Retired superintendent addresses teacher tenure
Former Paso Robles Joint Unified School District Superintendent Curt Dubost.
Teacher tenure: A reasonable reform
– I’m proud of my forty-some years as a teacher and school leader. I come from a family of educators. My grandmother, Mable Curtis, was an elementary teacher here in Paso in the 1950s and president of what was then the teachers’ bargaining group. My mother, Nancyann Curtis, was a lifelong educator and President of the Counseling and Guidance Union in the Sweetwater District south of San Diego (as well as the first woman to earn a BS from Cal Poly).
I enjoyed a mostly very positive working relationship with the teachers union throughout my career. This opinion is intended to support teachers and a high standard of professionalism for them. It is not intended to bash teachers, nearly all of whom I respect greatly. I especially want to see rewarded those who truly go above and beyond to motivate and challenge their students to excel. Would that we could pay them what they deserve not the same as those who do just enough not to be fired, if that.
One of the maxims I used to guide my career was to treat the children for whom I had responsibility the way I’d want my own kids and now grandkids treated. I’d like to believe I remained largely true to that goal. I have to admit throughout my career, however, I had no choice but to sometimes allow the children of others to be exposed to a teacher by whom I wouldn’t have permitted my own kids to be taught. These were the very few teachers who shouldn’t be in the classroom due to lack of knowledge of the subject matter, failure to follow the curriculum, use sound instructional practices, and/or fail to show one ounce of interest in whether or not their students learn the material.
How many? Maybe one to three percent. These few give all who strive to be professional educators a bad name. They get paid the same as those who knock themselves out daily to reach every kid. The real cost though is in the students who at best didn’t learn as much as they should have, and at worst were turned off to their education due to the bad teacher they were forced to endure. Research shows the positive impact of a great teacher lasts for years. The same is true of the opposite.
There are relatively few of these real “lemons”, but most every larger district has a few. If you want some examples, read the transcript of the Vergara vs California decision which identified the offenses of tenured teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District that the district could not fire , but also couldn’t safely have in front of children. Each day they report to a room without students. One example given in the case told a student just back from an attempted suicide that he should, “cut deeper next time.”
Most often poor teachers are transferred around in what is referred to as “The Dance of the Lemons.” They end up teaching the kids who need the most help but whose parents don’t complain as loudly as others, meaning often heavily immigrant schools. This was the point made in Vergara vs California, a decision that was overturned on appeal. In round numbers, it easily costs as much as $250,000 in legal fees to pursue the termination of a tenured teacher with no guarantee of success. Negotiating a resignation, if possible, typically involves a settlement in the neighborhood of one year in salary. The best, most cost-effective means of dismissal is to pursue revocation of the teacher’s credential through the State Credentialing Commission. This would, however, have to be a seriously egregious offense as defined in the law.
I don’t blame the teachers union for this problem. Under existing law, the teachers’ association must defend the process and defend their members or face legal repercussions. They will also point out it was an administrator who determined the teacher had successfully completed probation and hence granted the teacher tenure, not the Union. Yes, not all reasons may have been valid and it could be due to personal prejudice on the part of the evaluator or factors unrelated to the quality of classroom instruction. Tenure laws were enacted for good reason; there are, however, now lots of protections in labor law apart from tenure.
This brings up the first reform I’d like to see enacted or at least debated. When I first began my career, new teachers had a three-year probationary period. If permanency was not granted the reasons for that were to be shared and could be challenged. The law was subsequently changed to be two years but with no reason to be given beyond something like “not a fit “. Let me share what the actual timeline is now to determine if probation has been passed and tenure will be granted.
Let’s assume a new teacher for the coming year was hired late in Spring. They begin their service with their first day on the job this school year They are assigned an evaluator and establish goals for the year and both formal and informal observations are scheduled with follow-ups for each between now and next March of their first year. The same process is followed next year if they are invited back. Hopefully, all of those steps happen despite the many interruptions from as small as a fire alarm to as devastating as COVID. No matter what, March 15 of Year 2 is when a final decision on tenure must be made. This means a teacher hired now basically has about eighteen months and maybe four formal observations before a final decision is made on permanency. By the way, no decision is to grant tenure, and only a notice of formal non-reelection by the board by March 15 of Year 2 denies permanency.
In my experience, most decisions are pretty easy. Unless we did a very poor job of hiring or had only subpar candidates, most teachers do well enough to earn tenure and many excel. A few just aren’t cut out for it and must be released. The dilemma comes around the ones we aren’t sure about, particularly if the teacher possesses a credential we need to provide mandated services to kids. All too often there are likely to be no better new candidates. I have always tried to err on the side of releasing teachers about whom we’re just not sure as once March 15 of Year 2 passes they are tenured and we are stuck with them.
This approach mostly served me well, but I have made mistakes. I know this from moving on to other districts where teachers I had non re-elected in other districts are now doing very well in their new district. Maybe they improved; maybe we were wrong. In many cases i would have liked the option to offer them another year of probation. At that point, they could say, “Since I’m not wanted here I’m applying elsewhere, your loss”, or they might resolve to address any shortcomings and convince us to change our minds by the next March 15 deadline. I just don’t see the down side of the option of extending probation at least that extra one year.
Once tenure is in play, however, I really hope that teachers themselves pressure their unions to advocate for reform of the process to dismiss the truly incompetent and ineffective`. One to three percent may not seem like a lot, but each veteran teacher easily costs the district $100,000 a year and often in a position created to hide them. That money could instead pay the exceptional staff better and/or provide programs for kids, but the greatest cost long term is lost learning and is impossible to estimate. Expensive lawsuits also can come into play, especially if special ed is involved.
Two suggestions: If unsure about a probationary teacher after only 18 months, allow the district to offer the teacher an added year of probation which they may accept or reject. Second, make it far less costly in both time and money to remove permanently the few real lemons and use the savings to pay the superstars what they deserve.
– Former Paso Robles Joint Unified School District Superintendent Curt Dubost
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