Teacher Tenure Under Fire, as States Try to Cut Deficits

http://abcnews.go.com/US/teacher-tenure-fire-states-cut-deficits/story?id=13003142

 It took a Los Angeles school district five years (which cost them $3.5 million dollars) to fire six teachers for poor performances.

 In Washington D.C., 75 teachers were let go for being incompetent in 2008. One teacher played DVDs in his class while another missed 20 days of work in two months. All were reinstated by an arbitrator.

The story is similar in New York City where hundreds of teachers considered too inept to teach are kept out of classrooms, but continue to collect full salaries and benefits.

"The administration there has decided that it's actually harmful to children to have them in classrooms and yet the public is still responsible for continuing to pay full salary and benefits for these people year in and year out," said Michelle Rhee, former Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools and Founder of StudentsFirst. "That's absolutely a waste of taxpayer dollars."

An even louder chorus of critics is attacking unionized public school teachers for their tenure and seniority rules, job protections that make it difficult to remove bad teachers.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is a vocal critic of the union rules.

"Really there are two places left in America where there's a profession where there's no reward for excellence and no consequence for failure. We all know the first one is weathermen -- unfortunately the second one is teaching," the governor said.

The head of the largest national teachers union responded to the on-going criticism by offering a major concession, a proposal to make it easier and faster to fire even tenured teachers who are not making the grade.

"Under the proposal, a teacher deemed 'unsatisfactory' would be required to submit to an improvement plan which could last anywhere from a month to a year," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. "If administators and peer experts thought the teacher had not improved, they would refer it to an arbitrator who would decide within 100 days to keep or dismiss the teacher."

Under the new proposal it would still take as long as 15 months to remove a teacher who's ultimatley determined unfit to be in a classroom.

I feel that tenure is important; yet, after hearing this news story on ABC news and after reading the article I wonder if it's even fair. If there are unfit teachers teaching children and they are protected by tenure; where's the fairness in that? For those who are great teachers and doing an exceptional job I think they deserve tenure; however, for those who are not doing a good job and more or less failing their students; they do not deserve tenure. 

It kind of upsets me to see that the 75 unfit teachers in Washington D.C. were reinstated even though they were seen as unfit - one teacher was playing DVD's in class while another missed 20 days of work in 2 months (although the reason was not given; but, I would assume it was not an 'excusable' absence).  There are people waiting to get into the teaching field who would be exceptional teachers and yet; they are waiting for jobs because there are some teachers who are still teaching because they are on tenure and they have seniority. Granted, many deserve the teaching jobs they have and are doing a wonderful job; but, there are the few that are in this article who are not doing a good job and are still teaching and should not be.