Tenure: How Due Process Protects Teachers and Students

Autor/in	Kahlenberg, Richard D.
Titel	Tenure: How Due Process Protects Teachers and Students
Quelle	In: American Educator, 39 (2015) 2, S.4-11 (9 Seiten) PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0148-432X
Schlagwörter	Stellungnahme; Tenure; Teacher Rights; Court Litigation; State Legislation; Student Rights; Incentives; Federal Programs; Educational History; High Stakes Tests; Educational Change; Elementary Secondary Education; Scores; Teacher Evaluation; Teacher Dismissal; Ethics; Teacher Effectiveness; Low Income; Educational Innovation; Low Achievement; Educational Policy + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Amtszeit; Beschäftigungsdauer; Rechtsstreit; Landesrecht; Anreiz; History of education; Bildungsgeschichte; Bildungsreform; Teacher appraisal; Lehrerbeurteilung; Lehrerbeurlaubung; Ethik; Effectiveness of teaching; Instructional effectiveness; Lehrerleistung; Unterrichtserfolg; Niedriglohn; Instructional innovation; Bildungsinnovation; Unterdurchschnittliche Leistung; Politics of education; Bildungspolitik
Abstract	Teacher tenure rights, first established more than a century ago, are under unprecedented attack. Tenure--which was enacted to protect students' education and those who provide it--is under assault from coast to coast, in state legislatures, in state courtrooms, and in the media. In June 2014, in the case of "Vergara v. California," a state court judge struck down teacher tenure and seniority laws as a violation of the state's constitution. Meanwhile, with incentives from the federal Race to the Top program, 18 states have recently weakened tenure laws, and Florida and North Carolina sought to eliminate tenure entirely. Richard Kallenberg opens this article by providing an exact legal definition of tenure, and what it means to teachers who have earned tenure. He goes on to explain that historically, tenure laws were enacted to protect teachers from favoritism and nepotism, and to ensure that students received an education subject to neither political whims nor arbitrary administrative decisions. Kallenburg asserts that given current fixation on high stakes testing, and the linking of students' test scores to teacher evaluations, tenure protection is still necessary today. He argues that rather than doing away with tenure completely, teacher dismissal procedures could be mended to strike a better balance between providing fairness to good teachers and facilitating the removal of incompetent ones. Kallenburg also believes that there are innovative ways to connect low-income students with great teachers. Creative ideas are proposed to enable policymakers to connect high quality teachers with students in low performing schools. (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	American Federation of Teachers. 555 New Jersey Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20001. Tel: 202-879-4400; e-mail: amered@aft.org; Web site: http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01