Teacher Tenure Argumentative Essay

Teacher tenure is a heavily debated topic among educators, parents, and politicians today. The dispute is whether or not teachers should receive tenure, which is a policy that makes it more difficult to fire teachers. The arguments range from abolishing the practice all together to keeping tenure as part of the states’ systems. According to Michelle Rhee (2014), the ruling Vergara v. California is a “win” for all teachers, and the educational system as a whole, because it abolished teacher tenure and job security for educators (p. 1). Another person who would agree with this stance is Campbell Brown, who argues that all students should “have access to a quality teacher” and she wants “a system that supports, protects, and properly pays good teachers and makes it possible, in a responsible, fair, and timely way, to remove teachers judged to be incompetent” (Strauss, 2014, p. 1). Not all people agree that teacher tenure should be abolished; moreover, there are teachers who are supporting the policies. One of these people is Peter Greene. He (2014) compares teacher tenure to working in the private sector. In the normal workforce, one should be helping that specific …show more content…
For example, Brazile (2014) states “82% of voters able to rate their local teachers believe them to be excellent… almost no one puts the blame on ‘bad teachers.’” On top of using the polls to support her direct claim that people support their teachers, she uses them to cite the reasons why people think public schools are not performing to the standards expected. “40% cite a lack of parental involvement/ support…29% name inadequate funding and resources… 18% peg it on the effects of poverty” (p. 2). By strategically using these polls, Brazile is attempting to show that bad teachers are not the problem; these other issues, such as parents, resources, funding, and poverty, are the real reason schools are not