It’s a term many in academia are accustomed to associating with collegiate professors, but what precisely is teacher tenure for K-12 teachers? While it may have once belonged to the Publish or Perish environment omnipresent in the halls of higher education, today, it’s a term all educators should know. As well, it’s a status every educator may wish to pursue.
Below, we’ll explore its meanings—denotations and connotations—within the social politics of primary and secondary education.
The Various Social Contracts of Teaching
Strictly defined, teacher tenure in K-12 teachers is precisely identical to what we would expect with professors instructing students in college. It is a clause within their contracts that promises status of a more permanent nature. Non-tenured faculty can expect their job security to hang in the balance, based on the outcome of their annual reviews.
At this point, you might be a bit confused, since tenure has historically entailed a lifetime guarantee of employment, as opposed to the hint that it will be long-term. While on the face of the contract between a teacher and his or her institution, this is still strictly true, in recent years, tenure hasn’t carried the weight it once did for university faculty.
This is where we see a slight difference between levels of education. Collegiate professors are usually not even considered for tenure until they’ve spent five or more years with a particular university or college. As well, within higher academia, the rule of Publish or Perish applies. If a professor fails to publish sufficient new work that brings attention and prestige to their university, they may find themselves without a job, not to speak of a permanent one. Even tenured professors are subject to scrutiny should they fail to present sufficient work in their own right.
Silver Linings and Notes of Caution
The good news is that primary and secondary school teachers need not undergo this ritual of academic hazing with the same intensity. While this is positive at first glance, what does it mean? These teachers may attain tenure after only three years of teaching with the same institution. But several sources have indicated that this method of granting tenure could lead to problems. Teachers reviewed for this status were rarely evaluated based upon effectiveness of their pedagogical methods or how well they prepared students for the challenges of the next year.
That’s drawn justified critique from several quarters, because once a teacher is granted tenure, it can be difficult to dismiss or remonstrate them for poor performance. This goes far beyond test scores, which should not be the only measure of a teacher’s effectiveness. Rather than supporting the draconian perspectives of those who assess education based solely upon standardized testing performance, this criticism springs from advocates of teachers.
When a school grants tenure based only on how many years a teacher has served with that school—often a distressingly short period, it turns out—it denies the teacher a chance to show their excellence. Teachers and teacher advocates who argue for excellence in education feel that the bar has been set too low for attaining tenure in many states.
When teachers who should devote more attention to honing their approaches and practices are granted this guarantee, children suffer, because it’s necessarily difficult to penalize or dismiss a teacher. While it’s a wonderful status, intended to reward and retain the best educators, teacher tenure for K-12 teachers has become a matter of concern for educators and institutions alike.
