Alarmingly, proper provisions are not in place to fix the educational system. State budgets are putting more and more educational funding on the chopping block as tax revenues dwindle. And teachers’ unions are often unwilling to give up the meager victories they win for their teachers in an environment in which teachers are not close to being paid competitively. Politician may talk about improving schools and educating our workforce, but if they were to peer inside a classroom, they would be shocked.

Amidst these problems, old and valued practices are coming into question, and reformers are ready to pounce upon a failing system. In the middle of the debate between governments and teachers and unions are students, who bear the brunt of the political power plays. As reformers look to teachers for the solution to failing students, issues of tenure, seniority and merit pay have taken the spotlight. We will not advocate a particular solution. But we do believe that the system is broken enough that everybody must look at the problems on the table and try to approach some solution to our current problems.

The Ideas

One of the most hotly debated topics between reform-minded administrators and teacher unions is tenure. In California, when a teacher receives his first job, he undergoes a two-year probationary period during which his teaching is closely evaluated. After this time, if the district determines the teacher as fit to hire permanently, the teacher is awarded tenure. This gives evaluators the responsibility of ensuring that those teachers that are rehired after the two years are competent enough to continue being good teachers until their retirement.

Unlike in other professions where employers may fire employees at their discretion, tenure ensures due process for teachers, which includes pre-disciplinary hearings and multiple chances at correction. Most school districts offer peer assistance and review led by mentor teachers over the course of several years.

Some reformers argue, however, that the strong protections merely prevent incompetent teachers from being rightly fired. Throughout the process of additional training and evaluation, these teachers continue to teach. USA Today reports that in a national education survey, over half of the surveyed teachers believe it is too difficult to weed out ineffective tenured teachers, and nearly half say they personally know such a teacher.

In California’s 2005 special election, Governor Arnold Schwarzengger tried to address this issue when he endorsed Prop. 74, which proposed that the probationary period be extended to five years instead of two. The state rejected the measure, with 55 percent voting against.
In addition to job security, teacher seniority has come under fire for being a deciding factor for not only salaries, but also for determining which teachers can keep their jobs in times of cut-backs. With a seniority system, more-experienced teachers have priority when it comes to new positions.

In the absence of tenure and seniority, teacher pay would require different deciding factors including performance. Opponents of seniority also cite traditional salary scales as protecting mediocre teachers and paying them as much as exceptional teachers in equal standing.
Instead of seniority pay, we should look toward paying teachers based on performance, which can be measured by a number of factors. One of the assumptions that proponents of seniority-pay make is that a teacher’s performance cannot be evaluated fairly, which makes it imperative to institute a more objective form of evaluation when it comes to paying teachers. With almost all other industries and businesses paying their employees by merit, we need to find a similarly fair way to evaluate performance within teaching.

The People for the Ideas

Michelle Rhee wakes up in the morning with a “knot in my stomach,” adding that she is always “angry,” though “angry in a good way,” she said in an interview published in the Sept. 1, 2008 issue of Newsweek. As the head of Washington D.C. public schools, Rhee has worked tirelessly, closing 23 schools, firing 34 principals and pressuring over 700 unqualified teachers to leave in order to improve the quality of public schools in the nation's capital, as U.S. News and World Report describes. Washington D.C. schools currently employ the most funding per student but still consistently rank near or at last place in student academic achievement.
Rhee’s responses to this very serious problem have incited the wrath of some parents and teachers for her harsh and controversial methods. At one school meeting, Rhee faced parents who began screaming at her and throwing things. Rhee, who has garnered national attention for her methods and her success, represents a group of reform-minded school and district administrators who are looking past traditional conventions, such as teacher tenure and seniority-based pay, to improve some of the nation’s lowest performing public schools.

Rhee’s latest attempt to introduce serious reform has been to identify and fire some of D.C.'s least-qualified teachers, which has been complicated by union-led protections like teacher tenure. Meanwhile, Rhee has been pushing for a new deal with union leaders that would dramatically raise teachers’ wages. According to the New York Times, starting salaries for teachers would jump from $40,000 to $78,000, with salaries up to $130,000 for teachers of premier performance. The trade-off: Teachers must choose between two compensation plans, a red plan or a green plan. The green plan would allow teachers’ pay to double by next year, but teachers who subscribe to this plan must give up tenure for one year and obtain a principal’s recommendation to retain their job. The red plan seeks also to raise salaries though more modestly, but teachers who subscribe to this plan must resign their seniority, which protects their jobs within the school district in the event that a school shuts down or if they seek employment at another D.C. school.

By taking swipes at some of the most valued of teacher protections, Rhee sends a clear message that she is prioritizing students' education over teacher job security. Her plan has received mixed reception from the Washington Teachers' Union, which is stalling a vote, but has received condemnation from national groups who fear that Rhee will set a precedent by eliminating the holy grail of teacher tenure.

While Rhee's methods may be harsh and run the risk of unjustly penalizing teachers, they show an admirable will to move forward.

A Diplomat as Secretary

Another so-dubbed school reformer, Arne Duncan, who has accepted his nomination to Secretary of Education from President Barack Obama, served for the last seven years as chancellor of Chicago public schools, dramatically improving their success. A more diplomatic figure than Rhee, he forged alliances with the local teachers’ union when he served in Chicago, even though he supported measures, including school choice, performance-based pay and closing down failing schools, that made the union uneasy.

Duncan has experimented with Chicago's public schools to substantial success, according to a Washington Post article, setting up new charter schools, reinventing teacher training, and reopening failing schools with new staff. Other actualized plans included offering students cash for earning good grades and creating a gay-friendly high school. One of Duncan's great successes, Noble Street College Prep charter school, guided every single senior to graduation last year. The graduating class earned nearly $2 million in college scholarships, and the school even offered a class to help seniors complete college applications and financial aid applications.
Many of the most desirable and effective changes to a very rigid education system can only be made with forceful personalities like those of Rhee and Duncan. Even to the detriment of entrenched powers that be, we need administrators who have the will to challenge the status quo.