Reposted with permission of the American Federation of Teachers
http://www.aft.org
Where We Stand
by Albert Shanker
The Wrong Target
Many people believe that getting tenure guarantees a teacher a 
lifetime job, even if the teacher's subsequent performance is lousy. 
So they listen sympathetically to calls for abolishing tenure. But 
tenure does nothing of the sort. It simply guarantees that there 
will be some form of due process before a teacher can be dismissed. 
The real problem lies in the evaluation process that leads to tenure 
and monitors the performance of tenured teachers.
     Tenure decisions are typically based on evaluations made by an 
administrator. He probably pays a flying visit to a new teacher's 
classroom a couple of times a year, which gives him very little 
basis for deciding whether or not a teacher is doing a good job. As 
a result, novice teachers who need help don't get it; instead, they 
are likely to receive a "satisfactory" or even an "excellent" on 
their evaluations. After three or four years, when the probationary 
period is over, they probably get tenure.
     Because evaluations of tenured teachers are even skimpier, 
administrators are also unlikely to notice that someone's teaching 
is not up to par. So they often don't have any firm basis for 
recommending that a tenured teacher be let go. 
     "Don't Let Teacher Evaluation Become a Ritual," an article 
directed to school administrators ("Executive Educator", May 1988), 
minces no words in describing how worthless evaluations often are. 
The authors cite their survey of 35 school districts in eastern 
Pennsylvania, which showed that 98 percent of the teachers were 
given a perfect score of 80 by the administrators who evaluated 
them; 1.1 percent got scores between 75 and 79; and fewer than 1 
percent scored below 74.  Was there something in the Pennsylvania 
water that made for perfect teaching? The authors thought it more 
likely that the evaluations were sloppy--and they didn't think this 
was a local problem: "We suspect that inflated scores on teacher 
evaluations are common. And these scores are a sign that teacher 
supervision and evaluation are in trouble in many school systems." 
     Everybody loses with a system like this--other teachers, who 
have to live with the results of bad teaching by a colleague, as 
well as students. But there is an alternative that works. Peer 
review or peer intervention--it goes by various names--is a system 
developed by teacher unions, in collaboration with their school 
districts, in which experienced and excellent teachers observe 
probationary teachers and offer them help when they need it. At the 
conclusion of the probationary period, these master teachers make 
recommendations about who should be offered tenure and who let go. 
Peer review also includes assistance to tenured teachers who need 
help with their teaching and, in some cases, advice to quit the profession.
     Toledo Federation of Teachers' peer review program, perhaps the 
first in the country, has been in operation since 1981. In Toledo, 
consulting teachers spend up to three years helping to train and 
evaluate new teachers, and they  play a major role in deciding which 
new teachers will get tenure. Tenured teachers who are in trouble 
get the same kind of one-on-one help from  colleagues, and it 
continues until the troubled teacher has either improved to the 
point of being successful or a termination is recommended.  
     But aren't teachers likely to be even easier on their 
colleagues than administrators? Both the Toledo Federation of 
Teachers and the Cincinnati Federation of Teachers, which has had a 
peer assistance and evaluation program since 1985, have found the 
opposite to be true. In the Cincinnati program's first year, 
consulting teachers rated 10.5 percent of their new teachers less 
than satisfactory, compared to 4 percent by administrators. And 5 
percent of beginning teachers under peer review were recommended for 
dismissal as compared to 1.6 percent of those evaluated by 
principals. Results for subsequent years have been similar.
     Cincinnati has an arrangement similar to Toledo's for veteran 
teachers whose teaching is not up to par.  After two years of 
support and assistance, the consulting teacher makes a final report, 
recommending dismissal if necessary. This system salvages teachers 
who can be helped, but there is another important plus. It greatly 
reduces the number of dismissals that lead to lengthy and expensive 
disputes. According to Tom Mooney, president of the Cincinnati 
Federation of Teachers, this is because the teachers who are advised 
to leave can't blame their termination on sloppy or unfair 
procedures by management. They have been offered help by their 
colleagues and given a chance to improve. At best, the decision to 
terminate represents a consensus among the various parties. At the 
very least, the teacher sees that he won't have much of a court case. 
     Teachers (and teacher unions) don't hire, evaluate or tenure 
teachers: administrators do. But the whole process would be a lot 
better if teachers *were* able, as a profession, to take 
responsibility for themselves. The programs in Toledo and 
Cincinnati, and similar ones sponsored by the Minneapolis Federation 
of Teachers and the Rochester Teachers Association, show that this 
idea can work. Instead of getting rid of tenure, we should be moving 
to give teachers more say about who becomes--and remains--a tenured 
colleague. 
Chuck Beams
cbeams@dreamscape.com
http://www.dreamscape.com/cbeams
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* UniQWK #5290* Boy, am I glad it's only 1971...
--- Maximus 2.01wb
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