Why tenure?

Tenure. What is it? Why are people for it? Why are people against it?

Future educators and educators in the classroom should be well-aware of what is known as tenure. This benefit not only protects the job of a good teacher in a school system but also protects the job of a bad teacher. Good and competent teachers should absolutely have the right to stay in their position until they retire. But what about the incompetent teachers? I have always felt frustration that good teachers work hard and receive the same benefits as those who do not work as hard.

Tenure's do not allow a school system to fire a teacher without a worthy cause. For example, if a district is suffering budget cuts a teacher who is not tenured is going to be let go before a tenured teacher is. Once a teacher is approved for tenure, they are pretty much guaranteed their job unless something horrific happens. This makes it extremely hard for a school system to let go of the "bad" teachers due to costs and legal issues."Because teachers have such potential for affecting the quality of children's education, some people are starting to argue that it must become easier to get bad teachers out of the classroom"  says an article entitled "is Teacher Tenure Still Necessary?"

According to an article from Time, it took a California school district $8,000 to fire a teacher who showed their class R rated movies instead of utilizing books. That's an absolutely staggering amount of money to fire someone for not doing their job. So what should be done to make sure teachers are doing their jobs rather than being lazy under their tenure? What about re-testing teachers every five years? Or follow Ohio in a teaching mentoring program? Something has to be done to stop incompetent teachers from thinking they are entitled to their job no matter what.

I think that teachers who do their jobs and put in the effort they should are entitled to tenure. However, they are always "bad apples" who will only teach for job security and not care about the kids they teach. I believe that teachers need to be more closely evaluated and maybe the idea that one should not become a teacher due to job security should be stressed in teacher training. I do not believe in abolishing tenure.