Tenure

My apologies... this blog is not allowing me to split the post up into paragraphs for some reason!! School Principals do not have tenure because the governing bodies of our education system, and common sense individuals, deem our schools to be too important to be left in the hands of an individual who has no fear of losing their job due to poor performance. Why do we not view the individual classroom the same way??? Most people view issues from idealistic viewpoints and not from economic perspectives. Most think of economics as money and businesses. But in reality economics is about decisions that are made based upon cost/benefit analysis. I had a discussion with a lovely new friend of mine recently about tenure laws. We agreed nearly on every point. But how I come to my conclusions might have been slightly different from her ways of coming to an opinion. I view issues from an economics perspective. If you were to tell me that a teacher who has no fear of losing their job will work as hard as a teacher who does fear losing their job than you are telling me that teachers are the most holy individuals in society and quite frankly are the most holy individuals ever. Let me explain: If you told a drug company that they would stay in business and receive the same money whether they created new helpful drugs for our medical care or not do you think that drug company would be motivated to work as hard? Most would say NO. Its the desire for profit and competition of the free market that motivates these companies to create new things for us. These companies create medicines that improve, sustain, and most importantly save lives. But the drug company does not think of it from that perspective but from the perspective of "lets make a lot of money!" The motivation behind drug companies are profits and the need to survive in the marketplace. This is why America still creates the most new drugs. We still have a profit motive in our healthcare system. Why do we have a holier than thou view of teachers in that we believe they ALL will perform their job because they want to do great things and are motivated to help people. Its proof in cities that have "rubber rooms" to house teachers who are harmful to the education experience that this is not the case. Many teachers, protected by tenure laws have become so bad that administrations have placed them in these separate buildings performing paper work and have hired new teachers to replace them because that is cheaper than fighting the unions in court over firing a bad teacher. How pathetic! Would most teachers still work just as hard if they knew they would have a job whether they did a supered job or not? For some reason union leaders say yes. And yet there is ample proof that is not the case in many cities with the before mentioned problems. Want another example?: As a principal what teachers are hardest to find. If you said math and science go to the front of the room you are correct. Do you know why? Its because they are the hardest subjects to get a degree in. But wait... if teachers are all motivated to help students, would they not want to help them in two of the most important and under staffed fields? The answer is NO. Since pay is no more for those tougher fields, more teachers have chosen to pursue the easier subjects to earn a degree in. You see many things motivate teachers. I believe we have teachers that are great and would be great regardless. But there are many out there who are not like that. Tenure will only save a very few good teachers who might not get to keep their jobs because they have personality complications with the administration. And that sucks when good teachers are let go due to this. But the amount of good teachers let go due to that is far exceeded by the number of teachers who no longer work as hard when they are not motivated to survive as the private sector is. thus since the cons outweigh the pros... I choose to be against tenure and favor its replacement with another benefits for teachers: Merit pay being one. Pay your best teachers more. Pay the teachers of the harder subjects more so there will be no shortage of some teachers and a surplus of others. In the end these issues are not to be viewed from a teachers perspective but from the students perspective because that is what education is suppose to be about anyways. And I never hear those in favor of tenure talk about the ramifications upon students from those laws. And nor can I blame them. Unions are suppose to be about their clients. But the education of our children should never be viewed from the perspective of the union but of the students involved. P.S. Refer to some of my older education blogs about the overall education system