USA TODAY US Edition

Teacher tenure protects bad at expense of good

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A California judge ruled last week that the state’s tenure laws are unconstitu­tional and result in ineffectiv­e teachers.

Teachers should be reviewed and held accountabl­e, just as people are in other profession­s.

Dwayne Landry

What is this obsession with firing? Why don’t people talk about training or expectatio­ns? They always talk about firing.

Many with no clue about what it takes to become a teacher, or what teachers face in the classroom, want to blame teachers for students not learning. Yes, there are bad teachers. In any labor market, there are good and bad workers.

Damond Barbee

Schools are not looking to allow arbitrary firings. They simply want to be able to fire or lay off crummy teachers before a much better teacher.

Tony Francis

Tenure should be offered but only after four or five years. This gives management enough time to better decide who is good and who isn’t.

Doug Larson

People often fail to state that tenure has to be earned. In addition, I believe it was intended to take the politics out of teaching. Without tenure, teachers could be replaced regularly by administra­tors.

Howard Renn

A good teacher can make a huge difference compared with a poor one. Many children are having their access to a good teacher and a good education blocked by powerful special interests — teachers’ unions.

It’s about time someone put a stop to it.

Mathew Andresen

If only we could hold parents accountabl­e for their children instead of blaming troubles on teachers, we’d be doing OK. Parents have responsibi­lities as far as their kids are concerned.

Bad teachers are out there, but terrible parents are, too.

Will Sampson

I remember many great teachers, but I also remember some bad ones. One was an older lady who was such a pushover. A few students were smoking pot, and she knew but did nothing. All we did was watch movies in her class.

It was a waste of taxpayer money.

Mary T. Hernandez-borbon

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