Welcome to Sex and the State, a newsletter about power. I’m a writer working on decriminalizing and destigmatizing all things sex. I use evidence and stories to interrogate existing power structures to propose better ways of relating. To support my work,
Been lurking for a while, and this is the first topic I've felt qualified to weigh in on.
The term "tenure" can also be called "due process." We can argue about how strong the due process protections should be, but I think the principle of due process protections for all workers with a boss makes sense. Especially in sensitive areas like teaching, where all it takes is one upset parent raising a stink with the local school board to unfairly jeopardize someone's job, having due process protections in place does more good than harm.
Do we want a teacher who mentions homosexuality (or anything other than monogamous heterosexuality between cisgendered people) to be able to be fired without cause? How about a teacher who finds out after the fact that their discussion of history met someone else's vague definition of critical race theory? Or a teacher who speaks up about the way their principal harasses or abuses them or other staff? These are all cases where teachers don't have clear-cut protections from being fired other than their due process/tenure rights, and right now, all of these seem likely to happen with much greater frequency than the Holocaust denier or the close-to-retirement/put-on-a-movie-every-day stereotype of the lazy teacher. Are there some cases where due process keeps teachers around longer than they should be? Sure. Are there more cases where due process protects good teachers from the abuses of management and/or the latest community uproar? I think so.
(As a side note, should workers in other fields have stronger due process protections than they do? I think so. Maybe teachers' protections are too strong--I'm willing to be convinced--but I think we'd be better off if more folks could use them as a precedent to argue for why they should have their own protections against an incompetent, malicious, or easily threatened boss.)
The notion that removing these protections will produce an increase in the quality of teachers at scale is one that's been around for a while and hasn't proven itself. The idea that you could replace one out of every 20 (i.e. 5%) or one out of every 12-13 (i.e. 8%) of teachers with an average teacher flies in the face of persistent staffing shortages in math, science, special education, many rural schools, and certain urban schools (among others). That was true before COVID-19, and it's only gotten worse as the pandemic-influenced retirements aren't being filled in at anywhere near the needed rate.
As for the growth of charter schools, it looks like Alabama's charter sector is still very young. According to the linked article, charter schools only became part of state law in 2015, and the state only had one charter school until 2018. Given a situation like that, posting a high rate of growth is comparatively easy and likely not traceable directly to the level of due process protections afforded to teachers.
I live in the state with the first charter school law in the country (Minnesota). What we see here--and this is validated by the less ideological studies of charter schools--is that there's great variation in the quality of charter school experiences. On average, there's not much difference in performance between charter schools and traditional district schools serving similar populations (which is a complicated thing to control for, especially since many charter schools specialize in serving specific populations).
Where there are standouts, they tend not to be able to sustain their success for very long. Many of the ones that come closest depend on churning through young, idealistic teachers who eventually burn out or seek more sustainable working environments. This is not an approach that can work at scale.
To come back to where I started, we can certainly argue about how strong the tenure/due process protections for teachers should be. However, doing away with the concept in its entirety is likely to do more harm than good, especially as K-12 education becomes a riskier and less appealing line of work to enter.
Stepping off of my soap box now! Many thanks for the rest of this newsletter, which I find very enjoyable.
Been lurking for a while, and this is the first topic I've felt qualified to weigh in on.
The term "tenure" can also be called "due process." We can argue about how strong the due process protections should be, but I think the principle of due process protections for all workers with a boss makes sense. Especially in sensitive areas like teaching, where all it takes is one upset parent raising a stink with the local school board to unfairly jeopardize someone's job, having due process protections in place does more good than harm.
Do we want a teacher who mentions homosexuality (or anything other than monogamous heterosexuality between cisgendered people) to be able to be fired without cause? How about a teacher who finds out after the fact that their discussion of history met someone else's vague definition of critical race theory? Or a teacher who speaks up about the way their principal harasses or abuses them or other staff? These are all cases where teachers don't have clear-cut protections from being fired other than their due process/tenure rights, and right now, all of these seem likely to happen with much greater frequency than the Holocaust denier or the close-to-retirement/put-on-a-movie-every-day stereotype of the lazy teacher. Are there some cases where due process keeps teachers around longer than they should be? Sure. Are there more cases where due process protects good teachers from the abuses of management and/or the latest community uproar? I think so.
(As a side note, should workers in other fields have stronger due process protections than they do? I think so. Maybe teachers' protections are too strong--I'm willing to be convinced--but I think we'd be better off if more folks could use them as a precedent to argue for why they should have their own protections against an incompetent, malicious, or easily threatened boss.)
The notion that removing these protections will produce an increase in the quality of teachers at scale is one that's been around for a while and hasn't proven itself. The idea that you could replace one out of every 20 (i.e. 5%) or one out of every 12-13 (i.e. 8%) of teachers with an average teacher flies in the face of persistent staffing shortages in math, science, special education, many rural schools, and certain urban schools (among others). That was true before COVID-19, and it's only gotten worse as the pandemic-influenced retirements aren't being filled in at anywhere near the needed rate.
As for the growth of charter schools, it looks like Alabama's charter sector is still very young. According to the linked article, charter schools only became part of state law in 2015, and the state only had one charter school until 2018. Given a situation like that, posting a high rate of growth is comparatively easy and likely not traceable directly to the level of due process protections afforded to teachers.
I live in the state with the first charter school law in the country (Minnesota). What we see here--and this is validated by the less ideological studies of charter schools--is that there's great variation in the quality of charter school experiences. On average, there's not much difference in performance between charter schools and traditional district schools serving similar populations (which is a complicated thing to control for, especially since many charter schools specialize in serving specific populations).
Where there are standouts, they tend not to be able to sustain their success for very long. Many of the ones that come closest depend on churning through young, idealistic teachers who eventually burn out or seek more sustainable working environments. This is not an approach that can work at scale.
To come back to where I started, we can certainly argue about how strong the tenure/due process protections for teachers should be. However, doing away with the concept in its entirety is likely to do more harm than good, especially as K-12 education becomes a riskier and less appealing line of work to enter.
Stepping off of my soap box now! Many thanks for the rest of this newsletter, which I find very enjoyable.