Tenure talk a hot-button school issue - Connecticut Post

Tenure is not the reason why we have a few bad teachers. Tenure is the reason why we have so many great teachers.What this article glosses over is the rigorous self-selection process that teachers go through before they get tenure. A tenured teacher needs to have first of all decided to become a teacher in the first place—a career which especially in the last 10 years has become the target of all society's woes while simultaneously becoming more challenging due to the unreasonable mandates of NCLB. Then, prospective teachers need to go through student teaching. This process weeds out most of the teachers who would have gone on to become bad teachers. But even student teaching is not as difficult as a teacher's first 2-3 years. During that time, new teachers have to pass the state's certification requirements which add up to constant observation, evaluation meetings, and documentation. I have worked with several teachers who left in that time span because of the challenges associated with teaching. It is difficult to explain the type and scope of work associated with being a beginning teacher, but what I can share is a statistic: recent studies show that 46% of all teachers leave the profession within the first 5 years of their career.Finally, the reason why the number of teachers who were actually dismissed with cause is so low in CT is because a teacher who is going through the process of termination is most often counseled out of the job to reduce the cost of going to a termination hearing. When looking at the numbers on its face it is easy to draw the wrong conclusion because there is relevant background information that may be overlooked. This is precisely why teachers need to be a part of the conversation to reform the profession. They understand the unintended consequences of the flawed proposal pushed by the governor. Look at the CEA's proposal to reform tenure and stop saying that teachers are the problem like Joe Cirasuolo, executive director of CAPSS, recently said.

Tenure talk a hot-button school issue - Connecticut Post:

'via Blog this'