Why do teachers have tenure but private business employees don ?
A business employee is responsible to a supervisor–a single point of accountability. Except in rare situations, the supervisor has no conflict of interest in evaluating performance. A teacher interacts with children, who may be the relatives or neighbors of the principal, or of members of the School Board. They are accountable to all the parents of the children they teach–they have many points of accountability. They can be doing a fine job, overall, but the parents of some children may disagree with teaching methods, or may not like the grades their children get. Today, tenure protects a principal from being placed into a position of conflicted interests–the conflict between placating an angry relative, neighbor, or School Board member, versus giving a teacher a fair and impartial performance evaluation. Tenure protects good teachers from weak principals and bad school boards. As a consequence, it also may protect bad teachers. When we can assure good teachers that administrative p
