From the Wall Street Journal:
School reformers generally agree that the most important education resource is the teacher. But one of the biggest obstacles to putting a good instructor in every classroom is a tenure system that forces principals to hire and retain teachers based on seniority instead of performance.
California grants tenure to teachers after merely two years in the classroom. New York, like most other states, makes teachers wait a grand total of three years before giving them a job for life. In most cases tenure is granted automatically unless administrators object, which is rare.
A recent report in the Los Angeles Times revealed that the LA school district, the nation’s second-largest after New York City’s, “routinely grants tenure to new teachers after cursory reviews—and sometimes none at all.” According to the Times, “the district’s evaluation of teachers does not take into account whether students are learning. Principals are not required to consider testing data, student work or grades.”
Read the rest: No (Tenured) Teacher Left Behind.
For suggestion on more choice, quality, and competition in education, see the Cato Institute’s school choice page. This includes James Tooley‘s research on how parents in impoverished countries are forgoing “free” government-run education for schools that charge $1 per week. John Stossel reports:
See the rest of John Stossel’s recent show on education.
Here’s a longer video about private schools in slums around the world out-performing government-run schools:
