Tenure: Really?

The stated purpose of tenure is to protect teachers' academic freedom. But is academic freedom really an important issue for public school teachers? Yes, it is. You may remember the story of the high school algebra teacher denied promotion to pre-geometry because of his subversive views on the commutative theorem. Or the middle school PE teacher passed over for chairpersonship of the committee to study installing a roof over the bike rack because he included a two-week course on Ultimate Frisbee, even though the roof was his idea to start with.

Teachers at high school and below are not like professors. They don't do research, they aren't expected to advance their fields. They are supposed to get information from their own heads (and textbooks) into the heads of students. Furthermore, those students are generally minors, which means the true consumers of the services provided by schoolteachers are parents. And when the school in question is a public school, those consumers are taxpayers, as well. So somebody, please, explain to me the benefit to those taxpayers of granting tenure to public schoolteachers.

Protecting academic freedom is not a compelling argument. In fact, the opposite is more true: local parents and taxpayers should control curriculum, not teachers. Let's save the academic freedom talk for college.

The other argument you hear is that tenure protects teachers from arbitrary firing by school boards and principals. Maybe so. But what makes public schoolteachers so special? Those of us in the private sector are subject to arbitrary firing decisions every day. Should we have tenure for accountants? Golf pros? What about tenure for fast-food restaurants? Once you buy a cheeseburger at McDonald's you have to go on buying them there forever.

This is not complicated, people. Tenure is just another example of a special interest group using high-minded language to justify government intervention in a way that benefits that group at the expense of the public.

Down with tenure!