Teacher Tenure vs. Merit Pay

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that teacher tenure protects competent teachers from non-renewal of their contracts for reasons not related to their ability to fulfill their contractual agreements, such as conflicts of belief or personality with administrators, more influential colleagues or others who might abuse their position or power. The author points out that Schwarzenegger believes the current system tolerates ineffective teachers and encourages ineffective teaching; his approach would retain local control but require that salary decisions be based on some judgment of each teacher's effectiveness, not education and experience. The paper states that Schwarzenegger's proposal, if passed, will not improve the condition of education in California because it will deprive children of teachers who may want to enter the profession but will likely be discouraged by new difficulties achieving job security in the teaching profession.

From the Paper:

"Schwarzenegger's proposed measure will also make teachers more vulnerable to patronage and political whims. Because of the difficulty in coming up with concrete and measurable standards for evaluation, the merit system is likely to end up being highly politicized and subjective, with school management officials constantly threatening inappropriately poor evaluations over teachers who dare question their authority or offer different points of view in educating their students. The result may be disastrous to the children of California as with an evaluation process that is less than credible, quality teachers may be deprived of job security while their less qualified peers who are blessed with more "political savvy" may end up running California's schools."

More papers on Teacher Tenure vs. Merit Pay:

• Research Paper # 6583 : "Approaches to Designing a Merit Pay Plan"
• Essay # 139420 : "Incentive and Merit Pay Plans for Teachers"
• Research Paper # 109108 : "Merit Pay for Teachers"

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