Melissa Bailey Photo
Tenure is perhaps the most misunderstood topic in public education. Renewed cries to change or abolish tenure have surfaced once again. It is widely believed that tenure provides lifetime job security for teachers. And this erroneous belief is almost universal, misunderstood by educators as well as by the public. The simple fact is no such protection exists. Ironically just the opposite is true. The “tenure” law, which is CT State Statue 10 – 151, actually delineates how a tenured teacher can be fired. There is not a single word which even mentions a guarantee of employment. The reason for the misunderstanding is because at the college level, tenure does provide guarantees of employment for professors. Public school teachers through grade 12 enjoy no such protection. The term tenure is unfortunately shared and has created the ridiculous notion that teachers in Connecticut have some mythical and absolute job security.
The tenure law is intended to provide due process to teachers, so that their dismissal is not arbitrary or capricious. What virtually no one in the education administrative hierarchy either knows or is willing to acknowledge is that when a termination hearing is held, the decision of the arbitration panel is merely a recommendation, it is not binding. This means that under our present tenure law a teacher can go to an arbitration hearing, win the case, and still have the local board of education ignore the recommendation and fire the teacher anyway! And there is no appeal permitted against this decision, other than to make certain the process and timelines have been followed. A local board of education’s decision to terminate is final under Connecticut’s tenure law. So much for our “guaranteed” job.
Gov. Malloy has stated that to achieve tenure you must merely “show up”. I discussed educational issues with him recently during a meeting in his office. I found him to be exceptionally bright and committed to improving our education system. However I do differ with him on that point. Tenure is achieved only after four years of successful teaching. During these first four years of employment school districts can non-renew any teachers’ contract merely by notifying them by May 1st. These non-renewals are “at the superintendents’ discretion” which means school districts have absolute authority to dismiss a teacher during the first four years with simple notification and nothing more. Teachers must live under a cloud of non-renewal for four consecutive years. Teachers in Connecticut must earn their tenure. It does not guarantee a job, it allows for simple due process if faced with termination.
But what of teachers that have achieved tenure? Many believe that when a teacher receives tenure they stop caring because of this mistaken notion of job security. Painting teachers with such a broad brush is unfair and demeaning. New teachers as well as veterans maintain their passion and love their jobs, despite the challenges and public castigation. A comprehensive and robust evaluation system ensures every classroom will have an effective teacher. Tenure does not, and will not interfere with that. In New Haven we have worked hard to put together a system which fairly evaluates teachers and most importantly, puts student learning front and center. When teachers are comprehensively and fairly evaluated, tenure is not an issue.
Three basic but essential changes to tenure are needed. First, the process is too long and costly. Virtually all teachers and administrators support a 90 or 100 day time frame from start to finish for termination hearings. Everyone agrees that this allows adequate time for preparation while eliminating dragging proceedings on for a year, as the governor correctly references. Secondly, the practice of all hearings being held before a panel of three arbitrators should be reduced to one. At the present the teachers choose one, the school board selects one, and the third is mutually agreed upon. Since all termination hearings boil down to convincing the neutral arbitrator, eliminating the other two makes sense and is cost effective. The third change is to make the arbitrator’s recommendation binding on both parties. Allowing one side to ignore a decision arrived at when all parties have had an opportunity to fairly present their case runs contrary to our American principles. And a final thought. Let’s be absolutely certain to change the name from tenure to something else, anything else, to get out from under the confusion that the term “tenure” has created.
David Cicarella is the president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers.