Teacher tenure varies region, but it generally ensures that a teacher cannot be fired without good reason. After working for a school district for a certain number of years, some elementary and high school teachers are granted tenure. Academic tenure or permanent tenure may be awarded to instructors or professors at the college level. Academic tenure ensures promotion opportunities for faculty and protects them from unjustified layoffs or sanctions. Permanent teacher tenure ensures a job for the rest of one’s career.
The number of years that an educator must work for a school district before earning tenure varies region. During formal negotiations with teacher union representatives in the United States, each school district establishes requirements for teacher tenure. After serving a probationary period, teachers in some areas may be eligible for tenure in as little as two years.
When a professor applies for promotion at a university, he or she may be required to serve a longer probationary period. Faculty members typically begin their careers as instructors before being considered for tenure. Before being re-appointed to their probationary position, instructors are usually subjected to regular performance reviews.
In some areas, university administrators take eight to ten years to make a tenure decision. Before becoming a professor, most educators advance through the ranks of assistant professor and associate professor. As a professor, you will almost always have permanent tenure.
This means that a professor can only be fired in exceptional circumstances. Until he or she retires, resigns, or dies, he or she has job security. In most cases, contracts allow for exceptions to lifetime tenure for incompetence or neglect of duty. A professor’s job could be terminated if he or she engages in unethical or criminal behavior.
If layoffs are necessary, tenured teachers are usually given preference over probationary employees. This is known as a reduction in force, and it is caused declining enrollment or other factors. To avoid the due process procedures spelled out in teacher tenure contracts, some school districts offer buyouts to underperforming teachers or teachers approaching retirement age.
Typical teacher-district union contracts provide safeguards for educators facing dismissal due to poor performance. They are usually entitled to a hearing in front of union and school district officials, which may or may not take place in court. By tying job security to student test scores, some regions eliminated tenure guarantees in contracts. Ineffective teachers are frequently rehabilitated under these provisions.
In 1887, the National Education Association was founded as a bargaining unit for teachers. Teacher tenure was first granted to college professors in 1910, but as a result of the women’s suffrage movement, it was extended to elementary and high school teachers in the 1920s. Before that, a teacher could be fired for marrying, becoming pregnant, or showing up to work in slacks.