Monday, February 21, 2011

The Great Injustice of Tenure

Tenure is a much debated topic in the world of education. Proponents argue that it gives young teachers and professors a long-term incentive to improve. Those who argue against tenure, though, would say that giving tenure takes away the incentive for improvement and leads to poorer quality education. Professors and teachers stop caring. When you take away the threat of failure, success is impossible. Productivity ends without the motivation to produce.

Giving tenure to teachers and professors, then, does a great injustice to students. Questions go unanswered. Topics go unresearched. Lessons go unlearned. I would suggest, though, that the greatest injustice is not what is done to the students of those teachers. The greatest injustice is what is done to teachers themselves.

Tenure rewards complacency. Accepting tenure is resigning oneself to a lifetime of untapped potential. No personal development. No progress. No growth. What is the point of living if you aren't constantly becoming better at what you do? Sure, tenure can have a negative effect on the quality of education received by students and it can also keep qualified candidates from getting jobs. However, I still say that the greatest injustice of tenure is that received by those to whom it is paid. Rewarding someone for complacency is sentencing them to an unfulfilled life.

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