Response to "End K-12 Teacher Tenure" by the Detroit / Mackinac News on November 23. 2009.
Listed Source: Tom Watkins, former State Superintendent of Public Instruction, 2001-05, and Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
How many pubic school teachers would the Detroit News have Michigan school boards fire if the Tenure Act were removed?
Coincidental with the sharp, unfounded criticisms the News has directed toward the right of Michigan's public school teachers to have tenure ("End K-12 Teacher Tenure", Detroit News, Nov. 23, 2009) has been the introduction of State Sen. Patricia Birkholz's bill to alter or strip the Act of protective provisions for teaching professionals. The anti-tenure argument always runs with the mantra, "tenure shields incompetence." In times when things are economically very difficult such legislation arises on a predicable and regular basis. Obviously one way to save money is to remove teachers, especially those most experienced and highest paid. This attack is always framed as some form of "reform."
The News and Sen. Birkholz mistakenly believe that such sweeping action is necessary to "get rid of" certain under-performing teachers. How short sighted and punitive!
Repeal of the Tenure Act or undertake a radical stripping of its provisions that will affect all teachers.
Good teachers will suffer-the high performing and stellar mentors as well as those targeted by the News and perennial public school critics. Consider the times, there are those rancorous individuals, whom some have called "busybodies," who have any number of private complaints and religious agendas with which they regularly besiege the local school board meetings.
Just who advised Patricia Birkholz, herself a former public schools employee, to take such action at this time? How many fine teachers will be made vulnerable by her drastic action and will be subsequently exposed to a field day of capricious accusations and charges-which many ultimately lead to administrative harassment, burn-out or out right dismissal? No one can predict. What is completely predictable was the legislature attacking organized teachers utilizing the budget crisis as a cover or excuse.
In the current tense and highly negative atmosphere surrounding the state's historic budget crunch, this kind of "claw back" and "push back" against the Michigan Education Association for its ardent and vigorous defense and support of excellence in education for our children is both deplorably predictable and a repeat of earlier attacks under the malicious John M. Engler.
Suggesting a radical change in tenure is always used as a "shot-over-the-bow" indicating the legislature is resentful and wearied by MEA's skills, logic, and success in conducting legislative negotiations which support and sustain the local communities, school districts, and our children--so much impacted by the draconian cuts which the national economy has dealt the state's finances. In the recent past, such notables as former House Speaker Paul Hillegonds and previous governor Engler had used this tactic to intimidate the MEA.
Surely the Detroit News, the Mackinac Center, or Sen. Birkholz herself have some solid, substantive and well-documented study or report which gives an indication of the actual number or a percentage of teachers thought by them to be replaceable or unproductive. Or is this push just another attempt to settle a long standing political score with MEA?
How many teacher's political or religious beliefs will form the basis of trumped-up charges under Birkholz's stripped Tenure Act? Exposed without statewide, objective protections under the Tenure Act, a provision which has a governance board, procedures for dismissal, and an appeal mechanism, what specific lifestyles and voice in public affairs will be permitted for continuing teachers without reprisals?
There are editorial arguments, which have cropped up over the years and in the past several weeks, which ride on certain conditions such as under FTA in Detroit schools (where existing abuses are possible under due to iron-clad provisions of the Federation's contract with Detroit schools) or some other carefully chosen cases.
It is useful to anti-tenure forces to focus on the extreme or exceptional cases decided in favor of the teacher, often rest on technical merits. The press has honed certain of the more bizarre of these cases to support their editorial anti-tenure positions. These "showcase" legal incidents, that are inflammatory in character, do arise and cause the general public to misunderstand or distrust the tenure procedures-given the known facts found at the level of a publicly printed, sensationalized or purposefully slanted press news story.
Recent polling of administrators shows that they have a high level of discomfort with the tenure process, kinds of evidential documentation, and the procedures they must follow to "prove the case" for dismissal or discipline of a tenured teacher. However hard it is, in some cases, to discipline or fire a teacher that you yourself may have hired, it must be done if proper cause is there.
Dismissing a Teacher is Necessarily Serious Business
Good administrators must do their jobs well and effectively when dealing with teachers who merit dismissal or demerits. That is part of their work and responsibility. When carried out within the current law, incompetence and malfeasance are dealt with in an effective, fair, and appropriate manner. When administrators attempt dismissals or discipline on insubstantial, flawed evidence and/or procedure, the outcomes reflect that deficiency.
Teachers, themselves, neither hire or fire, that is the sole realm of administration, pleasant or unpleasant, in terms of public scrutiny and press coverage, as their work may be.
Iris Salters, president of the MEA has been quoted as being very clear on the topic of criminal, unworthy or under-productive teachers. This week Salters is quoted as saying: "Let me make one thing completely clear, MEA does not have any interest in protecting bad teachers."
MEA is responsible for seeing to it that teacher rights are observed and upheld under the law (representation). When administration fails to do the proper job of dismissal or discipline, or when the filed complaints are false or inflated, the association does help with the defense of the teacher-if the teacher merits and asks for such assistance.
The persistent anti-public school teacher stance of the Detroit News (in and of itself) does not justify calling for the summative elimination of professional tenure for all of Michigan's well-over 110,000 teachers. This get tough attitude is all too characteristic of the "right of right" reactionaries who have come to occupy the Michigan Republican Party for too long. Some of these ideologues don't want the public, neighborhood schools to survive and will use every tool in their tool box to work toward that end.
Other elements are at work also in undermining the security of tenured public school teachers. In their galaxies wholesale dismissals would be a great way to reduce costs. The News, in joining in their hue-and-cry, has allowed itself to become a useful tool in this thinly veiled attempt to break the teacher associations.
Break the teacher unions!
Now there is a goal long sought by certain business interests. But for now they will content themselves with hyping Birkholz's changes in the Tenure law as a method to streamline dismissal of "deadwood."
Teachers are so numerous. They are found in every community large or small. Some fall short of professional standards, but what profession can you think of that doesn't have its persistent minority of under-productive? Almost everyone has heard of a dentist or attorney that others have strongly recommended we should avoid seeking their services.
Why is it so hard for critics to accept the teacher's right to associate with other teachers in a professional organization?
It is ludicrous to believe that teachers, to be credible, have to stand by themselves, alone.
We don't expect that of doctors, attorneys, Realtors or Chamber of Commerce members. Albeit, opposition to teacher associations continues to be a contentious bone to chew, the idea being that teachers, when they band together, are a great threat to society.
Turn on teachers and teacher tenure and then watch the "best and the brightest" lose all interest in a teaching career!
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