Globe column examines teacher tenure issue

If Stephanie Davis Goad's plan was to encourage a discussion of a controversial issue with her column in the Family section of today's Joplin Globe, she succeeded admirably.
Ms. Goad's lengthy, and well-written column criticized teachers who use cruel and inhumane methods to punish students and she blasted the tenure law which she says keeps bad teachers in their positions at the expense of the children. Those teachers deserve to be criticized and Ms. Goad is absolutely right.
"If parents band together to complain about a teacher," Ms. Goad writes, "officials scream 'Tenure!' Tenure is a safe harbor for teachers. But who protects our children?"
I am not naive enough to believe there are not inept teachers in some classrooms. However, I do not recall more than one or two times in the state of Missouri, through 22 years of covering more than 400 school board meetings, talking with school officials and parents, then teaching seven years, that tenure has been used as an excuse to hold on to someone who creates problems in the classroom and damages the education of our children.
When a Missouri administrator wants or needs to eliminate a teacher, it nearly always gets done, tenure or no tenure. Tenure simply requires that the administrators have a legitimate excuse to fire the teacher, and the teacher has a right to due process. This is not the years-long process that we hear about in New York, a state where teachers accused of everything from theft to sexual relations with students can remain on the payroll for five or six years while their cases are being decided. In Missouri, these cases are normally handled in a matter of weeks or months, not an unreasonable amount of time when someone's livelihood is at stake.
In Missouri, a teacher has to have taught five years in a school, then tenure sets in on the first day of the sixth year. In most other states, tenure takes place after three years of teaching. Many superintendents, especially in smaller school districts, maintain a revolving door, eliminating teachers before they reach tenure and hiring beginning teachers so they can keep payroll low, a system which definitely does not favor the student.
(Note: Though I am in my seventh year of teaching, I am not eligible for tenure until the first day of my 10th year since the process started all over again three years ago when I was hired by the Joplin R-8 Board of Education.
Ms. Goad writes, "How do our children benefit from protecting a lousy teacher who endangers their future. I think tenure in some cases is a lame excuse to keep a teacher who isn't doing the job. Short of committing a crime in front of the class with adult witnesses present, I'm not sure what it takes to dismiss one, but I'd like to know."
To answer Ms. Goad's question, children do not benefit from having lousy teachers in the classroom, but tenure is not being used on a widespread basis in Missouri to keep poor teachers employed, and it does not take a crime in the classroom with adult witnesses present to cause teachers to lose their jobs. If an administrator believes a teacher is damaging his or her students' opportunity to succeed, the administrator will make sure that teacher is no longer in the classroom. The poor behavior will be documented, teachers will be given the opportunity to improve, and if they do not, they will have to find work elsewhere.
And though good teachers do enjoy the protection that tenure gives them, they are the last ones to want the bad ones to remain in the classroom. Bad apples are in the classroom, unfortunately, and parents need to be diligent about letting administrators know when problems arise. It is nearly impossible to get a bad teacher removed in states like New York, if media reports are accurate. In Missouri, it is possible and it is done on a regular basis.
Ms. Goad brings up an important issue, one that needs to be thoroughly addressed, and she notes that her children have some excellent teachers. Her column is far from an indictment of the teaching profession; in fact she is quite supportive of her children's teachers.
Tenure, however, is designed to protect good teachers from administrators with grudges or agendas. The southwest Missouri cases in which bad teachers benefit from tenure, thankfully, are few and far between.
***
While I have no problem with the family section, per se, I would have loved to have seen Ms. Goad's provocative column placed on the opinion page to give it the wider readership it deserved and to promote a public discussion on a vital topic This is the kind of issue-oriented column I like to see in a daily newspaper.