When it comes to the controversial mess that is teacher tenure, this much seems evident:
*Teacher security, per se, is not a good enough reason for tenure, because it’s the flip side of the dead-wood argument. It practically takes a felony to can somebody. Ask Stephanie Ragusa and Debra Lafave. Being irrelevant, boring, lazy and ineffective are not fire-able offenses. That’s what transfers are for. Make it somebody else’s problem.
*This isn’t higher education, where the political pendulum can still potentially wreak havoc with academic freedom.
*We require teachers to be more than knowledgeable in their subject areas. We also expect them to be inspiring, caring and willing to work beyond 8-to-4 for less-than-market wages. If they’re also coaches or sponsors, their stipends are less than minimum wage. We want them to be beacons, even amid the miasma of societal dysfunction. So some sense of security is only fair.
Altering the rules makes sense. Relevant employment standards and real-world accountability. Bring it. The current system still protects the dregs.
But change can’t be dictated from Tallahassee. It’s also fair to give teachers meaningful input into the criteria — and provide support for those trying hard but struggling. What has been proposed by the Florida Legislature, featuring disproportionate weight being given to test results, is a counterproductive exercise in top-down, politically-driven, heavy-handed disrespect.
* While we all sign on to accountability in the abstract, let’s be mindful that everything in the workplace is not equally quantifiable. So let’s not evaluate teachers as if they were foremen to be judged by the widget output of their shift workers. Schools aren’t learning factories. Many are, in effect, one-stop social agencies for whoever and whatever comes coursing through their portals. This includes the learning disabled, the de facto homeless and criminal justice system wards in waiting.
* One other point. Perhaps the only quotable thing uttered by President Calvin Coolidge was that “Nobody has the right to strike against the public welfare.” President Ronald Reagan used this as the basis for firing striking air traffic controllers.
Now under Florida law, teachers are not allowed to strike. But we just saw a mini, strike-esque “sickout” by thousands of Miami-Dade public school teachers in protest of bills to abolish tenure. It turned a school day in the state’s largest school district into a substitute-infused travesty. This kind of overreaction hardly helps, especially when the opponents are posturing politicians. More to the point, it’s never appropriate to hold students hostage to adult politics and leverage games.
We expect it of our politicians, not our teachers. It’s not professional. It’s not right. It’s not smart.