The fight over teachers’ job security is underway in the Virginia General Assembly, where this week committees from both houses are considering bills to eliminate tenure.

Teachers currently go through a three-year probationary period and then receive “continuing contracts” — often called tenure.

As originally introduced, the bills would have put all teachers on one-year contracts, giving administrators an annual opportunity to review performance and off-load poor teachers.

The measures have changed as they’ve moved through subcommittees over the last few weeks. Now they would put teachers on three-year term contracts, and at the end of each term a new contract could be denied without going through the process usually required to establish cause for dismissal.

Teachers who already have continuing contracts would be allowed to keep them as long as they stay with their current school systems.

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) has argued that administrators need broader powers to get rid of ineffective teachers.

“You perform well, you keep your job,” McDonnell said in January when he introduced his K-12 legislative package. “You don’t perform well for an extended period of time, you don’t get a guarantee.”

But teachers’ groups see the push to eliminate tenure as a demoralizing attack on the profession — and one that would leave educators vulnerable to arbitrary dismissal.

“This bill allows dedicated teachers who dedicated their lives to service to be fired without reason and without due process,” Virginia Education Association lobbyist Robley Jones told a House subcommittee Tuesday, according to the Virginian-Pilot.

Jones and other advocates point out that educators never have a guaranteed job for life in Virginia. They can still be dismissed because of budget reductions, a decline in enrollment or just cause.

The House Education committee is considering H.B. 576, carried by Del. Richard P. “Dickie” Bell (R-Staunton), Wednesday morning. The Senate Education and Health committee will hear S.B. 438, carried by Sen. Mark Obenshain (R-Harrisonburg), Thursday morning.