Why teachers need tenure
Teacher tenure is under attack, with critics wrongfully portraying it as a job for life. The truth is that for more than 100 years, tenure has provided due process rights to teachers who have demonstrated competence after a...

Why teachers need tenure
Teacher tenure is under attack, with critics wrongfully portraying it as a job for life. The truth is that for more than 100 years, tenure has provided due process rights to teachers who have demonstrated competence after a probationary period. In the new issue of the AFT’s American Educator, Richard D. Kahlenberg recounts the history of tenure, which was created to protect teachers from favoritism and to ensure students were educated free from political whims. Tenure remains necessary today, he explains, given the fixation on high-stakes testing and the tying of students’ test scores to teacher evaluations. Yet corporate reformers have seized on tenure as the root cause of educational inequality in an effort to weaken unions and to detract from the real threats to public education: poverty and segregation. Read the full issue of American Educator.