money for those who work extra hours. No classroom stars make $135,000 a year."

I am not saying that merit pay is not a viable hypothesis, that should not be tested. I am saying we cannot make a blanket statement about merit pay being better.

There is no basis for it not being better competition makes everything better. The system we currently have is flawed on its face because like all union labor it rewards no one for being better than their counterparts. The private school my daughter attends has teachers making over 200K, why because they earn it. It also fires those whose students do not perform to set standards. Far unlike anything the current system of public daycare schools have.

The only ones who dont think so are the teachers.

Absolutely... If some of these teachers were in the private sector, they'd be fired already...

That is what it should have been all along!! Screw the unions!

LIke the rest of the world.

Hell Yeah.

Why not? Isn't that the basis in other occupations?

HELL YES!!! As soon as possible and take it all the way through academia. Make them quit resting on their laurels! And that includes their so called management.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. I'm sure everyone has had at least one teacher that would fall asleep in class, I know I did. It's time we made education just like the rest of the world, if you don't perform you don't keep your job.

What a Free Market concept!

Trash the tenure business -- it just creates communist drones.

Absolutely, just like every other job.

Tenure is the one of the biggest reasons people go in to teaching. In some jurisdictions, you can get tenure just by staying with the same school for 3-4 years. You could fail all your students and STILL be protected and STILL be paid $60,000+ a year. Hell no, this must go......

You shouldn't get rid of tenure, but the only way you get tenure should be by being an effective and productive teacher.

Give them a reason to stay on the ball.

Definitely,if they are qualified they will have a job if they are not they won`t just like working any place else except the UAW!!

WHAT IS TENURE?

Tenure is a form of job security for teachers who have successfully completed a probationary period. Its primary purpose is to protect competent teachers from arbitrary nonrenewal of contract for reasons unrelated to the educational process -- personal beliefs, personality conflicts with administrators or school board members, and the like.

WHAT PROTECTION DOES TENURE OFFER THE PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHER?

The type and amount of protection vary from state to state and -- depending on agreements with teachers' unions -- may even vary from school district to school district. In general, a tenured teacher is entitled to due process when he or she is threatened with dismissal or nonrenewal of contract for cause: that is, for failure to maintain some clearly defined standard that serves an educational purpose.

In such cases, due process usually requires that the school board hold a hearing at which the administration presents its arguments in favor of dismissing the teacher or not renewing the teacher's contract, and the teacher is allowed to present his or her side. As in a criminal court, the teacher is presumed innocent until proven guilty: the administration must prove that the teacher has failed to measure up to some clearly defined standard; the teacher need not prove that he or she has measured up to it.

http://www.ericdigests.org/pr...

Then do you personally allow for occasional reviews after tenure to determine continued competence? And failing this review, would you advocate and allow for removing tenure until competence is again proven?

Absolutely! Tenure does not excuse a teacher from being competent.

Maybe not in writing, but in practice.....

No true. Tenure only guarantees a formal process for addressing grievances and protects workers - in this case teachers - from potentially unscrupulous officials, political incorrectness, crazy parents, unsubstantiated accusation, etc..

http://www.ericdigests.org/pr...

Well I see you've presented your best (and only) non-argument and can't actually support your assertion beyond moronic cartoons. Well played... LOL!

I stated my case simply and succinctly... Since you refuse to acknowledge it, you get a photo comment. Live with your failure.

As I said, you cannot support your simple opinion, and I did - and still do - succinctly acknowledge your inability to do so...