http://www.lasvegassun.

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Are teachers getting tenure too soon?

By David McGrath Schwartz
Carson City lasvegassun.com

In the acrimony over how to improve education in

Nevada comes this argument: Teachers win job
security, called tenure, long before their mettle in
the rough-and-tumble world of classroom
instruction has been sufficiently tested.

The law allows tenure to be granted within two

years of a teachers employment in Nevada. The
Sun has found that, over the past five years, 95
percent of new teachers in Clark County were
John Oceguera granted tenure after just their first year in the
Brian Sandoval
classroom.

The Washoe County School District wants to put the brakes on granting job security so quickly. The
district, which serves Reno, is asking the 2011 Legislature to pass a bill to make new teachers wait at
least three years before earning post-probationary, or tenure, status.

The bill would also make it easier to fire teachers and administrators during those three years.

Washoe County, over the past five years, has given tenure to 88 percent of its teachers after one year.

Superintendent Heath Morrison said only two other states offer tenure to teachers after one year
Hawaii and Mississippi.

The majority have a three-year system.

A three-year period is the appropriate amount of time to make that tenure decision, he said. A one-year
decision forces snap judgments that he said are not fair for either teachers or students.

Bonnie Parnell, former chairwoman of the Assembly Education Committee and former Nevada Teacher of
the Year, had a visceral reaction to the numbers of teachers who get tenure after just one year on the job.

Eww.

I dont think any teacher is really able to show in the first year what theyre capable of, she said. Three
years is a good time to observe whether they understand whats expected of them, the demands of the
job, whether theyre enjoying it.

Nevadas tenure law requires three evaluations in a teachers first year by an administrator. If the teacher
is deemed satisfactory in all three, the administrator can recommend to the district that the teacher be

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granted tenure. If the teacher receives an unsatisfactory in one of the evaluations, or if the administrator
wants to eyeball the teacher some more, the teacher is put on a second year of probation. At the end of
that second year the administrator either recommends tenure or the teachers contract is not renewed.

Tenure has been the outgrowth of an idea that educators should be protected from arbitrary dismissal by
changing school leadership or political trends.

Teachers and administrators say tenure at the K-12 level is different from that enjoyed in higher
education, where its virtually impossible to fire tenured professors. Instead, defenders of the K-12 system
say its about setting up due process rules to protect teachers rights.

The Clark County School District says it has fired 32 tenured teachers over the past five years for
misconduct that includes theft, falsifying an application, falsifying student records and threatening a
supervisor or co-worker.

It has not offered contracts to 171 probationary employees over the past five years because they came up
short on their performance evaluations. The School District has had just over 18,000 licensed personnel
each year for the past four years.

Gov. Brian Sandoval has called for an end to teacher tenure altogether, as has Assembly Speaker John
Oceguera, D-Las Vegas.

Assemblywoman Debbie Smith, D-Sparks, said one year was not sufficient to evaluate a teacher.

For so many years, we had to hire virtually every teacher the district could sign on, she said. Now we
need to fix the system.

The discussion on tenure reflects a larger pushback from public officials against the perceived strength of
teachers and their unions. President Barack Obamas Race to the Top grant competition forced states,
including Nevada, to change laws and allow test scores to be linked to teacher evaluations.

Lynn Warne, president of the Nevada State Education Association, said the system works and ineffective
teachers can and should be removed if they cant improve even after they earn tenure. We dont
protect bad teachers, she said.

Warne blamed administrators for waiving the second year of probation too often.

The process that is in place is a good one, she said. Unfortunately, administrators do not practice and
apply those procedures correctly.

The Clark County School Administrators Association executive director, Stephen Augspurger, sees this
bill as part of the larger trend to blame teachers and administrators for poor student performance, even
though there is no evidence to make that link.

What we currently have in place works well, he said. He challenged the significance of 95 percent of
first-year teachers getting tenure.

How often should it happen? he asked. If it was 80 or 70 percent, would that be better? Im not sure

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thats a legitimate way to judge the system.

Firing ineffective teachers is considered such a cumbersome process that some administrators avoid it
altogether, educators say.

Steve Hill, past chairman of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce who serves on Sandovals transition
team, said educators should be treated like other employers.

Like any pool of people holding a job, some are great, some are adequate, and some shouldnt be in that
job, or not allowed to continue in the job without being retrained, Hill said. Thats what happens in every
other occupation in the country.

Hill said the chamber members feel that tenure is something that should be earned after a longer period
of time at a minimum and potentially be not used as a concept at all.

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