Leave tenure a contract issue

Tenure is meant to bring a certain measure of job security to professions in which performance can be somewhat difficult to measure. In the university setting it’s meant to protect academic freedom, so that a tenured professor would feel free to pursue scholarly work without fearing that his or her evaluation would be muddied by political clashes or other conflicts over subject matter.

In the K-12 schools, teachers unions have sought tenure more to give members protection from dismissal without cause. Assessing a teacher’s effectiveness can be ambiguous if it’s done carelessly, so tenure at the public-schools level is designed to make sure teachers get due process: ample opportunities to defend their performance, with the help of their union.

The problem in Hawaii and elsewhere has been that the protected status is awarded too soon, after only two years, and with the quality bar set too low. In the context of a national movement for tenure reform, the state Department of Education has included worthy changes in its improvement program funded by a Race to the Top federal grant.

But these amendments, which would have required that teachers work three years on probation before becoming eligible for tenure and would have set tougher performance-based requirements, were rejected when the members of the Hawaii State Teachers Association voted down the latest contract.

While it’s understandable that lawmakers now want a hand on the reform reins — Hawaii is near the bottom of the pack nationally when it comes to rigorous standards for tenure — governance of hiring and faculty management really should rest in contract negotiations between the DOE as employer and the HSTA as employee representative.

Tenure is an element of working conditions and the law protects that as a subject for bargaining. Beyond the legal reasoning, however, it’s educators, not lawmakers, who have the expertise to handle this issue.

That’s why House Bill 1668 and its companion, Senate Bill 2993, should not be passed. As currently written, the bills seek to end teacher tenure altogether, which House Education Chairman Roy Takumi promised would not be a part of any bill his committee ultimately approves.

The bill’s original form has sparked a furious response from teachers, who on Wednesday swamped the House panel with testimony; SB 2993 will be heard at 2:15 today in conference room 225.

Even if the legislation seeks instead to enact the stricter form of tenure sought in contract negotiations rather than ban it outright, HSTA members made a persuasive case this week that this should remain the bailiwick of collective bargaining.

That said, teachers need to act on the message trumpeted by these two bills: The tenure system is too lax and should be reformed. The rank-and-file should support attempts to make tenure more meaningful, a reflection of true excellence rather than a mere "satisfactory" rating.

The extended probationary time represents a sensible first step toward reform. Educators cite studies showing that it often takes three to five years to refine the skills necessary for the classroom, and that it can take at least that long before a new teacher finally decides the profession is a good fit.

Further, an administrator should look at more measures of effectiveness before awarding tenure. That was the finding of the National Council on Teacher Quality in its 2011 State Teacher Policy Yearbook. Among its recommendations for Hawaii: "The decision to grant tenure should be a deliberate one, based on consideration of a teacher’s commitment and actual evidence of classroom effectiveness."

That’s a rational piece of counsel. But ultimately arriving at the formula for that effectiveness score should be done through negotiations between the parties that know educational principles: teachers and administrators. The effort by the Legislature to intercede, though well-intentioned, likely won’t produce results that teachers will embrace, which is what needs to happen if true improvement is the goal.