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Extra: The union's take on tenure

March 13, 2011 5:00 PM

Randi Weingarten, president of the union the American Federation of Teachers, tells Katie Couric that the debate over tenure must include improved methods of fairly evaluating teachers.

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by Andy_Davies March 20, 2011 2:23 PM EDT
It would be nice if there compared in contrasted tenure for collage professors verses tenure for secondary education. Tenure makes a lot of sense for a professor who may teach a view against the majority. For instance I had a physics professor who was very critical of our current interpretation of quantum mechanics. I realized that our faith in Quantum mechanics is almost mystical. There's still large parts of the theory that need to be developed. This is analogues to the treatment of entropy before Boltzmann linked entropy to statical probability. It was just a mystical variable that we accepted without question because it worked experimentally. We lacked the deep understanding of its underlining principles. Because of my professors defiance I've realized that there is far more to quantum mechanics than we currently known. Something that I would be oblivious to without is freedom to teach whatever he wanted. However secondary teachers don't have the same credentials as a Phd researcher in physics. Should they be given the same leeway. Should high school teachers have the right to teach alternative positions to the majority belief? I'm not sure. If they do there should be some sort of tenured possibility.
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by narken24 March 14, 2011 8:43 PM EDT
This was the most biased piece I have ever seen on 60 minutes!
Joel Kline was never a teacher nor a building principal so it stands to reason that he did not know that teachers are granted tenure only after 3 years of evaluations. Before those three years they could dismiss a teacher without cause. Perhaps it was different under his reign as chancellor. If the teacher was granted tenure for just showing up that was the fault of the administrators. By the way it has been my experience over the past 20 years that administrators were often poor teachers! Whose evaluating them?
Joel Kline is a perfect example as to why only education professionals and not lawyers, business professionals, and politicians should be leading the way to reform.
Shame on Katie for not checking the facts. How about an interview with the NYC union president? Why was Randi only on overtime? I kept waiting for the other side of the story and it never was told.
Read my lips Katie, tenure does not guarantee a job for life!!!
The only reason they keep there jobs is that administrators are too lazy to get out of their offices and evaluate them. I have been observed once a year since my tenure (during my tenure years it was 3 times a year). How would they know if I'm a good teacher or not.
Tenure also offers me protection to give my opinion and disagree with the administration. Any TEP teacher that went on that program and disagreed with the way things were run would surely run the risk of losing their jobs.
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by genislip March 13, 2011 11:58 PM EDT
Joel Klein should be ashamed of himself and the job he has done as Chancellor of Schools in NY City. On 60 Minutes, March 13, 2010, Klein admitted that teachers get tenure by showing up and having a pulse. Where are the administrators? There is a 3 year probation period for non-tenured teachers. Why aren't the administrators evaluating the non-tenured teachers? During this probationary period a teacher can be dismissed without cause. If administrators were doing their job, only qualified teachers would get tenure. Also, tenure is not a job guarantee. Correctly used, tenure means a teacher has been supervised and evaluated for 3 years and now can only be dismissed by a fair dismissal procedure. In NY State this procedure is called a 2030A hearing. It is time for the media to look at the role of administrators in the educational process.
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by Aubagne March 13, 2011 8:46 PM EDT
Why is a union being represented here, on 60 Minutes Overtime, where I had to seek it out on the web, rather than in the original story? FOUL
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