School reformers generally agree that the most important education resource is the teacher. But one of the biggest obstacles to putting a good instructor in every classroom is a tenure system that forces principals to hire and retain teachers based on seniority instead of performance.
California grants tenure to teachers after merely two years in the classroom. New York, like most other states, makes teachers wait a grand total of three years before giving them a job for life. In most cases tenure is granted automatically unless administrators object, which is rare.
A recent report in the Los Angeles Times revealed that the LA school district, the nation's second-largest after New York City's, "routinely grants tenure to new teachers after cursory reviews—and sometimes none at all." According to the Times, "the district's evaluation of teachers does not take into account whether students are learning. Principals are not required to consider testing data, student work or grades."
This means that large numbers of ineffective teachers wind up with ironclad job protection. When low-performing teachers can't be fired, it's the students who suffer. A New Teacher Project study last year looked at tenure evaluations in multiple states and found that "less than 1% of teachers receive unsatisfactory ratings, even in schools where students fail to meet basic academic standards, year after year." Less than 2% of teachers are denied tenure in LA,