Teacher tenure measure offers bad answer for wrong problem
by Elizabeth Collins and Gregg Janus
Article Last Updated; Sunday, May 02, 2010 2:41AM
What makes a good teacher? Is it longevity, popularity, education or good test scores? Denver politicians are trying to tell the people of Colorado that there is only one answer: test scores. Senate Bill 191 would deny or remove “tenure" from teachers whose evaluations did not demonstrate student academic growth as evidenced by standardized tests such as the Colorado Student Assessment Program.Most of the controversy and misinformation surrounding this bill comes from the term “tenure." It means only one thing to people outside education - a guaranteed job for life. That connotation, the idea of a publicly funded job for life, stimulates knee-jerk responses.
What the supporters of this bill, including The Durango Herald, have failed to inform the public is that tenure for public teachers in Colorado ceased to exist in 1990. Under Gov. Roy Romer's administration, the Teacher Employment, Compensation and Dismissal Act of 1990 was passed. This law eliminated tenure and replaced it with a due-process clause and created the terms probationary and non-probationary.
Probationary teachers are those who are in their first three years of employment in any school district. Probationary teachers could have a doctorate, National Board Certification or 20 years of proven classroom experience. Nonetheless, they may be dismissed from their employment at anytime during those three years for things as minor, for instance, as sitting on a desk while teaching a lesson, missing a faculty meeting because of child-care conflicts or daring to stand up to a bullying principal.
For probationary teachers, these three years are stressful. Good evaluations are no security for receiving the fourth-year contract. Effective and competent third-year teachers with good or even excellent evaluations are routinely dismissed. It happened this year in Durango. Under the proposed legislation, all teachers could become probationary at any point.
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