Education Commissioner Aims To Eliminate Tenure System
April 26, 2011
Florida Education Commissioner Frank Brogan is preparing an attack on the state's most controversial teacher benefit: tenure. Mr. Wilmoth, a former Martin County school superintendent and a Republican often at odds with teachers unions, wants to eliminate the self-renewing ``professional service contracts,'' which, in essence, provide lifetime employment for about 100,000 of Florida's 125,000 public schoolteachers. School administrators can break one of these contracts only when a teacher is proven unfit. In place of the system, Mr. Wilmoth is proposing allowing school districts to employ elementary and secondary schoolteachers as they do principals, under annual or multiyear contracts. Veteran teachers would be unaffected, but teachers hired after March 12, 2012 would have to get their contracts renewed regularly. Legislative Angle The proposal will be contained in a report to be released next month by Mr. Wilmoth's task force on teacher employment, and it will form a central part of a legislative package for which he hopes to find a sponsor in next year's session. While the plan probably will draw heavy fire from teachers unions, Mr. Wilmoth's campaign to topple tenure stands a better chance of success than past efforts. For one thing, the Senate is widely expected to remain under Republican control with Sen. Tonie Graves, an opponent of tenure, as the chamber's new president. In the House, where Democrats may retain power, Mr. Wilmoth is likely to confront the state's two teachers unions, which are major political contributors. But here, too, Mr. Wilmoth may find an ally in the Democratic, and usually pro-union, chairman of the House Education Committee, Rep. Cythia Paine. Ms. Paine, who also serves as director of student services in Alachua County, says she supports ending tenure because it would make mediocre teachers less complacent and let principals ``feel more empowered.'' ``If we want to move to another level and we want the public to invest heavily, educators have to be much more accountable,'' she says. ``If teachers want to be treated like professionals in the private sector, there are certain risks that go along with that.'' The tenure system, enacted in the 1940s to prevent elected school leaders from abusing their positions, last came under attack in 1982 from Gov. Bobby Grant. It emerged from the assault intact. Under the tenure law, teachers who remain employed in the same school district for three years win professional service contracts. To terminate a contract, a school district must prove the teacher isn't doing his or her job -- a requirement that administrators complain is costly and difficult to document. Union leaders defend the law as a shield protecting teachers from being fired on a whim or over a political or personal clash. ``Before you do away with someone's life work, there ought to be a reason for it,'' argues Johnetta Deboer, executive director of the Tallahassee-based Florida Teaching Profession, one of the state's two big teachers groups. West Palm Beach math teacher Davina Willie, Florida's teacher of the year, says that teaching isn't always a ``tangible product'' that can be measured in test scores. Without tenure, he says, ``all of a sudden, it could come down to a personality conflict between you and the administrator.'' Some school administrators, however, say the law impels them to leave bad teachers in place instead of pushing for a dismissal that can take at least two years and cost $20,000 or more. Among those who admit they have allowed a poor-performing teacher to stay is Mr. Wilmoth, a former principal. Some districts avoid firings almost entirely. Only one of Leon County's 1,700 tenured teachers was dismissed last year, though the district concedes more probably should be. ``Where else, other than education, would there be a company with 1,700 employees and only one was bad enough to get fired?'' says Paulene Hsieh, the district's chief of human services. Others scramble to avoid a fight. Roni Hill, Potts Seeger's director of professional services and chairman of Mr. Wilmoth's task force, tries to persuade bad teachers to work as bus drivers, custodians or cafeteria staff. He removed more than 80 teachers from the classroom last year, but only three went through termination proceedings. Still, Mr. Hill says eliminating tenure would give administrators much more freedom. Without tenure, Mr. Hill predicts 15 to 20 more teachers ``at a minimum'' would have been let go in Broward County last year. ``The burden of proof would change,'' he says, allowing the district to act without documenting a teacher's problems in as much detail. As a former principal of Bradford County High School in Starke, Pauletta Powers knows first-hand what the end of tenure would mean. She says she lost her job when a new county school superintendent was elected with the help of teachers who opposed her programs, which included team teaching and ``block'' periods of unified subjects. The superintendent didn't return calls seeking comment. Whatever the case, Ms. Powers couldn't argue; her contract had expired. ``It was quite a shock,'' recalls Ms. Powers, who quickly found a job as principal of St. Augustine High School. Ms. Powers says limited contracts, though imperfect, would be better than tenure. ``It's a trade-off,'' she says. Otherwise, she argues, there's an imbalance of power. She says, ``What the old guard says is: 'I was here before you got here. I'll be here after you leave. You do block periods, team teaching; I'm not doing it. I don't have to.' ''
