Tenure is under fire. Conservatives have long attacked such policies as tenure that constrain the ability of managers to fire whomever they want, but the latest assaults on tenure have invoked liberal egalitarian ideals. With all the problems in education, why are we so fixated on teacher tenure? What is really going on? How did tenure get its start, and why is it still necessary? The author ventures to answer all these questions, positing that tenure is necessary because it significantly strengthens legal protections by shifting to the employer the burden to prove the termination is justified. Tenure protects a range of discriminatory firings not covered under race and gender antidiscrimination laws. The author also points out that there are better ways to running the tenure system than what is happening currently. Places that have used master teachers to contribute to a peer assessment system have had good results.
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