Teacher Tenuritis: The Weak Logic of Proposition 74
by Bob Stapler | View comments |
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If the principal purpose of tenure is the preservation of intellectual freedom and quality of education by guaranteeing inquiry into controversial subjects, then the application of tenure to the public school system has failed in every regard.
Ari Kaufman and Aaron Hanscom’s recent article "Teacher Tenure," (IC 02 November 2005), promoted passage of California’s Proposition 74. But last Tuesday, California voters rejected the proposal to extend the probationary period of California teachers from two to five years by a ten-percent margin (55 to 45). Once again, however, educational reformers (including the authors) have failed to look far enough into the root of the problem which Proposition 74 does little to rectify. The typical school teacher’s career spans a period of thirty to forty years, of which the first two to five have little impact on later performance as teachers burn out, become intellectually moribund, frustrated in their chosen calling, unchallenged by the nature of the work, or any other fault we choose to assign to them.Â
Contrary to Kaufman and Hanscom’s assessment, I find that older, tenured teachers teach essentially the same materials; and are as, or more, efficient in drumming course content into young minds than their untenured coworkers. I do not find many older teachers have lost either interest or conviction in what they teach. If younger teachers expend more energy and express greater enthusiasm in their teaching, it is because they haven’t yet perfected the methodologies to be efficient and are nervous of doing a poor job. The problem, as I stated in my earlier critique, is not the efficiency of teaching but its content. Teachers have succeeded in erecting a wall, with themselves and our children on one side and parents and the public on the other; within which they and the government dictate content. They hold our children hostage, while our government guarantees parental submission to a system that ensures mediocrity and prefers political correctness to intellectual ferment.
Part of the problem with the California proposition, and all such questions regarding how much tenure, is a basic misunderstanding of the nature and purpose of tenure. Tenure originated in the middle-ages as a means to attract academics of stature. In the late 19th century, university professors complained of a lack of intellectual freedom and frequent dismissals within a system of mostly private colleges; and secured promises of tenure in their contracts as a means of academic self-protection. They argued that intellectual freedom and, thereby, the quality of education suffered in the absence of tenure. By the early 20th century, tenure had become a common practice available to highly rated professors in order to maintain the prestige of a college and served the mutual interest of both professors and administrations. However, this did not mean tenure was regularly or automatically granted to every professor who remained a fixed time within his contract. Tenure had to be earned as recognition of superior contribution, and was bestowed by meeting a combination of contractual obligations and merit. By 1940, tenure had become even more common place and the original intent had so blurred that any professor surviving the fixed period achieved tenure (see Teacher Tenure. ERIC Digest, Number Nineteen, Jame Scott and The future of tenure - Status Report, Steven Olswang). The 1960’s saw the rise of tenure within our public school systems along with the rise of teacher-unions. In 1957 the Supreme Court (in Sweeney v. New Hampshire) gave academic tenure a legal basis, protecting tenure even from the sanctions which remained for ridding schools of failed teachers (see Short History of Tenure, Glenn Hurlock). However, it is the teacher-unions that have principally institutionalized teacher tenure in our public schools, a venue for which tenure makes little sense.
If the principal purpose of tenure is the preservation of intellectual freedom and quality of education by guaranteeing inquiry into controversial subjects, then tenure has failed in every regard. Universities not only teach, they also research into new information and ideas that expand the body of knowledge. Public schools do not, nor is it within their function to do so. Primary education is about teaching fundamentals on which later inquiry can proceed. Very few school children have sufficient brain organization to more than absorb information and ideas that will later aid them in analysis; and primary teachers are hired who are competent without regard to capabilities unsuited to this purpose. In fact, real scholarship and disputative methods are discouraged at this level. High-school is a middle ground between childhood curiosity and adult perception, yet even here intellectual precocity is not yet to the point where intellectual freedom is important to the quality of education. In this environment, tenure merely guarantees an insular environment that excludes parents, administrators, and the public; and without the benefit that accrues to universities in the business of refining the body of knowledge. The only function tenure serves here is protecting job status.
The universities have found limited means for correcting the demands of tenure and administrative control. In that setting, tenure still has the same construct as in the original, even if awarded too liberally. The guarantees of intellectual freedom in the university do not extend so far as to protect any sort of behavior; and resort to review boards still carries some weight. In public schools, the unions control all review, leaving administrators without any recourse and helpless to rid a school of a disruptive, negligent, or misbehaving teacher. Yet, even if administrators had such power, it would not address the problem of content; in which both teachers and administrators concur. Students get to choose which school of higher learning they go to; and a school that does not teach something useful, soon finds its classrooms empty. This is a good incentive driving universities to find alternatives to tenure, which they have done. The same cannot be said of the public schools our children are forced to attend.
Let’s consider what difference a two-year versus five-year probation will mean. If the average teacher serves 35 years of which 33 are tenured, then we can estimate some 95% of all teachers are tenured and impervious to criticism. Changing to a five-year probation will (in another 35 years) shift the tenured level to 85%. Please, tell me how this radically alters the basic insularity of the teaching profession? In the short-term, it makes no difference at all, other than to a handful of untenured teachers who will negligibly impact the quality of teaching while being taught to never rock the boat of teacher solidarity. To have real impact, would it not be better to do away with public schoolteacher tenure all together, thereby weakening the stranglehold teacher-unions have over our kids?
Tenure is under attack at many universities as an anachronism that no longer applies to modern publicly subsidized institutions under a plethora of conflicting controls. If it is no longer applicable to the university environment, how much less applicable is it to early education? If it is true that tenure preserves intellectual freedom, it also protects intellectual hubris and sloth. In the current paradigm, it is excessively insular and needs to be radically overhauled. Half measures will only serve to obscure the need and delay improvement.
Robert Stapler lives in Columbia, Maryland.
rstapler@aceweb.com
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