What Do You Think Should Be Done About Teacher Tenure?

This week’s question of the week was prompted by local reaction to New Jersey's acting education commissioner’s unveiling of a plan to revamp teacher tenure and require them to meet a set of performance standards.

Christopher Cerf said Wednesday “demonstrated student learning” should be part of the tenure process, along with yearly evaluations and a plan to strip tenure from teachers who are not meeting requirements.

Under the proposal, teachers rated effective or highly effective for three consecutive years would be granted tenure. Teachers would lose tenure if they failed to meet requirements for two consecutive years.

In response to the announcement, Fort Lee Superintendent of Schools Raymond Bandlow said he agrees with the basic premise of performance-based tenure decisions but that "performance" and "effectiveness" should be measured by more than merely test scores and results.

"Test scores are only a small part of teacher performance," Bandlow said. "And I would hope that whatever decision is devised would recognize that there’s much, much more to what a teacher does than test scores.”

Fort Lee parent Holly Morell said she believes teachers should want to teach because they enjoy teaching, "not because they have an exclusion and not because they have a forever clause."

She called Wednesday's announcement “a step in the right direction toward ending teacher tenure.”

And finally, one Patch reader may have best summed up the nature of the controversy:

“There is no tenure in the private workplace, ergo it is difficult to justify in the public sector. The best teachers are the best communicators. They exhibit high energy; they are creative and intuitive. They attempt to understand the students and to listen when a student speaks. They encourage their students to persevere when they are having difficulty and work with them.  These traits do not always translate into high scores on the New Jersey ASK tests. If this is going to be the acid test for tenure, we may lose some excellent teachers in the process.”

Now we want to know what you think. What Do You Think Should Be Done About Teacher Tenure? Is the merit- or rating-based approach the right one, and if so, what, if not test scores, should be the measuring stick of performance and effectiveness? Or do you believe teacher tenure is a concept whose time has come and gone?

Join in the discussion. Let us know what you think. Tell us in the comments.