California Tenure Law: A Quandry for Me

Recently, we have been hearing a lot about changes in the tenure laws for educators through out the nation.  When policy to change the law was presented in California, I was initially onboard for the need of this change.  After some deeper thought, I am finding that my position continues to wobble and change.  Let me share with you my thoughts.


As a school principal, I found it very frustrating that I had several teachers who needed to not be in our career field, but even though I gave them the necessary paper work to be classified as unsatisfactory, they either remained at my school, or were moved to another school.  As a director of schools, I actually worked with one of my principals to gain a dismissal on a horrible teacher, but in accordance with the State tenure law, the teacher with the assistance of the educator's union, appealed the decision, and they won the appeal.  My district had the right, but chose not to appeal that decision due to legal costs that it would require.  So, that teacher remained an employee in my district for another five years, but never again taught in a school.  He sat in an office and was paid.  He settled with the district to receive full retirement benefits and to have the district pay his legal costs.  These are examples that are only a small number of the cases faced by administrators of all levels at any time.


These examples led me to believe that the tenure laws in my state were getting in the way of providing students the best possible educational experience.  So, my initial thoughts were, yes, if the law is changed these teachers that I described above would not have remained in their teaching positions for as long as they did, therefore, I obviously should support the change in the law.


After thinking about the tenure law more thoughtfully without bringing in my personal emotions, I made a case for myself that doing away with tenure could have a negative impact on the teaching profession that I had to consider.  Let me explain, from an administrator's point of view, the other side of this case.  As a principal, I frequently spoke to my teachers about the need to be risk-takers in developing instructional practices.  I always told them that without risk-taking, new and improved teaching practices would never be developed.  I also realized that with my staff of about 90 teachers, I was looking at one or two who needed to go, the remainder were strong and dedicated educators who cared about their kids.


If tenure were to be removed, would good teachers be so willing to be thoughtful risk-takers, or would they decide that they were better off being safe as they developed their instructional plans everyday.  It is pretty hard to get teachers to be risk-takers in the first place, but without the protections and security that even good teachers need to feel, they would be reluctant to try new ideas out in their classrooms.


My quandary is that I might be "cutting off my nose to spite my face" if I pushed to end tenure.  Yes, I could rid my system and the profession of bad people, but I would moving a lot of good teachers toward mediocrity because of their loss of security. 


Assuming my arguments on both sides are correct, what do you think would be the wisest thing to do for the educational profession?  Is there a compromise model that provides the safety net for good teachers, but allows us to move poor teachers out of our profession more easily? 


I look forward to hearing from you on this dilemma for me.