[...] Is Tenure Right in 2009? Ok, so it’s 2010 now, but the question remains. Do you think tenure is an outdated practice? My Life ROI [...]

Let’s start with the fact that nearly 70% of college classes in the US are taught by instructors without tenure. That is made up of adjunct faculty (part-timers) and those on “extended-term contracts,” basically full-time where tenure was ruled out as a possibility when the job was first offered. The reason for this is simple: tenured faculty are a huge financial commitment, sometimes lasting 30 years or more. (At my college more than 90% of the operating costs are personnel related — and we have a pretty impressive infrastructure and beautiful campus.)

Depending on the state, a majority of teachers in a system can be tenured and almost all are “tenure track.” Again, this is a huge financial commitment, as many states and towns have found out with their current budgets. According to many of the state budgets that have been made public, in many districts teachers end up contributing less than half of the cost of their retirement benefits. And unlike a 401(k) or my 403(b), if the stock market goes down, benefits don’t. Instead the school district makes up the difference, increasing their budget.

At the college level you generally need seven years of experience before you can apply for tenure. If you do not get tenure, expect a one-year terminal contract. My tenure review required me to submit a primary “case for tenure” document of about 80 pages with two file boxes of supporting materials. It was reviewed at nine different levels, including three “outside readers” – people in my field who I didn’t know personally who attested that my work was “exceptional.” (BTW, I am now forbidden to judge any of their (or their students’) promotions.) My point is that it’s treated very seriously be everyone involved.

Please correct me if I am mistaken, but many K-12 schools in my area base tenure primarily on two to four years without major mistakes or problems. In other words, I do not believe they have to show an unusual body of work or innovation in teaching. (I’m not judging, just stating my perception.) So would the smart move be to keep you head down and hope there are no budget cuts?

Now, even with tenure K-12 teachers get an enormous amount of pressure. Administration, state tests linked to funding, and unions all push and pull. My question is, how much freedom do teachers today really have? Does tenure really protect innovators? Are teachers doing controversial research? HLR mentioned political and religious beliefs — are other protections now in place concerning those things?

These days I think it mostly protects teachers from sinusoidal budgets and irate parents. Firing staff is a quick and effective way to cut a budget quickly and the ramifications are not always obvious. This makes it an attractive option for elected officials looking for a quick fix.
The problem Jeremy points out exists in engineering too: young engineers are cheaper than experienced engineers. But at some point companies are willing to pay for that experience because it saves them money in the long run. Teachers have to find a convincing way to sell that but it means individual accountability rather than treating everyone with N years of experience the same. As Mike points out, that’s a tricky proposition to get right.

My take: In principal I don’t think we need tenure at the K-12 level. (BTW, I also think it should be curtailed at my level as well.) However, since tenure has already created an artificial system, simply abolishing it with no transition plan would be a disaster and the older teachers would be preferentially fired when the budget ax falls. But it’s not a choice between tenure-for-life and free-for-all. A system of extended contracts and jobs protections with renewals linked to review could assuage the fears without committing schools to paying extra for bad teachers mixed in with the good. Not that any politician would touch this with a ten-foot pole. : )

The popular mantra is that if there were no tenure teachers would be treated like, what? Sweatshop factory workers?
I don’t understand it.
The rest of the working world doesn’t have tenure, has decent jobs and isn’t treated so abysmally
There is a huge difference between being a completely ‘at will’ employee and having a reasonable employment contract that spells out what constitutes cause for firing rather than the ‘once you’re in you’re in for life’ situation under tenure. Yes, I know that you can be fired ‘for cause’ under tenure as well but it rarely relates to job performance, rather some scandal or other. The bad performers get swept under the rug by the administration – who often only acts where there has been some legally actionable offense that parents are planning to take to court.
Mind you I love teachers for the most part. My best friend is a teacher. I have adored many of my children’s teachers [they're in elementary and middle school] and liked ALL of them.
Teaching is an important job. It has a great load of benefits in time off. But tenure shouldn’t be one of them.

Off my soapbox – it’s a subject that really tickles my annoyance bone

Another issue is that on teacher pay. A logical argument would be, “If we removed tenure, but just payed them a lot more, that would make up for the lack of security, right?” Perhaps it would, however, I live in NJ, and most of the school budgets here did not pass in last night’s election. They have had to lay off non-tenure teachers, and even some tenured ones, just to come in within budget. There are already enough people clamoring that teachers make too much for “6 hour days and 180 days a year” (which anyone who has taught knows is completely false), so raising teacher pay an appreciable amount for the loss of job security is not feasible.

I am going to be starting my first year of teaching this fall, and I am not looking forward to these discussions. To be fair, all I’ve ever wanted to do is to help kids understand science, and the fact that there is so much politics surrounding my profession is disheartening.

I really wish there were a good solution to this.

But, IMO, tenure and seniority are big reasons the public school system is completely messed up. Rewards/employment there must be based on merit.

Isn’t it just a bit ironic that the very teachers that hand out student grades based upon merit are themselves graded on a system that does nothing of the sort? Of course, there is a reason why that is so – but instead of coming out and directly saying it, I’ll leave that as an exercise for the student. ;-)

My $0.02 (after taxes)

Len
Len Penzo dot Com – “Common cents approaches to financial freedom.”
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[...] Is tenure right in 2009?, asks My Life ROI. Swing by and see what you think. [...]

Lots of you talked about tenure for University professors. My post was mainly about tenure in K-12 public schools, because I think there are differences bewtween the two. One difference is that its more commonplace in college classrooms to cover controversial topics becaus of level of maturity, as well as the fact that students are in college by their own choice.

Second, in universities tenure protects professors from publishing controversial research. This protection is essential because in some ways, that is the point of research! It should be knowledge that is at least new, and at best ground-breaking! Therefore, I completely agree that professors need the freedom to publish results without fear of termination.

And last, I completely agree with Money Energy’s comment about a lack of benefits and insultingly low pay for non-tenured professors.

So while the benefits of tenure are more valuable in a university setting than in a k-12 setting, the drawbacks are unfortunately the same. David’s story reminded me of my own version of that professor who would ramble on about his days in ‘Nam (I began to doubt that he had ever even been to Vietnam).

All in all I agree with a lot of the things mentioned, and I think that Jeremey brought up a very interesting point too.

It just always seemed odd to me that teaching and a handfull of other professions had tenure, while others did not. People in other professions often take risks the same way teachers do (think stockbrokers, journalists, etc) and face the same challenges with frustrating superiors, but never recieve a job-for-life.
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