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EDUCATORS DEBATE MERITS OF TENURE SYSTEM

When it comes to educating Long Island’s children and youth, there can be no debate on the merits of providing a quality public school education in the elementary and middle grades, high school, or in our colleges and universities. But is providing quality education contingent upon a system of granting tenure or permanency to teachers? Educators on Long Island and experts at both the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers believe it is.

Tenure is a topic that has produced considerable discussion in recent years. Some argue that tenure is an outdated concept, and, if educational institutions are going to be appropriately accountable, they need to be able to have more flexibility to hire and fire faculty as student needs change. Critics often assert that tenure provides teachers with a “guaranteed job for life” even if they are lazy or incompetent.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” according to Barbara Barosa, President of Riverhead Central Faculty Association and Chair of the Long Island Presidents’ Council, an association to teachers’ union presidents. “The tenure laws say nothing at all about protecting teacher jobs. In fact, it is designed to do the exact opposite. It sets up a procedure for disciplining teachers who deserve to be disciplined, even fired.”

Others argue that tenure is vital to the protection of academic freedom and that without tenure we will return to the days when faculty were dismissed for teaching unpopular opinions. According toEd Vasta, President of the Manhasset Education Association, “There’s more to the tenure system than just providing job security to an educator. Teachers who earn tenure have completed a long period of probation, during which they may be dismissed for any minor cause or no cause at all. Every public employee enjoys some form of job protection under the Civil Service System. Teachers receive this protection much later in their careers than any other public employee.”

The need for job security is essential to providing an excellent education. “Teachers need to advocate for students, sometimes even against principals or central administrators. Otherwise, decisions about students might be made purely as a matter of course,” says Claudia Reinhart, President of the Three Village Teachers’ Association. “A teacher without tenure is not a professional. He or she can not assert a strong opinion about what is good for a child. He or she must simply obey all decisions of a principal, even when these decisions are clearly wrong. That may be a good thing in some businesses, but it simply does not work in a school.”

“In the days before tenure, teachers were hired and fired without any regard to merit. Can you imagine who some of the school boards you have read about in recent years would hire if they were not constrained by tenure?” asks Joe Carbone, President of South Huntington Teachers’ Association.”

Jeff Rozran, President of the Syosset Teachers’ Association adds, “The tenure law permits due process panels or hearing officers to fire teachers for misconduct, incompetence, insubordination, physical or mental disability, neglect of duty or for the lack of a teaching certificate. What else would a reasonable person want to fire someone for? If you can suggest something, and it is right, the teacher unions will work to have it added. No teacher is helped by having to work next to or with someone who should not be teaching.”

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