The Ethics of Teacher Tenure

In common discussions of municipal ethics, one principal type of municipal employee is rarely mentioned: the teacher. Unless a teacher is, say, a school board member, he or she is rarely in a position to have a conflict of interest. Right?

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An article on the front page of today's New York Times got me thinking about another possible conflict of interest a teacher might have. The article is about Steve Barr, who runs the Green Dot charter school organization in Los Angeles. Instead of just applying for and putting together charter schools, Barr is seeking 'systemic change.' Instead of fighting teacher unions, for example, he is working with an alternative teacher union and an alternative contract, which gives teachers more decision-making authority, but no tenure. Instead of fighting public school teachers, he tries to organize them, as well as parents, to petition school authorities to divide big high schools into several smaller charter schools.

He is currently doing this with Locke, a failing high school. One of his principal allies there was a principal, who referred to the high school as a dumping ground for incompetent teachers. More than half the high school's tenured staff members signed a petition endorsing Green Dot's plans for the high school, but most of them were younger teachers. The older teachers were apparently concerned about job security, supporting what the principal said.

The school district's response was to fire the principal and reject the petition.

The ethical issue here is, are these older teachers acting in the public interest, or in their own personal interest? Even their union admits now that it was wrong not to try to organize the charter schools itself. Is tenure that important? In fact, is tenure or seniority even ethical? Whom does it benefit, certain teachers or students? And whom does it hurt? Is it defensible under the standards used to determine ethical conduct?