The Editor’s Note

Abstract

Tenure started for a legitimate reason: Early reformers wanted to ensure that teachers could be dismissed only for cause, which, roughly translated, means a teacher could be discharged only if she wasn’t doing a good job. Then unions, drunk with their own power for several decades, went too far in supporting teachers who did not deserve their support. That overzealousness gave so-called reformers a perfect opening during their general attack on public education. Their ham-handed and dismissive approach to the public schools is wrong. But they are right about trying to tie tenure to evidence of quality teaching. If the profession wants to retain the privilege of tenure, that privilege must be attached to high standards, or it becomes another albatross on the profession.