Tenure in D.C. Schools: What's It Really Worth?

Michelle A. Rhee, the District's schools chancellor, has made a bold proposal [Metro, July 3] to substitute incentive pay for tenure on a voluntary basis for experienced teachers and to effectively eliminate tenure for new hires. The discussion is largely defined in terms of a crusading new leader trying to overhaul a broken system over the opposition of stubborn teachers and their unions. This may well be the case. But lost in the discussion are two issues: What is teacher tenure worth economically, and what is it worth to students?

Rhee's proposal offers a unique chance to put a real economic value on tenure. Teachers usually claim to be underpaid. Dollar for dollar, given their education, training and responsibilities, they generally are. But, of course, there are offsets.

Teachers have a lot of (unpaid) time off, short office hours, good benefits -- and tenure, which is blamed for many woes and is invoked by critics as poisonous. In fact, it is just negotiated due-process job protection, as many unionized and public employees have. What is it worth to teachers? We'll find out when we see how many tenured teachers opt out of their job protections for increased pay. I doubt there will be many, which will indicate that the economic value of tenure is higher than the District is offering. Put another way, in the absence of tenure, in order to pay teachers in line with other similarly qualified employees, the District would need to pay them even more than the considerable amounts Rhee is offering.

Is tenure worth anything to students? First remember that tenure is not unique to teachers. Many public and union employees have due-process protection against being arbitrarily or capriciously dismissed. This protection tends to come in public jobs or in very large corporations because in these situations, where there is really no clear bottom line, favoritism and workplace politics can be prejudicial to good employees. The flip side of this is that bad employees can be hard to fire. Still most state, local and federal bureaucrats have similar job protections, as do many unionized factory workers. These protections largely benefit individuals, though unions argue that tenure is good for employers because it creates a fair workplace.

Tenure does that for school systems too, but it does much more. Teachers don't sit in an office or operate a machine on a factory floor. They deal every day with dozens (and in high school often hundreds) of children, and their parents. They are frequently required to touch on delicate topics. The chances of a good teacher offending someone or becoming embroiled in a sudden controversy are very real. Parents are naturally defensive and quick to cast blame. Students today "know their rights." In systems that lack tenure, weak administrators will find it easy to solve their own problems by casting aside teachers who are good but under attack, harming both the system and students. Indeed, more innovative teachers, or teachers who don't always adhere to educational dogma but who are still effective, would be the first to go. With today's increasingly standardized curriculums, the incentive for administrators to pursue this course will be strengthened.

What happens in the District will be important and should be interesting not only to teachers and school officials but to students and parents as well. I am not saying that Rhee's proposed reforms are flawed or unwarranted -- only that we should understand exactly what is being offered and what is being given up. Getting rid of bad teachers is a worthy objective. But students and parents will pay a greater price if good teachers are thrown out with the bad.

-- Jonathan Keiler

Bowie

The writer is a public school teacher in Prince George's County.