Why Teacher Tenure Is NOT The Problem In Education

From Dale Hansen:

By concluding that the due process protections afforded to educators under tenure denied students "equal opportunity to achieve a quality education," Judge Treu seems to ignore that correlation does not prove causation.

If tenure unfairly protects teachers, there should be a considerably higher number of teachers fired per year at schools where tenure is not available. The data, however, show that is not the case. Believing tenure is to blame for low termination rates and proving that tenure keeps bad teachers in the classroom are two very different things.

Additionally if Judge Treu believes that tenure results in the retention of bad teachers which leads to an unequal opportunity for students to achieve then he must believe that the counterfactual is true. This means Judge Treu feels that hiring new teachers will lead to equal opportunity for all students because if it doesn't then the correlation between tenure and student achievement is anecdotal.

Unfortunately, data show that new hires are less effective than their more experienced counterparts. Given that 46 percent of teachers leave the profession in the first five years, it should come as no surprise that those individuals that administrators have observed, mentored and granted tenure are more skilled than those fresh out of college.

If teacher tenure was the problem in public education, then states and districts without tenure protections should be at the top of list for test score performance, graduation rates, college attainment rates, etc.

But they're not - the states and districts that are at the top of the performance list are the ones with the highest numbers of unionized teachers who enjoy work protections like tenure.

Corporate reformers don't really care about improving education for children - the attacks on tenure and teacher work protections are all about giving states and districts the tools to slimline their work forces and cut labor costs.

That's it - that's what the fight is about.