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Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Tenure

Tenure provides instructors with academic freedom and the ability to focus on teaching instead of worrying about job security. It also makes it difficult to remove instructors who perform poorly. What is your stance on tenure?

28 comments:

  1. i dont think tenure is really good i believe tenure shouldnt be given to teachers for working in a school for a very long time i believe that tenure should only be given to teachers that have been working but been recognized for their hard work.

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  2. Tenure should only be given to teachers or professors who portrays hard work and improvement in the subject they teach to the subject department no matter how long or when they started teaching.

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  3. I used to agree with kong and Roberto. I believed that hard working teachers deserved tenure. I realized that these teachers learn how to work the system and get lazy as time goes by. At a point they were good, but they get confident that they won't get fired and don't do as well as they used to. Tenure shouldn't excist. If a teacher is a good teacher he/she shouldn't worry about getting fired because they are doing their job.

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  4. I agree with Julieta. Tenure shouldn't exist because a teacher shouldn't have their job secured if they don't do their job well. Like Julieta said they shouldn't worry about being fired if they are doing their job, but unfortunately people take advantage of this. When a teacher is secured with tenure they don't do their job as well any more because their confident they won't be fired.

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  5. I agree with Karina. Many teachers take advantage of tenure. They don't teach as well because they know they can't easily get fired. If given tenure they should keep teaching to thier fullest and not stop just beacuse of tenure.

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  6. I agree with everyone here. Only because I had a teacher that was clearly to old to teach and couldn't get fired because of tenure. It was very frustrating in that class because it would be very rowdy and she wouldn't do anything about it. Tenure shouldn't exist anymore because it gives the younger generation a chance to teach. Older teachers never want to give up their jobs which means no new jobs. If teachers are scared that they will lose their jobs then they shouldn't be teacher in the first place.

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  7. After reading several people's essays I believe tenure should be abolished. If a teacher is a good teacher they should not be worried about getting fired in the first place. From what I have read students are the main ones to be affected by tenure. After a teacher is granted tenure it is merely impossible for them to get fired. Therefore some teachers may be doing a bad job at teaching and feel no need to change because they cannot get fired. Ineffective teachers mean ineffectively educated students. These students then go out and look for professional jobs in which they may be required know something that an ineffective teacher might have not taught them. Tenure is does not only affect students but society as a whole.

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  8. I would have to agree with getting rid of tenure. As explained in Tenure 1 essay, teachers that have worked at a school for a long period of time should still be evaluated and observed for a long period of time to see if students are actually learning the curriculum in school that they are suppose to learn. Some teachers are overlooked and are not being evaluated carefully to see if students are getting the proper learning. From experience I know that teachers that have terrible teaching methods and many students fail there classes. Even though these students are failing, the teachers still have their job because they have worked at the school for over 10 to 20 years. Setting students up for failure because a teacher has worked at a school for a certain period of time is wrong. We students don’t deserve to have our education cut short just because a school doesn’t want to fire a teacher. The students are why the teachers have a job in the first place.

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  9. I believe that tenure should be abolished because with tenure we have several teachers who are not fit to teach anymore, yet they're still teaching because of tenure. Without tenure we would have teachers who will try the best when they teach because of the fear that they will get fired. Since tenure exists, teachers who have been there for a long time no longer have that fear of getting fired so they lose that motivation to teach well.

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  10. After reading each essay about tenure, I believe tenure should be re-evaluated. Higher education is not like high school where we can complain about teachers who do not teach well. Professors are well educated and I believe they are aware of their teaching. I believe abolishing tenure is not fit for students who want to learn from those who are knowledgeable of the subject. Most of these tenured Professors are older, yes some may say just because they are older does not mean they are wiser. I on the other hand do believe that they are wiser because they have gone through what we as students are going through and they have the passion for what they want to do, teach. Tenure is beneficial in many ways, yet most of these essays are for abolishing tenure. Many students want a Professor with enthusiasm, sarcasm and understanding of the subject. With tenured Professors I believe they are able to do so due to academic freedom. New/Younger Professors are enthusiastic, but they are still trying to find the right way to teach for them, and I believe this leads into miscommunication and misunderstanding of the Professor and the students. Higher education does call for more relative teaching as well, and having new/young Professors are wanted. I do not go against those are not enthusiastic or are new Professors, but if students are the ones to say a Professor should be fired, it must mean Professors are not delivering to their students perspective. This leads me to say that tenure should be re-evaluated to having Professors be scored through how well their students are doing in the course. Not only should we look at the Professors performance in teaching but the students’ performance in all his/her courses as well because slacking off may result in a lower scoring for teaching performance for Professors. I do understand this causes a load of hard work financially and physically, but if one is willingly going forth with firing a tenured Professor, why not use that money to evaluate the students’ performance. Last but not least, I believe in having older and younger Professors teach because older or younger, Professors are not new to the subject and they both understand their students in a different way.

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  11. Bryanna Arreola said...

    my opinion on tenture iI don't think we should get rid of tenure, but make adjustments. Tenure should be renewed every 3 or 5 year. This way, a teacher won't get cut simply because an administrator doesn't like them and teachers won't sit back and relax once they have tenure. Schools should also have to document trying to correct the teachers behavior or ability, this way an administrator can't just be like I don't like you so you are not getting tenure renewed they can say we have spoken to you and sent you to trainings for x,y, and z and you have not improved so we are not renewing your tenure, and get fired. Or like you get another year to improve, because sometimes they give iffy teachers an extra year to earn tenure if they see promise in them, so give an extra year before renewing it if they think the teacher will improve over the summer or something. But no permanent tenure, because it does get abused by some teachers, and don't eliminate it because in so many jobs people do get fired so really stupid reasons. I agree that there are many teaches who work hard their first three years and then sit back and relax. I think having to renew your tenure every few years would require you to continue to work

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  12. I believe that tenure should be eliminated completely it should just be changed a little. Like Bryanna, I believe that is should be renewed every 3-4 years because that is good enough time to ensure that teachers will not get to confident that they will not lose their job anymore, and stop putting as much effort as they did when they first started. I personally had a bad experience but for some it might of been a good one. When I was attending high school I had a teacher that for the beginning of my senior year of high school would give us a reasonable amount of homework. Then after a month or two he stopped doing anything. Sometimes he wouldn't even bother to teach he would just let us do whatever we wanted. To be honest from what I remember my teacher only taught a couple of chapters and the would make us read them the rest without any test or homework. Then out of the nowhere he would assign test and students would all pass with really good grades. But if tenure was adjusted to where the teachers only had a couple years of an assured job they will continue to put a lot of effort into their teachings.

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  13. I believe tenure should be abolished just because from experience I have seen teachers not teaching or really caring on how they teach because they know they wouldn't get fired. I had a teacher in junior high where she was really get old and had been working there for quite a while, and she knew she wasn't teaching as good and as she did before. Therefore, the result was her quitting, but became a substitue. I agree how tenure does not only affect students, but the society as a whole.

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  14. Alicia Brummett-GuajardoNovember 29, 2011 at 6:17 PM

    I don't think tenure should be completly removed. I think it just needs more rules and requirements. I feel as if some teachers abuse thier authority and just show movies in class or get lazy and don't even teach because they know they can't be fired due to tenure.

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  15. Some teachers use tenure as a way to not getting fired. Once a teacher gets to tenure they stop teaching. When they stop teaching the students stop learning. Why do schools still allowed those kinds of teachers to still work as a teacher. They shouldn’t be able to work as teachers because they aren’t teaching their students anything. The only thing they are teaching their students is how to be lazy.
    In the essay Tenure 3 it states “I had a teacher in high school by the name of Mr. Work. The irony in his name was that he hardly gave his pupils any work at all (Tenure 3).” His name is filled with irony; all he didn’t do was work. He would rely on tenure and tenure only. I had some teachers that would make us read the whole time in class and learn absolute nothing. What would the teacher do, the teacher would be on his computer for the whole day. The teacher would only get off his computer to tell us what to do or to pick up the phone. What did I learn, I learn nothing at all. I believe that tenure should only be given to the teachers that actually teach their students.

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  16. I read the essays on Tenure and there were really great information and alot of agreements and disagreements. In the essay Tenure 1 the writer states that "By keeping these bad teachers, they leave the students with teachers who don't teach well and it also results in us students from getting the right education we deserve." I really think tenure should only be given to those teachers who work hard to earn it to not get fired because most teachers lack off their duty of teaching once they hit tenure because they say to themselves that they aren't going to get fired so mind as well not give as much effort as before when they were under teaching without tenure over them. If I was a leader in the school district board of education, I would only give tenure to the teachers that deserve it and the ones I can trust because students needs to get better education even the ones that come and go.

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  17. I believe that tenure has many pros and cons to it. tenure is a good thing simply because it secures the job a teacher worked hard for, but it also has negative results. For example once a teacher gets tenured they might not try as hard as they did to teach the right materials the right way. they might lack attention to students and motivate students less. i think that tenure should only be given to teachers that truly are commited to their students.

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  18. I don't agree with the whole tenure concept that teachers are granted. Teachers shouldn't have only a certain time until they can get fired or not. It should be like any other job, if you mess up, being late, not teaching well, than you should be fired. No one should have a secure job because if everyone who was working knew they wouldn't get fired, than most people wouldn't work as hard as they would have too. Every employee should work to their best potential and never give up on something they love to do.

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  19. i believe that tenure is a good thing for our teachers but it should not be a proity because you just have to deal with the fact that you are going to loss your job if you dont do well. if you are doing well, their are sacrifices to who losses their job and its unfair to fire anyone who is doing a good job that has no tenure to save someone who has tenure but doesnt do a good job.

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  20. I don't think their should be tenure for teachers. The reason i believe this is because there are other jobs that don't have no laws that protect their job so why let the teachers have these benefits? Like the writer in essay 1 said, "tenure should be abolished and a new law should take its place to reward the good working teachers and get rid of the bad teachers." There are many other ways to reward teachers such as higher salary or paid vacations. Even if we plan on keeping tenure their should be some kind of law to fire bad teachers easily it should not take that much money and time to get rid of a teacher who is not doing their job correctly. Are we really going to risk our future generations education for some teachers who don't teach well? I think not! This is why i disagree with keeping tenure.

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  21. I believe that the concept of tenure should be changed. It is true once a teacher does have tenure their teaching style, method and system changes. They do not put the same effort as they use to. Before, a teacher would be on top of things as and show the school board that they are worth hiring. What happened!! Now, teachers go with the flow and don’t put in the same effort as they did in the beginning. They should keep tenure but change the concept of it. If the school board sees that a teacher is not doing their job, getting complaints, or not teaching they then should be fired. The student’s education is on the line and how do people expect students to succeed if they are not receiving a proper education for the next level of their education? The concept of tenure should be change for the better of the students.

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  22. I disagree with those who want to abolish tenure and agree with those who want to keep tenure and change it. I have read several essays and each contain that it is expensive to fire a tenured teacher. It would be best if that would be changed, for what reasons should it cost just to fire someone who is not good at his/her job. Another thing that should be changed to tenure is what some have mentioned on this forum, that tenure should be given to those who are truly committed. Also, as essay tenure 2 mentions it would be good idea to "supervise the teacher every two years to make sure that they indeed are teaching." With these changes and possible more, it will satisfy those who oppose tenure and those who are for it.

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  23. I think tenure should have some changes but not completely abolished. One change I think will help the problem of making sure teaches are doing what hey are supposed to and aren't slacking off just because they have tenure is like essay 1 says, "One way we could stop poorly performing teachers is by having random checking’s in the classrooms and evaluating the teacher’s performance." If they do this they will be able to make sure the teachers are still doing their job. tenure should still exist I just don't think that it should be given to any teacher that has been there for awhile. It should be a reward to those teachers that continue to teach kids to their fullest.

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  24. I don't think tenure should exsist because teacher have been taking advantage of it. They don't take care of their responsibilities becasue thye know that they already have their job secured and that no one will fire them. Its selfish of them to not teach their students the material that they should be learning because they are America's future. Students like the teacher for not giving them any work but in the long run they will regret it because then they will see the importance of their education. I don't think tenure is necessary for teachers because if they know they are doiung their job fine then they won't be fired but if they don't they will be fired.

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  25. Tenure shouldn't be abolished because the teachers that get tenure did go through a lot to deserve those privileges. They went through school and graduated, they taught and educated all of us to be where we are at right now. People say that the teachers that receive tenure don't teach them at all. So what did those teachers do all those years before getting tenure? Just sit around class and not teach the students a single thing? They must have done something in order to not get fired all those years. It's not like once they got tenure they quit trying, it wouldn't be worth it. If they got tenure its because they are teachers that are passing on their knowledge to the younger generation.

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  26. Tenure should not exist at all. It might have had been good in the past to have it for several issue of racism and unfair reasons. But now it is being misused. Teachers who have tenure are becoming lazy and are not teaching any knowledge to their students. I think that if the teacher is good at what he/she does then they shouldn't worry about getting fired.

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  27. I think there are a lot of pros and cons with tenure. Giving teachers that security of not having to worry about losing their job and being able to focus on their job i think its great. But i dont think making it hard to fire a teacher if they teach poorly is the best decision. Teacher with tenure should be able to perform at a certain level.Teachers with tenure should also be given warnings of losing their tenure and not be fired all of the sudden.

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  28. Geraldy Moreno-MendozaDecember 9, 2011 at 10:07 AM

    I think that tenure should exist but there should be some changes made. Tenure gives teachers job security because they know they wont be easily fired, but due to that job security they don't do their job well. Many teachers start to slack in their teaching abilities. I had some experience with that before. For example, some of the teachers would do a complete lesson when they knew that they were going to be watched, but after that happened they would go back to their routine and sit in the computer and just assign chapters for the students to read. It takes a lot of work to earn tenure and I think that teachers should value it but should not stop teaching just because they earned it.

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