Tenure and post-tenure review policies

Post Tenure

Recent Insights in Tenure and Post-Tenure Policies

The concept of tenure is to an extent unique of the educational profession. The protections which tenure implies, our studies have demonstrated, are not afforded to a great many other professionals. It is perhaps for this reason that tenure practices have come under scrutiny and have engendered such a degree of political and administrative disagreement. As we continue our studies on the subject, new insights have emerged concerning the emergence of post-tenure review policies in recent years. Particularly, evidence suggests that ulterior motives exist in the policy orientation toward post-tenure review which inherently hurt the job security of the professor.

One of the most troubling insights is that the development, review and maintenance of tenure policies is largely unsupported by empirical analysis of the subject. This is to say that "anecdote and rhetoric seem to drive tenure debates and policy changes," with research explaining that "data play a relatively limited role in the decision-making about faculty employment policies." (Chait, 4) This is an unfortunate circumstance which suggests instead that most decisions effecting the status and nature of tenure policies is in response to political pressure and prevailing trends in educational politics. In addition to being an irrational way to attend to policy concerns, it does invoke greater consideration of the more insidious implications provoked by the decision to embrace post-tenure policies.

Namely, our findings denote that post-tenure review is intended as a way to strip educators of the tenure protections which can invoke verifiable and therefore costly legal claims. This promotes the argument posited in one article here that economic motivates may be at the root of the erosion of tenure protections. Accordingly, the text by Dilts et al. (2007) makes the argument that "since states would have to pay a higher wage in the absence of tenure, they have an incentive to enact statutes that provide for remedies should faculty members' tenure rights be denied -- hence creating value for tenure. If [these] postulates are correct, there very well could be an economic incentive for public authorities (i.e. states) to create post-tenure review and other methods to avoid such employment rights." (Dilts et al., 335)

This is a new insight on the subject, producing a clearer understanding of the political battle being waged between educators and those administrative and governmental forces that have sought a change in employment policies. And in some regard, teachers face a great deal of opposition not just from educational leadership but from the general public. This returns us to the insight that there is something resembling resentment on the part of other professionals that teachers are afforded this security and, to the perception of some, a freedom from critical oversight. The emergence of post-tenure policies is based on the reality that tenure would function to protect many such teachers whose protected status had allowed for a decline in performance, motivation and effort. According to Chait (2005) "a public perception 'that tenure protects "deadwood" is prevalent and 'alas, correct,' confessed Stanford's former president. As a result, customers and taxpayers feel shortchanged, a concern exacerbated by the end to the mandatory retirement in 1994." (Chait, 11)