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Should teachers get tenure?
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"Teacher Tenure\nHere are some facts against Teacher Tenure: Teacher tenure creates complacency because teachers know they are unlikely to lose their jobs. Tenure removes incentives for teachers to put in more than the minimum effort and to focus on improving their teaching. [8] Tenure makes it difficult to remove under-performing teachers because the process involves months of legal wrangling by the principal, the school board, the union, and the courts. A June 1, 2009 study by the New Teacher Project found that 81% of school administrators knew a poorly performing tenured teacher at their school; however, 86% of administrators said they do not always pursue dismissal of teachers because of the costly and time consuming process. It can take up to 335 days to remove a tenured teacher in Michigan before the courts get involved. [2] [4] Tenure makes seniority the main factor in dismissal decisions instead of teacher performance and quality. [21] Tenure laws maintain the \"last-hired, first-fired\" policy. On Feb. 24, 2010, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against the Los Angeles Unified School District, claiming that basing layoffs on seniority harms younger teachers as well as \"low-income students and persons of color.\" [22] On Oct. 6, 2010, both sides settled to cap or end layoffs at schools. [23] Tenure is not needed to recruit teachers. Sacramento Charter High School, which does not offer tenure, had 900 teachers apply for 80 job openings. [3] With job protections granted through court rulings, collective bargaining, and state and federal laws, teachers today no longer need tenure to protect them from dismissal. [24] For this reason, few other professions offer tenure because employees are adequately protected with existing laws. [25] Tenure makes it costly for schools to remove a teacher with poor performance or who is guilty of wrongdoing. It costs an average of $250,000 to fire a teacher in New York City. [27] New York spent an estimated $30 million a year paying tenured teachers accused of incompetence and wrongdoing to report to reassignment centers (sometimes called \"rubber rooms\") where they were paid to sit idly.Those rooms were shut down on June 28, 2010. [6] With most states granting tenure after three years, teachers have not had the opportunity to \"show their worth, or their ineptitude.\" [28] A Nov. 21, 2008 study by the University of Washington's Center on Reinventing Public Education found that the first two to three years of teaching do not predict post-tenure performance. [29] Tenure does not grant academic freedom. No Child Left Behind in 2001 took away much academic freedom when it placed so much emphasis on standardized testing. [10] According to an Oct. 1, 2006 survey published in Planning and Changing, 56% of school board presidents disagreed with the statement that teacher tenure ensures academic freedom. [18] Tenure at the K-12 level is not earned, but given to nearly everyone. To receive tenure at the university level, professors must show contributions to their fields by publishing research. At the K-12 level, teachers only need to \"stick around\" for a short period of time to receive tenure. [30] A June 1, 2009 study by the New Teacher Project found that less than 1% of evaluated teachers were rated unsatisfactory. [2] Tenure is unpopular among educators and the public. An Apr.-May 2011 survey of 2,600 Americans found that 49% oppose teacher tenure while 20% support it. Among teachers, 53% support tenure while 32% oppose it. According to a Sep. 2010 report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 86% of education professors favor \"making it easier to terminate unmotivated or incompetent teachers - even if they are tenured.\" [31] [32] Teacher tenure does nothing to promote the education of children. Former DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee said in 2008, \"Tenure is the holy grail of teacher unions, but it has no educational value for kids; it only benefits adults.\" [27] Teacher tenure requires schools to make long-term spending commitments and prevents districts from being fiscally flexible. Teacher employment contracts generally lack provisions for declining enrollment and economic turmoil. [33] Tenure lets experienced teachers pick easier assignments and leaves difficult assignments to the least experienced teachers. Senior teachers choose to teach more resource-rich and less challenging populations instead of the classrooms that would benefit the most from experienced teachers. [34] Public Agenda President Deborah Wadsworth argues that teacher tenure leads to \"a distribution of talent that is flawed and inequitable.\" [34] Most school board presidents criticize teacher tenure. In an Oct. 1, 2006 survey, 91% of school board presidents either agreed or strongly agreed that tenure impedes the dismissal of under-performing teachers. 60% also believed that tenure does not promote fair evaluations. [18] ~http://teachertenure.procon.org... *You present your facts and then we will post rebuttals for facts from this round*",
"Teachers shouldnt be laid off because of senority\nWhy should teachers be laid off because of seniority? Many electives teachers got laid off. Even a Music Teacher got laid off even though she won a award for the best teacher in the valley! Ironic isn't it?",
"There should not be a teacher tenure.\nQuotes used in my debate are all included here. (I know this is not exactly allowed and it's really messy and confusing but 10,000 characters (approx. 1500 words) really isn’t enough for 10 rebuttals.) Rebuttal of ‘Reason 1’: ‘a’ (this is where Quote a. from the picture should go) Pro is presupposing that teachers will become complacent if they know they are unlikely to lose their jobs. However, 1. Pro does not give any proof that supports this. 2. A study suggests that academic performance does not slack off after tenure. [1] (Downloadable on the website). It measures the productivity (total number of papers) and impact (citations of papers) of the economics and finance faculty from top twenty-five schools and it finds that they are consistent before and after tenure. 3. There are other incentives for teachers to work. [1] points out that other incentives including pay rise, reduced teaching load and more research funds. Pressure from colleagues and academic discipline are also incentives for teachers to work. Therefore, I can conclude that ‘reason 1’ is invalid. (Although [1] is focused on professors, some incentives I have listed in 3. are also shared by K-12 teachers.) Rebuttal of ‘Reason 2 and 6’ ‘b’‘c’ What Pro says is misleading. Tenure may make it difficult to remove under-performing teachers but it makes it EQUALLY DIFFICULT to remove good teachers. But isn’t this the whole point of tenure - to protect teachers from being fired without a just cause, so to protect academic freedom and increase the quality of education? Also, how many under-performing teachers are there anyway? Teachers perform poorly either because they don’t have the ability to perform well, or they are able to but they are simply complacent and therefore not willing to make an effort. The latter I have already proven to be unlikely in my ‘Rebuttal of ‘Reason 1’. The former, as I will explain now, is unlikely too. If a teacher were inept, he wouldn’t have been employed and wouldn’t have been granted tenure in the first place. This isn’t really a disadvantage because under-performing teachers are rare while many more teachers and students can be benefitted. ‘d’ Exactly. There are laws our there designed to remove tenured teachers. It is the administrators’ fault that for some reason they do not use these laws to dismiss teachers, not tenure’s fault. I do agree that tenure makes it difficult to fire under-performing teachers. However, these teachers are rare and it is equally difficult to fire good teachers. If school administrators can utilise tenure well then both under-performing teachers can be fired and good teachers can be protected. Rebuttal of ‘Reason 3’ A large number of people being against tenure cannot explain whether tenure is inherently good or bad. Rebuttal of ‘Reason 4’ ‘e’ This is a short-sighted and superficial statement to make and Pro fails to realise the indirect effect tenure has on students. Tenure gives teachers academic freedom to teach controversial subjects. Students are being taught these and it is already evident how students are affected and benefited. Students develop critical thinking skills and gain knowledge to a wide range of topics. Other benefits of students are mentioned in previous round. The statement that teacher tenure does nothing to promote the education of children is simply not true. Rebuttal of ‘Reason 5’ ‘f’ This merely shows that the system used to grant tenures to K-12 teachers is not strict enough. At best, it only shows that some sort of reform may be needed to change the way tenure is granted at K-12 level, but tenure itself is fine. Also, this argument only focuses on K-12 teachers, and I will remind voters professors are also included in this debate. Rebuttal of ‘Reason 7’ ‘g’ I have already explained in my 2nd contention that tenure can attract people to become teachers. So now the question is whether tenure is NEEDED to do so? The answer is yes, because less people can apply for teacher college and an estimated of 440,000 extra teachers are needed to replace baby boomers. This I have also explained in my 2nd contention. Further evidence that supports this is a webpage on the California Teacher Association website, titled ‘Impending Teacher Shortage Crisis’ [3]. Pro has given the example of a school in Sacramento (Capital of California) to show that there isn’t a teacher shortage. However, it is only the example of a single school and it does not show the general pattern while the statewide statistics do. Also, Pro overlooks other factors that could attract an unusually high number of teachers to apply for jobs at this school – e.g. a high salary. In conclusion, Pro’s point is invalid because I have pointed out the problems with the example she uses. I have also provided a more representative data that disproves her point. Furthermore, I have explained in my 2nd contention about how tenure can and needs to attract people to become teachers. Rebuttal for ‘Reason 8’ ‘h’ 1. The fact that there are multiple methods to protect teacher from dismissal does not mean that teacher tenure is unnecessary. If, according to Pro’s logic, only one way of protecting teacher from dismissal is needed, then shouldn’t ‘collective bargaining, state law and federal law’ be unnecessary too because ‘job protections granted through court rulings’ can offer this protection already? Wouldn’t she be contradicting herself by listing 4 alternatives when she is saying that only one is needed? 2. If that was not what she meant, if she is also acknowledging that different methods can co-exist, then why choose teacher tenure to be the one to be abolished? Pro says teacher tenure has many disadvantages, but I’ve refuted her arguments about these disadvantages already in my above rebuttals. Also, the other methods she has listed do have some of the disadvantages that teacher tenure has too because they have similar purposes. 3. If you look at the sections related to alternative methods to protect teachers from the document Pro used as evidence in her argument, (p.4, paragraphs 2-3) [4] it says: ‘i’ The document does not see these alternatives as a long-term solution, but only as a temporary measure to protect teachers during the period of tenure law reform in NJ. ‘It does not in any way, describe these alternatives as effective either, saying that all they merely do is ‘not leave teachers at the mercy of cruel and capricious boards of education.’ In the last few sentences, it even stresses on the benefits of tenure. The conclusion is that the evidence Pro uses doesn’t actually support her claim. If anything, it is CONTRADICTORY to her entire position in this debate. Pro does not give any explanation to why tenure in particular should be abolished but not other methods of protecting teachers. The evidence given by her – not only is it unsupportive of her argument – it is even against it. Rebuttal for ‘Rebuttal for \"high standard\"’ I have explained in my Rebuttal of ‘Reason 4’ how tenure can have indirect effects on children too. Pro shouldn’t just focus on direct effects and it is a shallow thing to do so. Furthermore, Pro has completely dropped my point on academic freedom and tacitly agrees that it does benefit people (‘j’) but she tries to deny the merit of it by claiming it does not benefit students. Therefore, my point still stands. Tenure protects academic freedom, allowing teachers to perform research freely and teach controversial subjects, which benefits students. Rebuttal for ‘Rebuttal for \"high standard\"’ Pro argues that my 2nd contention is false in her rebuttal. Her reasons for this are: 1. ‘k’ This, I have already explained why it is not true in my ‘Rebuttal of ‘Reason 1’: Pro failed to support ‘reason 1’ with proof; I have provided studies that disprove it; I have explained that there are other incentives for the teacher to work. 2. ‘l’ If you look at [2] and [4] of the previous round you will see Pro’s assertion ‘m’ (incidentally, she uses the wrong ‘then’) is already proven false by sources I have cited in the previous round and she hasn’t given evidence in this round that proves otherwise. ‘n’ [3] of my previous round has already proven this false. I have proven both of these reasons given by Pro as false thus her rebuttal of my point is invalid. Therefore, my point still stands, which I will repeat here once more: Teacher tenure provides a high standard of education to students. Also, I want to point out that Pro’s rebuttal of my 2nd contention is not supported by evidence and merely based on assertion. Why should you vote Con? Pro has explained the disadvantages of tenure but most of which have been refuted. I have explained the advantages of tenure, which Pro has either dropped or attempted to refute but does not succeed as I have proven her rebuttals invalid. This means I have successfully shown that there should be teacher tenure because the advantages outweigh the disadvantages while Pro has not shown why there should not be teacher tenure I have met the criteria for me to win this debate but Pro hasn’t. Also BoP should be on Pro because she needs to explain why the status quo should be changed but she fails to fulfil this BoP. Other than that Pro has, on many occasions, failed to provide evidence to support her claims and in her rebuttal of my 2nd contention, Pro’s blatantly disregards the sources I have cited in the previous round and she continues to make unfounded assertions, which are already proven false by these sources. Pro’s arguments heavily rely on ‘appeal to emotion’ and ‘circular reasoning’. [1]http://papers.ssrn.com...; [2] Deleted [3] https://www.cta.org... [4] http://www.njsba.org...",
"Colleges should abolish the ability for teachers to be tenured.\nSince I assume their opening statement was made in their R1 post, I will begin mine as well. I will be arguing against the idea that tenure for college professors should be abolished. I have three main claims: [Claim 1]: Tenure is a necessity [Claim 2]: Tenured teachers can still be fired (and other misconceptions) [Claim 3]: Research supports tenure [C1]: Tenure is a necessity The concept of tenure dates back over 100 years ago to the early 20 century, when working in the field of education was much different than what it is today [1]. It was female-dominated, classrooms were larger, and working conditions were poorer [2]. Before tenure, teachers could be fired for any reason. If a teacher had the audacity to get married or, even more horrific, pregnant, the schoolboard could immediately fire her. Tenure and teachers' unions were created to guarantee some amount of job protection for teachers. They wanted the peace of mind to know their job wouldn't be terminated for seemingly no reason. At the high school level, most schools require teachers work at the same school for 3-5 years before being considered for tenure, and there are many factors taken into account, with the most important one being a teacher's ability to teach. At the university level, I believe you have to have taught for 6 years before tenure consideration. Once a teacher is granted tenure, however, it does not mean they are immune from being fired. \"Tenure protects academic freedom. In the absence of tenure, teachers may be fired for any reason. Teachers may be fired if the principal doesn't like them or if they are experienced and become too expensive. Teachers may be fired for being outspoken. [2]\" In other words, tenure gives teachers a safeguard to be able to be more involved with the decisions being made at their school, as opposed to being complacent and accepting any and all changes. At the college level, this is incredibly important as professors want to challenge their students and (sometimes) have them confront and critique their already-established beliefs. When I took a Sociology course my senior year of university, our professor warned us of an upcoming lecture the following week where she was going to discuss religion and look at many of the popular ones under a critical lens. I thought this was a strange warning, as anyone whose convictions are strong enough should be fine with having their beliefs challenged. To my surprise, however, many students' parents would contact her to complain. Tenure in this situation protects the professor from being fired simply because a student didn't like one of their lectures. [C2]: Tenured teachers can still be fired (and other misconceptions) There are a lot of myths surrounding the idea of tenure, which is primarily the reason why I accepted this debate in the first place. Some people, for example, think that tenured teachers cannot be fired and have permanent job security forever and can therefore sit back and be a less effective teacher with no criticism whatsoever. This is absolutely not true. Again, tenure grants teachers job security and the inability to be fired without due process. Ineffective (or \"bad\") teachers can still be terminated. However, I think firing someone with no intervention or professional development workshops to help them is a bit harsh. Tenure (especially at the university level) is something that needs to be earned from the hardest-working teachers after a long and arduous process. They have to have committed some amount of research outside their teaching hours, demonstrate very strong teaching abilities, among many other factors. Tenure does not \"protect\" \"burnt-out\" teachers either. \"How many students have complained about a teacher they see as too strict or \"boring\" - only to realize later in life that this teacher made a profound difference in their lives? Research shows that there is no one style that equates to effective teaching - which underscores why a fair hearing is needed before the imposition of a serious consequence such as firing a teacher who has demonstrated years of effective teaching. [3]\" [C3]: Research supports tenure Not only have we established tenure does not help bad teachers keep their job, but there is abolutely no research that suggests students perform worse on standardized tests when taught by a tenured teacher, nor is there evidence that supports perform better with non-tenured teachers [2]. Not only this, but tenured teachers and professors also feel to have a higher obligation to be involved in school-making decisions. \"Research finds that when teachers have a say in how schools are run, they are more likely to be invested in the school and to stay longer, and are more engaged with colleagues in cooperative work. [4]\" In conclusion, tenure is a necessary provision for good teachers and promotes a stronger school culture, thus increasing academic achievement, not hindering it. The myth that tenure protects ineffective teachers is simply untrue. I await Pro's response. Thank you. Sources: [1] . http://www.peoplesworld.org... [2] . http://www.nytimes.com... [3] . http://www.nysut.org... [4] . http://www.aft.org...",
"The collective bargaining rights of teachers should be removed\nCON falsely claims that I have not shown that collective bargaining are responsible for education inefficiency. I have shown multiple reasons why collective bargaining is inefficient. It is mathematically proven to be inefficient based on the theory of monopolies. It is also responsible for inefficiency by blocking education reform. CON states that school districts cannot raise taxes. However teacher unions finance politicians in exchange the politician raises taxes, which would allow increasing the budget. AFT has donated millions of dollars in campaign contributions. However, teacher unions do increase the size of the school budget. CON even states that the biggest expense is labor. Yet teacher unions are directly responsible for the high cost of labor since collective bargaining raises that cost. As I already showed, teachers are paid more than psychologists, and public teachers receive much higher salaries then private nonunionized teachers. CON states that removing collective bargaining rights will create bad teachers since they will get paid less. First, If a teacher cannot be fired, then the teacher will have less of a financial incentive to teach well. Second, If falling salaries create poor teachers, then the school district will increase teacher salary. No unions required. Privatized schools do better than public schools, yet pay teachers less and do not unionize teachers. CON dismisses the difference between public and private sector bargaining, but does not give an explanation why even though I showed why public sector bargaining is quite different and more dangerous to economic liberty than private sector bargaining. Rejecting an argument arbitrary is not a form of argumentation. CON states unions are responsible for many government worker regulations, yet there is no proof that either unions are responsible or that the regulations are good. OSHA safety regulation has done nothing to increase safety, and the rate of reduction in workplace fatalities has not decreased due to OSHA [1]. Mandating a 40-hour work week is also pointless. People choose work based on how much he or she is willing to work. Hence, this is why part-time jobs exists. The market works so that workers salaries and working conditions improve as capital resources and technology improves, and no unions or government intervention is needed. Henry Ford decided to pay his workers a higher salary, give them less hours of work, and created a sociological department to improve workers lives. Henry Ford did not do this out of generosity, because he wanted healthy workers and less turnovers. He was actually quite anti-union as well. CON’s only rebuttal to education being a public service is that ‘It is what it is’ and even confirms that teacher unions are responsible. What he is rebutting is wrong, since I favor school choice. School choice is what makes US universities the best in the world. CON argues against a program proven to work that the teacher union blocks. CON states that tenure and dismissal is set through the states and should be part of the debate. This is wrong. His own source shows that teacher unions play a part in tenure. “The following are some of the matters that are often the subject of this bargaining: Tenure”[2] Also: When school attendant, Michelle Rhee proposed a voluntarily two-tier track to either have teachers have tenure or give teachers the potential to earn as much as $140,00 per year, the teacher union needed to vote on the proposal. Why are they voting if they have no say? [3] Introduction: CON is using ad homeinum attacks to discredit me. He says that the status quo is not being challenged for the right reasons. I just provided arguments and reasons in this debate to explain the problem. And somehow I should be discredit since I have a financial incentive, yet somehow teachers do not have a financial incentive to keep the status quo. Really? Also CON accuses me of not being an expert and should listen to the teachers, yet what about the school attendances that try to push education reform yet fail? Isn’t the school attendant the expert in education? Why aren’t the teacher unions listening to them? What about the teacher in the video I showed that spoke out against the teacher unions? Con is trying to discredit me without providing any arguments. This is a foul debate tactic. Protection: CON states that this is a clear turn, without actually citing why it should be a turn. Does he want teachers that commit sexual misconduct, abusiveness, and do not follow the curriculum? Extend arguments that teachers do not need to be protected due to internal system that protect teachers. CON keeps on going on the fact that teachers are at the mercy of the students. This is like stating that doctors are at the mercy of their patient. Everyone realizes that a patient dying from terminal cancer is different from a patient dying from a broken arm. Everyone knows that teaching students that are not educated to begin with is difficult. I already explained that teacher performance can be evaluated by measuring the performance of students before and after the school year. CON then tries to attack my claims, stating that I’m not a teacher. So what? Does he seriously believe that somehow private teachers and lawyers attract much more bad performers then public teachers, and that’s why the teacher firing rate is so low? Give me a break. I was a high school student a few years back with good grades. There were some really bad teachers out there. Past Practice Resolution: The collective bargaining rights of teachers should be removedImplementation: Create a law that removes the collective bargaining rights of teachers There, refuted. Other Legal Issues Create a law that removes collective bargaining rights of state employees. There, refuted. As explained earlier, state budgets can easily be increased through taxation obtained through coercion. The product in the public sector does not need to be demanded unlike products in the private sector. If you have a relentless private union who refuses to compromise, the company goes bankrupt. If you have a relentless public union who refuses to compromise, the government raises taxes or increases the debt. Teacher unions and other public unions pay off politicians to raise taxes or increase the debt in order to finance their budgets. Specialization CON states that it is not the job of the union to create jobs. So this argument is nonsense, since a teacher is still taking a huge risk since a job cannot be guaranteed. In fact, based on my previous analysis, unions make the risks greater. The AMA and bar association are quite different from AFT since lawyers and medical professions lose their license much more frequently then teachers, do not contribute any campaign money to politicians, and are used to improve the profession. Go on to the AMA and bar association and you’ll find published peer reviewed journals, ways to improve oneself professionally. Go on AFT and you’ll find almost none of that. CON uses the excuse for lawyers and doctors that many of them work individually. Note that many doctors work at hospitals, and many lawyers work at law firms and corporations, yet are not unionized. Also note that a teacher can work independently as a tutor. CON still not explain why teachers should be “protected” due to financial risks, but not others. Conclusion: CON fails to defend his arguments and instead uses ad homenium attacks and appeal to (false) athority arguments isntead of actually takig on my arguments. I look forward to the final round. . http://www.coyoteblog.com...[1] . http://www.enotes.com...[2] . http://teachersunionexposed.com...[3]",
"Should teachers union be abolished\nAs i'm looking forward to a productive debate. To begin, i'd like to state why teachers unions should be abolished. Teacher's unions are detrimental to this nation's public education system because, teacher's have the to strike which interrupts learning of the student, tenure, protection for proven noneffective teachers, and union's donate to politicians to advance their own agenda. These unions put their own agenda in front of what be a number #1 priority for them, teaching this nation's children.",
"There should not be a teacher tenure.\nThank you sara_ann_dee for her argument. In this debate, I will argue that ‘there should be a teacher tenure.’ Whether this tenure is reformed, or reduced to only applicable to some teachers, does not matter as long as I am able to prove that ‘teacher tenure’ should, in some form, exist. Voters should vote for me if I am able to do this. Although rebuttals are reserved for the next round, I urge that voters should not blindly accept my opponent's point as I have already discovered some problems in them. First I will define the word ‘tenure’.Tenure: tenure is a form of job security for teachers, given after a probationary period. Please note that: Tenure doesn’t guarantee lifetime employment. It simply protects teachers from being dismissed without just cause. Teachers with tenure are entitled to a hearing in which the school district must prove that the teacher failed a specific standard that’s required of the teacher. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Teaching is a very important profession. Being a teacher, you pass knowledge on to the next generation and if you also do research, you make new discoveries and question the way things are; in other words, challenge the status quo. Teacher tenure ensures that teachers can perform these two tasks by protecting their academic freedom. Moreover, teacher tenure raises the standard of education to a higher level by attracting more capable people to enter this field and allowing teachers to focus on teaching than not being fired. In short, tenure makes sure that the functions of such an important profession can be carried out without any hindrance, that such an important job is done at a high standard, in the hands of gifted people. 1. Teacher tenure protects the academic freedom of teachers. Academic freedom is of paramount importance. Academic freedom prevents any political, intellectual, or religious orthodoxy from hampering the discovery of knowledge and the study and criticism of intellectual or cultural traditions. Without the assurance of academic freedom, many teachers may be discouraged from taking novel or unpopular positions. Important ideas might not be advanced and intellectual debate and advancement would suffer. Protecting the academic freedom of teachers may sound like something that is only beneficial to teachers. However this is not true. With teacher tenure, teachers’ academic freedom of teaching controversial subjects is also protected. This is beneficial to students because they will be exposed to a wider range of views and topics and they will acquire more knowledge. But more importantly, they will also develop critical thinking skills and instead of blindly accepting what others say about it, they can question the legitimacy of them on their own. Another example that demonstrates the importance of protecting academic freedom is Galileo and his support for the Copernican Theory. [1] In this case, there was a violation against Galileo’s academic freedom to support Copernican theory, a very important theory in astronomy, which has a profound impact on mankind. If this violation had been successful, it could have barred this theory reaching other people; consequently, we may never have gained the knowledge that Earth in fact orbits the Sun; and without this knowledge, NASA would never have been able to send a probe on a 7.5 billion km journey to Pluto and we would never have received pictures of such a beautiful place. 2. Teacher tenure is necessary to provide a high standard of education to students. Tenured teachers cannot be dismissed without a just cause as I have mentioned at the very beginning of my argument. Therefore it allows teachers to focus on their job and act in the best interest of students (e.g. failing a student with powerful parents when it is necessary so that he realizes he has to improve) instead of having to worry about political correctness and keeping their job. This ensures that the education that we give to students is of the highest standard. Secondly, according to [2], the admission requirements for future applicants to teacher colleges will increase in the next few years. It is shown on the National Education Association website that teachers make less than other professions receiving similar training and responsibilities. [3] The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that public schools will need more than 440,000 new elementary and secondary teachers by the end of the decade to replace retiring baby boomers. [4] These sources show that more people, and more talented ones with higher academic achievements are needed as teachers, an occupation that is not that well paid. Teacher tenure solves this problem by attracting talented people to become teachers by giving teachers security and stability to their jobs. This is extremely important because only by having good teachers and having enough of them can we provide education of a high standard to students. Brief summary of my arguments 1. Tenure protects academic freedom, allowing teachers to perform research freely and teach controversial subjects.2. Tenure attracts more gifted people to enter this profession and allows them to focus on teaching, thus raising the standard of education to a high level.Again, I have not dropped my opponent's points. I will simply address them in the next round in accordance to the rules of this debate. Links: [1] https://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com... [3] http://www.nea.org... [4] http://blogs.edweek.org... [5] http://www.joebaugher.com...",
"There should not be a teacher tenure.\nReason 1 - Teacher tenure creates complacency because teachers know they are unlikely to lose their jobs: If teachers know that they reached the period where they get special defence from most accusations - it would send the message to them that they can then do whatever they want to do in the classroom and really slack with their teaching duties. Reason 2 - Tenure makes it difficult to remove under-performing teachers because the process involves months of legal wrangling by the principal, the school board, the union, and the courts: Most schools stop trying to fire a certain teacher because the proccess is just too difficult. \" A June 1, 2009 study by the New Teacher Project found that 81% of school administrators knew a poorly performing tenured teacher at their school; however, 86% of administrators said they do not always pursue dismissal of teachers because of the costly and time consuming process. It can take up to 335 days to remove a tenured teacher in Michigan before the courts get involved. \" (. http://teachertenure.procon.org...) (Patrick McGuinn, \"Ringing the Bell for K-12 Teacher Tenure Reform,\" www. americanprogress. org). This quote means that 86 OUT OF 100 SCHOOL ADMINISTRATORS WANT A TEACHER TO BE FIRED - but will not do so because the proccess is to draining. But what does that leave our learning and growing generation with? Many teachers who do not care, teach well, or put effort in their work? That is certaintly what this is going to result into if we do not abolish it quickly. Also check out this statistic of who is in favor (people in general) \"An Apr. -May 2011 survey of 2,600 Americans found that 49% oppose teacher tenure while 20% support it. Among teachers, 53% support tenure while 32% oppose it. According to a Sep. 2010 report by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, 86% of education professors favor \"making it easier to terminate unmotivated or incompetent teachers - even if they are tenured. ” Of course you cannot expect most teachers to be against it sinse that it their profession and it effects them - but for bystanders with accurate and unbiased opinions, look how many people are against it. Also, \"56% of school board presidents disagreed with the statement that teacher tenure ensures academic freedom. \" (M. J. Stephey, \"A Brief History of Tenure,\" www. time. com). Reason 3 - Most people are against teature tenure: \"In an Oct. 1, 2006 survey, 91% of school board presidents either agreed or strongly agreed that tenure impedes the dismissal of under-performing teachers. 60% also believed that tenure does not promote fair evaluations. \" (. http://teachertenure.procon.org...) This means that most teachers OF SUCH A LARGE PERCENTAGE are not in favor of the teacher tenure. Reason 4 - Teacher tenure does nothing to promote the education of children: \"Former DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee said in 2008, \"Tenure is the holy grail of teacher unions, but it has no educational value for kids; it only benefits adults. ”(\"Rhee-Forming D. C. Schools,\" www. wsj. com). This piece of evidence means that the only people actually benefiting from this tenure are the teachers who are employed - not any students. Isint education suppost to be focused on the younger generation and their best interest? Since when did school become all about the teachers - this tenure undermines what it means to actually be a teacher. If anything, it is only a BAD THING for students - and why would we keep something in our school systems that MAKES THE GENERATIONS' LEARNING LESS VALUEABLE? It does not make any sense. Reason 5 - Tenure at the K-12 level is not earned, but given to nearly everyone: \"To receive tenure at the university level, professors must show contributions to their fields by publishing research. At the K-12 level, teachers only need to \"stick around” for a short period of time to receive tenure. A June 1, 2009 study by the New Teacher Project found that less than 1% of evaluated teachers were rated unsatisfactory. \" (Marcus A. Winters, \"Challenging Tenure in D. C. ,\" www. manhattan-institute. org). This statistic is absolutely upsetting and degrating. Basically, this quote is explaning how 99% of teachers have free protection handed to them if they just stay in that profession for a certain amount of time. What if that teacher was already slacking in many areas? Now we are going to award them for poor effort and teaching abilities? It is not fair to the students involved with these teachers and it is not fair that they do not actually have to WORK to recieve a benefit of protection unlike most other professions that require some form of acomplishment to recieve that/those benefits in question. Because \"with most states granting tenure after three years, teachers have not had the opportunity to \"show their worth, or their ineptitude. \" (Rose Garrett, \"What Is Teacher Tenure? ,\" www. education. com), (. http://teachertenure.procon.org...).Reason 6 - Tenure makes it costly for schools to remove a teacher with poor performance or who is guilty of wrongdoing: \"It costs an average of $250,000 to fire a teacher in New York City. New York spent an estimated $30 million a year paying tenured teachers accused of incompetence and wrongdoing to report to reassignment centers (sometimes called \"rubber rooms”) where they were paid to sit idly. Those rooms were shut down on June 28, 2010. \" (\"Rhee-Forming D. C. Schools,\" www. wsj. com), (Steven Brill, \"The Rubber Room,\" New Yorker). This is just sad, now it even costs the school boards money for teachers not doing their job? Should'nt that be the opposite? Reason 7 - Tenure is not needed to recruit teachers: \"Sacramento Charter High School, which does not offer tenure, had 900 teachers apply for 80 job openings. \" (Nanette Asimov, \"Teacher Job Security Fuels Prop. 74 Battle,\" San Francisco Chronicle). This quote further proves why tenure is pretty much useless and unfair because teachers DO NOT NEED TENURE to continue their job as a teacher at their shchool, past school, future school, or school they are applying for. Reason 8 - With job protections granted through court rulings, collective bargaining, and state and federal laws, teachers today no longer need tenure to protect them from dismissal: \"For this reason, few other professions offer tenure because employees are adequately protected with existing laws. \" (Tenure Reforms and NJSBA Policy: Report of the NJSBA Tenure Task Force,\" New Jersey School Boards Association website, www. njsba. org), (Scott McLeod, JD, PhD, \"Does Teacher Tenure Have a Future? ,\" www. dangerouslyirrelevant. org). This is the most important fact out of all these because it shows how the WHOLE REASON teacher tenure is here in the first place is NOT NEEDED not have the protections that teachers have without tenure. The teacher tenure is not benefitial for anyone except teachers - they get unfair advantages in MANY ways, some I have just listed. Why should we let this continue if unnessisary? Citations: . http://teachertenure.procon.org...http://teachertenure.procon.org...http://teachertenure.procon.org...Wanda Marie Thibodeaux, \"Pro & Cons of Teacher Tenure,\" www. ehow. comPatrick McGuinn, \"Ringing the Bell for K-12 Teacher Tenure Reform,\" www. americanprogress. org. http://teachertenure.procon.org... \"Rhee-Forming D. C. Schools,\" www. wsj. comMarcus A. Winters, \"Challenging Tenure in D. C. ,\" www. manhattan-institute. orgM. J. Stephey, \"A Brief History of Tenure,\" www. time. comRose Garrett, \"What Is Teacher Tenure? ,\" www. education. com. http://teachertenure.procon.org... \"Rhee-Forming D. C. Schools,\" www. wsj. comSteven Brill, \"The Rubber Room,\" New YorkerTenure Reforms and NJSBA Policy: Report of the NJSBA Tenure Task Force,\" New Jersey School Boards Association website, www. njsba. orgScott McLeod, JD, PhD, \"Does Teacher Tenure Have a Future? ,\" www. dangerouslyirrelevant. orgNanette Asimov, \"Teacher Job Security Fuels Prop. 74 Battle,\" San Francisco Chronicle",
"The Public Education System in America Discourages Free-thought and Individualism\nI would like to begin this debate by stating what the connotations of my topic are: A large majority of the so-called educators are nothing more than mere pawns in a corpulent system of mediocrity, and believe that they are actually making a positive difference in the world (whilst remaining ignorant to the fact that their actions are contibuting to a mass dumbing-down of our nation's children). Thank you",
"The collective bargaining rights of teachers should be removed\nI will not debunk some of my opponents claims. Introduction I resent that my opponent stated that it is ‘unfortunate’ that we are having this debate both here on a national level. This statement is outrageous. Should the status quo not be challenged, especial If the status quo is harming America’s economic performance, and damaging America’s schools? Also, this debate is not about whether education and teachers are important. Of course I realize the value of teachers and education. This is the common ground that we both agree on. However, it is because I favor them that I am opposed to teacher unions. Education and the future of America should not be hijacked by special interests aimed at helping adults rather than students. To state that anti-union is anti-teacher is like saying being in favor of antitrust law is anti-business. Protecting Teachers My opponent first claims that teachers need protection. This is a false claim. Here’s why a school board would be unwilling to fire a teacher haphazardly: First, the process of searching and finding a teacher is a lengthy and expense process. To find a teacher one has to look over many applications, set up interviews, and pay for advertising the job. Once the teacher is hired, one has to pay for teacher orientation, and file paper work for the new employee. Second off, it’s risky business to fire a teacher that is competent and replace him or her with a teacher that has the potential to be incompetent. In the hiring process, even If one thoroughly looks over credentials, there is still a great possibility that the applicant is incompetent. So as long as the teacher has a decent level of competency, it is much better for the school to keep the teacher then to fire the teacher and risk a new teacher. Third, If a school or school district is known to have a high turnover rate, then it’s unlikely that competent teachers will apply there. Therefore a school district is unlikely to do this. Employees in the private sector do not need to be protected, in which 93.1% of employees in the private sector are not part of unions. Even in the public sector, 63.8% of employees are not unionized. However, it should be noted that If incompetent teachers are not fired, then it means that recent college graduates and those seeking a teacher position that are component are unable to do so. The problem is that teachers are protected too much. It is nearly impossible to fire a teacher once he or she receives tenure. In New York City, a “rubber room” was creates specifically designed to pay bad teachers to do nothing. Literally, teachers that got in trouble for sexual misconduct, unwilling to follow the curriculum, or abusiveness were just sent to a building to do what they wanted with pay and benefits[1]. Teachers receive more job security than any other occupation. There is no reason for this. Protecting bad teachers simply hurt the schools. Students do not learn what they need to. Often times, teachers need to review material that should have been learned previous years, but an incompetent teacher simply did not teach the material. This drags everyone down. Education is too important for bad teachers to recieve protection. According to this video, If just the bottom 6-10 percent of all teachers were eliminated, then American education would be at the level of Finland, a nation with top education. (watch 1:08 onward). Past Practices If I am correct, my opponent’s main argument here is that teachers have the right to collective bargaining because it is not specifically prohibited in state and local law. This argument fails for many reasons. For one, this debate framework is based on moral principles not legal principals. I specially stated that I was using an Unitarianism framework. This is a basic appeal to authority argument, using the law as a legit authority. It would equivalent to if this was the year 1940 in Nazi, Germany for me to argue that one should not hide Jews from the government because it is against the law. Second, this argument easily fails once a law is introduced to bar teachers from collective right bargaining. Other Legal Issues I will repeat my argument that I stated earlier. Legal issues should not be a major consideration since laws can be changed, and are not a moral authority. My opponent states that teachers should receive collective bargaining rights since other public employees like firefighters, police, etc. also maintain the right. Just because other public employees engage in collective bargaining does not make it morally right. This is analogous stating that a murderer should not be locked in jail since other murders get away with it scot free. I am against collective bargaining in the public sector. I would remove the collective bargaining rights of firefighters and other public employees, however this debate is specifically about teachers. In terms of the argument that the NLRA does not cover public employees, there are also many checks that exist in the private sector that reduce the power of unions while these checks do not exist in the public sector. It should also be noted that many public employees can not engage in specific collective bargaining tactics. For example, police officers are not allowed to go on strike. So it is not unreasonable to remove teacher’s rights to collective bargaining. Specialization and Demands My opponent states that since teachers invest in a college education to obtain a teaching degree, that he or she should be protected. I will explain the problem with this. There is no reason to suspect that teacher unions increase teacher employment. If you protect bad teachers you can’t let potentially good teachers enter the market. So this argument actually works in my favor, since college graduates spend many years studying the field and get into debt, only to find that they can’t get a job because there are no vacancies. It’s also another point in my favor that teacher unions increase the salary and benefts of teachers, creating a surplus of teacher applicants and increasing the number of those who will invest in a teaching degree but will not be able to find a teaching career. Many other jobs that require more specialization are less protected. For example, Doctors and Lawyers have to spend much more years and tuition to practice in the field. However, neither doctors nor lawyers are unionized. One out of every 57 doctor will lose their medical license and one out of 97 lawyers will lose their license to practice law. Remember, this is losing their license to practice, not just getting fired, the latter a far less severe punishment. For teachers, 1 in every 1000 teacher is fired after tenure for performance based reasons [2]. However, the question is: should people be protected from the financial risks they make? No. Society should not bare the risks of an individul's choice. An entrepreneur that decides to start a new business must bear the risks as well. Consumers should not be forced to buy the product and the business should not be protected. If new technology automates jobs, then there’s no reason these jobs should be protected. Once one gets into the mindset that jobs must be protected in order to save them from mal-investments, economic growth, consumer choice and efficiency cannot be maintained. Jobs will always exist through this creative destructive process; they will just be reallocated to different fields. Even If a college graduate is unable to find a teacher career, a college degree is versatile and many people enter careers outside of their specialization. Conclusion: I have refuted the legal claims and protectionism claims my opponent has made. I look forward to my opponents response to my arguments. . http://tinyurl.com...[1] . http://www.youtube.com...[2] . http://tinyurl.com...[3]"
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"BIRT The Student Body & Faculty Members Be Able To Appoint Their Principal and Vice Principal Thanks, shootmisslayup, for providing such an interesting topic. And thanks, also for your civil and high-esteem debate style; you've earned my respect. I apologize for the brevity of my last round, I was preparing for a midterm that I completed an hour ago. I'll try and make this round more coherent. === Content === o Observations o Rebuttal of Pro Case o Defense of Con Case o Summary o Sources (if necessary) ============ o Observations My opponent has clarified the system to be a democratic election among multiple eligible principles, voted on by faculty and students. So, we must realize that: 1. Several \"candidates\" will be necessary for schools; not all will win. 2. An \"election\" requires campaigning. With that, I'll move on to Pro's case. o Rebuttal of Pro Case 1. Confidence My opponent's advocacy is that, if students got to know the principals better, they would be more comfortable with who is running the school. I disagree; most students are apathetic anyways. For those students who do care, they would go and get to know their principal, i.e. it's not that students aren't CONFIDENT, it's that they don't really have anything engaging between them and faculty. A study by the NSSE says that 62% and 47% of freshman and seniors, respectively, have never worked on anything with faculty except on coursework [1] . In other words, they don't care about faculty for anything but work. Not only that, (looking back to my observations) the ability to actually know one's principal with transparency and total lucidity would require campaigning. As a distraction that would take away school time, I argue that this is not only counter-intuitive given our system, it is counter-productive and a squandering of time. Furthermore, I disagree that it would be a good thing to have a principal who agrees with the students. Explained in Defense of Con Case, point 2. The final issue, looking back at Observation 1, is that we would need to have an output of significantly more principals in order to fulfill election criteria of having a sufficient number of principals running. This would also mean that we would have a significantly higher number of principals unemployed. This is indirectly harmful to our economy; drop this point for all the above reasons. o Defense of Con Case 1. Credibility My opponent asks what constitutes credibility. In a more relevant context, what constitutes credibility in civic participation in politics? Adulthood, which is not available in a high school; knowledge of candidates, which is problematic for several reasons- see Refutation of Pro Case; honesty, which is hard to find in high-school voting- see Defense of Con Case, point 2. 2. High-School Voting The students' interest in high-school are generally contrary to what is in their best interest. A survey found that the majority of students want to digitize their schools; to allow the use of cell-phones, smart phones, laptops etc. in class [2]. If students found a principal with the same advocacy, here is the pitfall that would result [3]. A) We would have the incessant distraction of ringing phones not on silent, or texting students who quit paying attention. B) Cheating would be facilitated. C) Students may use phones for bomb threats to the school, to get out of class or miss a test. These are becoming more and more popular, and they are extremely disruptive as one can infer. [4] Clearly, we see that, if students were to know a principal's policy outlined the above, he would get voted in, ultimately causing the schools downfall. 3. Democratic Education If the idea was just that students should vote, my opponent agrees that this point is moot and should be dropped. My opponent advocates a full, democratic-esque election. This would be burdensome and time-consuming, not to mention difficult to run, the way I envision it. But, so that I don't skew what my opponent was saying, I'll leave this off until my opponent provides the actual system to be set in place. A few questions I have, just for clarity. Will there be campaigning? If so, who will fund it? If not, how will all students know the principle? How many candidates will run for principality? Will there be elections every year? Do faculty votes count for more than student votes? Does any part of this take place during the summer? How long will it take? Are there parties, and party primaries? o Summary We are left to question the vague system my opponent hasn't provided. How will it work? Will it be effective, and will it be compatible with our school system? I contend that it will be problematic and won't work, for all the reasons mentioned. To recap, 1. Students wouldn't really care enough to partake in such elections. 2. Elections would take too much time, and would be a distraction from the purpose of an educational institution. 3. Students will not vote with their education in mind; just their comfort and happiness. 4. Too many principals will be demanded to partake in what is essentially a lottery; unemployment will result. 5a. Students don't have the credibility to vote on something that will determine their future prior to their adulthood. 5b. Technology (the students' interest) is counter-productive; we don't want students to vote. 6. Voting on a principal ultimately does nothing to benefit the students. For all these reasons, I urge a con vote. Thanks for your time shootmisslayup, and the readers. o Sources [1] http://newsinfo.iu.edu... [2] http://www.eschoolnews.com... [3] http://life.familyeducation.com... [4] http://www.popcenter.org...",
"Merit pay based on student achievement should be a significant part of K-12 teacher compensation I advocate making Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) [1] a significant part of K-12 teacher compensation. It is a form of merit based pay that assesses how much a student has improved since last year. This allows us to be sure teachers are actually teaching. The source I provide talks largely about ensuring accountability for schools, and I contend that we can use the same accountability to ensure quality teachers. I'll let CON attack this first so that we will have an equal amount of rounds to debate, then defend AYP in my next 2 speeches. I will end with a single question for CON to answer in the next round: What alternative system of teacher compensation would you propose to ensure that schools have the most educated teachers? [1] http://www.ed.gov...",
"Teachers Should be Paid More You really cant blame government for what goes on in the teaching field. Its not the fault of the education secretary that teachers have to fish some money out of their pockets...the reason for that is the capitalism of the US in which whoever is responsible for the allocation of funds chooses which schools to enrich first before throwing the crumps to low-income public schools. In a March, 2015 article, Vox.com reported that the US spends over 600billion dollars on the education sector...this is compounded by the forbes mag report of over 800 billion dollars( blogs-images.forbes.com/erikkain/files/2011/04/usgs_bar.jpg ) However, in spite of all that, the performance of US kids has not improved, The US has got the highest annual spending per kid but in Math and Science international tests, the kids still do not fair well ( https://rossieronline.usc.edu... ) If we look at it from the viewpoint of government itself, Education Secretary Arne Duncan bluntly admits that increased spending has failed to better the results. Teachers should be rewarded for their passion, thts why we have things like incentives and bonuses...Education may only be improved through restrategising. We are not undermining the value of teachers here, yes engineers wouldnt be there if there were no teachers, but as well engineers would not be there if teachers wages were raised to the astronomical levels you so desire. What I am arguing is that, since teaching is a much easier(important as it is) profession, people would go for teaching alternatively and noone would worry about being an engineer and stuff like that. We'd all just go to school and be taught to teach, because at the end of the day, we get rewarded the same. So teachers are important and yes they should be rewarded but lets be rational about it. Enough is as good as a feast to one thats not a beast...the old adage goes",
"Tennessee is correct to protect teachers who wish to explore the merits of creationism The bill does not exclude evolution just allows room for other theories",
"The collective bargaining rights of teachers should be removed He and I discussed this issue in the forums, a while back, and had some differing opinions so it should be fun to formally debate this topic and see what comes out of it. I will be representing the con position, arguing that the bargaining rights of teachers should not be removed. Opening Argument It's unfortunate that we're having this debate, not just on DDO, but on a national level, as well. Teachers are instrumental in shaping who we are as individuals, in some cases even more so than parents. We rarely stop to consider just how important they are in establishing a foundation, for the success of our nation. Everything we are, everything we will become, every success we have in life, will be at least partially attributable to the contributions of teachers. The thought of taking collective bargaining rights away, thus removing all workplace protections, seems appalling to me. If any group of people deserve to be protected, it's teachers. Throughout this debate I will attempt to show good cause for allowing teachers to keep collective bargaining rights. I will also make a number of points, in support of my position through refutation of my opponents arguments. Hopefully after this debate, you'll agree that this group of dedicated professionals that we entrust with our most prized possessions, our children, deserves to have a means of protection, in the workplace. Teachers Need Protection Few ever stop to consider the tremendous amount of liability that teachers carry on their shoulders, on a daily basis. In today's letigious society, the simple act of hugging a child, even if initiated by the child, can be misconstrued as inapropriate contact, by an angry parent. Every aspect of a teacher's life is tied to their job. Their morality, their beliefs, what they do in their private lives, both past and present, what they do on-line, can subject them to disciplinary action, under the broad term \"moral turpitude\". In the classroom, teachers are evaluated formally, or informally, a number of times each year. A big part of their effectiveness though, is based on how their students do on standardized testing. This part of the evaluation leaves out many important factors, not the least of which, is the quality of the students themselves. If students don't understand the importance of, or simply don't care how they do on these tests, and many don't, this can have a negative effect on administrators' view of how effective that teacher is. The simple fact is that not all kids want to learn, and try as they might, teachers can only do so much. At that point, a teacher is dependent on school administrators and parents being engaged. Teachers are willing to accept responsibility for their students, but at some point, we have to accept the fact that they are severely limited in what they can do, and stop holding them responsible. The problem is that the public, and many administrators, don't draw a line, holding the teacher wholely responsible for that student, in spite of failed parents and administrators. Unions provide fair representation for teachers in disciplinary matters, and strive to assure that the action taken against teachers is just. Later I will go into some legal issues involved in the argument over collective bargaining. In meeting his burden of proof, my opponent needs to show why these laws, dealing with the constitutional rights of individuals, should be changed. It should also become apparent to the reader that in enacting these laws, our legislatures are conceding that teachers need protection in the workplace. The very nature of their work makes them vulnerable to unfair treatment from the public, school officials, and the public agency that employs them. There are many other reasons why teachers need protection, and they will be discussed throughout this debate, things like financial issues, difficulty in firing teachers, etc. I'm intentionally leaving them out of my argument because I'm sure they'll be introduced by my opponent, so they will be addressed in refutation. Past Practice\"Past practice is a labor relations term of art that is used to describe a pattern of behavior that is clear and unequivocal, longstanding, known to both parties, and accepted without protest or significant attempt to stop the behavior. If the pattern of behavior is not in conflict with law or controlling government-wide regulations, and if it involves a condition of employment of bargaining unit employees, it usually qualifies as a \"past practice\"\". (1) As a representative of the United Steelworkers of America for nine years, I argued a number of grievances and contract issues on the grounds of past practice. It's usually easy to win a past practice case, however there are exceptions. The above description is a very good guideline for what it takes to win. The supreme court has ruled that past practice can be sufficient for setting precedence. I'm not going to post a whole lot of case law though, because bottom line is that the effectiveness of a past practice argument is dependent on whether it is, or is not, \"in conflict with law or controlling government-wide regulations\". If state or local laws expressly prohibit collective bargaining for teachers, past practice will likely fail as a legal challenge, even if they've had that right for 10 years, simply because it conflicts with law. However, if state or local law is ambiguous, or does not \"expressly\" prohibit collective bargaining, and those rights have been given to teachers for a time, then there is little reason to deny that as a legal precedent, given the supreme court's findings on past practice as precedent. From a legal standpoint, the effectiveness of a past practice argument is going to vary with each state, according to the law, as written. It DOES become an effective argument in this debate though, when you stop to consider that if it were \"expressly prohibited\" in state law, those rights would likely not have been given to teachers, in the first place. Other Legal IssuesPublic employees are not covered by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), federal act that gives private sector employees the right to unionize, and requires employers to bargain with unions (2). There are some states though, that have their own version of the NLRA specifically for public sector employees, that does give them those rights (3). Removing collective bargaining rights from teachers may be discriminatory. Other public employees have collective bargaining rights, firefighters, police, etc. Removing these rights from teachers, because they are public employees, while allowing them to remain for other public employees is difficult to defend as non-discriminatory. Of course this issue will vary by location, and law. Specialization and DemandsTeaching is a specialized field, in that the educational requirements have few applications in other fields. We demand that teachers be highly qualified, and highly educated. We require them to get a degree in education, but above elementary school, we require a more specialized degree. We demand that they have these things, which require student loans for most people, so we must be willing to pay for them, and allow protections for those who do what we require. I look forward to Dark's response on these issues. 1. . http://www.ilrf.net...2. . http://www.dol.gov...3. . http://www.nysdeputy.org...",
"Teachers who teach at schools schools are places of education should be granted guns as in weapons I want you to see my other debates to see why I'm so pissed",
"Public Schooling Systems Should Operate Year-Round I apologize i did not meet your requirements to debate. I might not have been clear with the tenure. I am a believer in a system that does not tenure their employees after a certain number of years. I would ask you if you would see a doctor that had tenure and no matter what happened after a surgery that person would still have a job. In respect to your argument with shorter work days how does that even make sense? An average work day for a parent is 9am-5pm assuming you wanted a child to be released earlier then where would that child go? I am just confused as to how this would be implemented. Do you think that a tax payer with no children would be willing to pay more in education so someone elses child could stay in school the entire year? Salaries have been a big debate throughout years and I believe that adding more hours would only spark more debate and ultimately fail. Dont get me wrong the idea itself is very noble but the funding doesnt seem to add up",
"Teachers should be allowed to show affection to students I think it would be hard to give all the kids equal affection. Especially since one kid might want more affection than the others or the teacher might like one kid a little more than the others. If any of the other kids see it then they will get jealous. Also, I think it places an undue burden on the teacher who now has to be extra cautious to give all the kids equal affection all the time. And I think teachers are already overworked as it is because they work about 1,080 hours a year and the world average for teachers is about 794. http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com...",
"Should teachers be able to discipline students when they need it Students deserve to be discipline if they are disrespecting the teachers. They need to learn how to respect and adult and when it's time to joke and when it's time to learn.",
"Teachers Evaluations in NYC well, first hi. :) i defiantly think your argument is ridiculous. teachers should NOT be graded for their students performance! 1- there are obviously students who hate teachers, i'm pretty sure you have hated a teacher or two during school. other students wanna get back at them by getting bad grades... it's a good way they can get revenge. so, the teacher is gonna go broke because of a few jerk students? eat roman noddles and live under bridges. 2- what if the students refuse to learn. they refuse to do any work. and all they wanna do is sleep, and be lazy. uh, no.",
"Teachers shouldnt be laid off because of senority Umm. .. awkward So this was my R2 arguments if I did not have so many projects to finish: 1) Teachers have alternatives in teaching in other institutions such as test prep schools. 2) \"Students should choose because its there education. \" Students should choose what there are no choices? In either cases my opponent failed to address my contentions and rebuttal. Silence is consent, hence my opponent agrees with me.",
"Should teachers and staff of schools be allowed to carry weapons for the safety of the children But if the students do not know the teachers have a weapon how would they get it?Two points I will make with this statement: my opponent seems to be arguing that a teacher should be allowed to bring a gun onto a campus without anyone knowing. This can put many people in danger because there are many scary teachers in this world who would be in the right mind and pull out a gun on a child when they feel threatened. Also, what if the child tries to steal something from her purse and found the gun in her purse. That is why i think it would be important for people interested in being a teacher they must get a mental test done to make sure they are mentally right for a teaching job.That is how teachers get qualified to teach. Teachers show they are qualified by getting a certification to teach, not to shoot any individual who threatens the environment. Leave that to the security guards.",
"Homosexuals shouldn't be hired as teachers I beleive that teachers should be hired based on their qualifications, experience and how suitable they are for the job; not their sexuality. For this reason, I beleive that not hiring someone because they are homosexual is wrong, as this shouldn't be a higher priority than their suitability for the job. (1)Another point is that it is setting a bad example for students if the school discriminates when hiring. How can a school tell its' pupils to be kind and accepting when the school itself isn't? By being hypocritical, it is setting a terrible example for kids, and they could easily follow the school's example and be mean and bullying. Students are suposed to see their head-teachers as role models, and if they are being discriminative this could have a bad effect on students who look up to them. What kind of message are we passing down to students if the school ITSELF isn't being kind and accepting? If it begins here, where does it stop? By not letting homosexuals teach in schools, how long will it be until we don't let black people, or Asians, or Muslims, or any other nationality/ethnicity/sexuality teach at schools? It could be the start of a very discriminative system in schools. Sorry I don't have many other arguments to present at this moment, but I look forward to rebutting those of the Pro. Thanks!1. . http://wiki.answers.com...",
": a government has the obligation to lessen the economic gap between the rich and the poor citizens Today I will be debating on the negative position and go against the status quo which states: a government has the obligation to lessen the economic gap between the rich and the poor citizens. Therefore I have three contentions and a value to back up our reason to go against the status quo. Value: Private Property. All rights derive from self-autonomy because that's the only way they can be willfully exercised. Individuals own themselves and can do whatever they want as long as it does not hurt others individuals have the right to do what they wish with their property and income as long as they do not aggress on others. The only morally justifiable role of a government is that of protection its citizens from aggression both foreign and domestic. 1st contention: Individuals must have a right to choose their own career path. 2nd contention: inequality for the rich 3rd contention: the government is not responsible to administer gifts and talent. For my first contention individuals must have a right to choose their own career path. My first contention is individuals must have a right to choose their own career path. Sub point A: teachers. Teachers don\"t make a lot of money maybe 56,000 dollars a year and that may not be enough if you are a single parent but that may be what you want to do or what makes you happy. Sub point B: government trying to give jobs. The government just can\"t tell them quote \"oh you should work there and make more money or ill just give you money from the rich.\" First of why would you take them from the job they want and put them to something just for the money, most people work for happiness not for money. Second if all the teachers stop working to work somewhere else for the money how will we get an education to learn and make the next generation better? Sub point C: bus drivers/ cafeteria workers. They don\"t make a lot period and if they stop working then how will we get to school or get fed hot lunches and snacks and breakfast. Like I said they work for happiness not money. My second contention is inequality for the rich. Sub point A: you can\"t just raise taxes on the rich to give the unfortunate money. The rich worked hard for their money so they should keep it. Also the rich people may not need all that money but that is what may keep them happy. Sub point B: even though the unfortunate people work hard and just don\"t get paid much does not mean they necessarily want money. Not all the unfortunate are homeless men/women on the street they also are teachers like I said, the rich people are only rich because they set a goal to be rich. The not so rich people are teachers who just want to work for happiness. My third contention the government is not responsible to administer gifts and talents. Sub point A: the government does not bore you. The government does not make you in any way all they do is collect your taxes send you welfare checks and etcetera. The government can\"t give you talents that you don\"t have, some people weren\"t meant to be 6oot 9inches and be a star basketball player, just like some people weren\"t meant to have a 180 IQ its just life. Sub point B: the government is not your biological parent\"s. The government is not even a real human being it is just an organization created back when the first 13 colonies were formed. The government cannot force you to be what you are not. That is why I urge you to vote negative for this debate.",
"Teachers Should be Paid More I do not believe that Secretary Duncan will appreciate you calling him a fool. The government admits that more spending has failed because that is the truth. The desire to teach or the determination to dosl is not fueled by the amount of money you have in the pocket. Regardless of the size of your wallet, you can do wonders with careful planning. Look at it this way, X has ten dollars, Y has twenty bucks, X buys a textbook, and Y buys McDonalds, and then just a couple of pens. Its not the amount given to each that has mattered, its what has been done with it. Now after noticing that Y had more money but was unproductive with it, shall we increase the allowance to Y? Over our stinking corpses would we ever do that. The point is, the teaching process is failinggiven the huge amount of funding it is allocated. Why then should we risk losing more cash to it. Until there is a sizeable change in results, we cannot have government spend more money on unresponsive works. Lets be realists please. Moreover, your statement, \" Point being ALLOCATION OF FUNDING should be the focus.\" clearly shows that you have derailed from the topic which you set for yourself because now you are no longer saying that teachers should be paid more, but that what teachers are already paid should be distributed evenly. Furthermore, you need to understand that we are not living in Disneyland where dreams can be achieved simply by the snap of your fingers. Politics in education is an undying cancer and increasing the money allocated to education will lead to this cancer multiplying mitotically. In other words, your argument presents no real solution to the Ebola crisis we have in education. I therefore do say, in closing, that your argument is only but a fish out of water simply struggling, suffocating and now, dying. Thank you for your time",
"In the short term, it might be hard to find teachers. However, modern languages graduates could be ... In the short term, it might be hard to find teachers. However, modern languages graduates could be given extra money to encourage them to become teachers. In a mobile world, it is also easy to attract teachers from another country to teach their native language abroad. In the long term, making languages compulsory at schools would solve this problem. If languages were compulsory at schools, more people would study them at university and more people would become language teachers.",
"Teachers don't make enough money. Teachers do make enough money. Firstly, let me state that I agree teachers do an invaluable job. Here are my arguments for why it is fair/useful that teachers are paid less than a number of other professionals. (1) Holidays. Teachers will generally have 13 weeks per year, compared to an allowance of perhaps 4 weeks per year for most other professionals. This discrepancy - about two months' extra time off - should rightfully impact on pay. (2) The absence of monetary incentive to join the profession. Due to the mediocre pay scales, nobody will join teaching \"for the money\". People who desire to teach, generally, will be motivated by (a) a natural desire to educate, or (b) a passion for sharing their speciality subject. Hopefully this leads to a strong teaching force who are in the profession for wholesome reasons. That's all for now.",
"Romantic Relationships among Teachers Teachers should not be allowed to have romantic relationships, because it degrades teaching as a profession. Teachers should have only outside relationships. Kids also are very capable of gossiping about their teachers. This can hurt teachers.",
"Teachers should be armed with guns. Teachers should not be able to carry weapons because one teacher could dislike another teacher or a student and kill them. We trust our teachers enough, but we should not trust anyone with kids that have a gun (other than law workers) no matter if is a teacher who we trust protecting kids while we are at school. Me for one would absolutely hate some teachers having a gun. Not like you know her but Ms. Sheldon is an absolutely horrible teacher that knows nothing about grammar (she said you can't start a sentence with to! What about \"To be or Not to be?\") anyway she hates almost everyone and she got fired but is working at the school until the end of the year, (coming soon) so she could go and shoot the principle or anybody who fired her. No teacher should have a gun unless it is a home-owner/renter or a law worker.",
"merit pay based on student achievement should be a significant component for teacher compensation I think it's good. I think.",
"should teachers be able to hold students in at recces What about the children that do not do their homework. If teachers give more then even more would not be done.",
"Better teachers should be paid more President Barack Obama said in March of 2009: teachers should be treated \"like the professionals they are while also [being held] more accountable. Good teachers will be rewarded with more money for improved student achievement, and asked to accept more responsibilities for lifting up their schools.\"[3]",
"Teachers Should Be Paid A Lot! Teachers get paid over 1500 dollars a month. The government does not have the money to pay teachers six or seven figure salaries. The government does not pay atheletes so they get paid more. Cray-cray, your argument is cray-cray...",
"Teachers Should be Paid More I wrote that \"I feel that teachers should be provided more funding to achieve their goals within the schools\" because many teachers are ending up in positions where they want to do projects that they end up having to fund out of pocket, and they have materials also that they have to fund out of pocket. Literacy rates are fine and dandy, but they are not a direct reflection of the needs of a society. A spacecraft or a power grid isn't run by a book, it's run by a computer. But that's a literacy vs computer knowledge debate hardly related to my topic. We can't compare apples to oranges here, every country has different demands and needs. I didn't argue that women here should be afraid to educate themselves because they're afraid that rebels will stone them to death for stepping outside of moral boundaries, because those aren't issues related to our women. Let's focus on a fact based on America. The average K-12 teacher (in America, not Zimbabwe) earns $44,600. Average student loans of a college student in America is over $30,000. Many teachers struggle to pay back the loans required to educate their students. Sure, what they do is out of passion and not the love of money. But why does that mean that they shouldn't be afforded a living that better rewards them for their passion? The way you state \"just get a teaching degree\" is part of the problem with America. If teachers don't exist, neither do Engineers, Lawyers, Etc. It's time to realize that a good education in ANY degree involves teachers and educators.",
"Teachers' salaries should be based on their students' academic performance. To avoid problems like this a board of members should be appointed they should be maverick from government. They should be controlled directly by an Educational Head. This board of members can have frequent visit to any schools and can inspect the students any time and can review the students and compare them with the tests they have written. This Board can even blame the Educational system if there any riddle and can give astringent punishment if any malpractices happen. Teachers' salaries should be based on their students' academic performance because Teachers' whose service is interminable should be noted and should be lauded with more salary this is an appreciation given to them for sacrificing themselves for their students. This can even encourage other teachers to work hard.",
"While teachers can be incentivized, students cannot \"Top Ten Reasons Why Merit Pay for Teachers Is a Terrible Idea\". Education Portal. July 10th, 2007: \"Teachers only have so much control over how much and how fast a child can learn. Even if they are willing to go the extra mile, state law may not allow them to do so. For example, in California, teachers cannot require students to stay after class or school to get help.\"",
"Teachers Should Be Paid A Lot! Again, the franchises pay for the atheletes health benefits. For teachers, it is paid for through taxes. Also, if you wanted to compare teachers to atheletes you should have put that in the prompt.",
"Tennessee is correct to protect teachers who wish to explore the merits of creationism Children should have the freedom not to be misled",
"It is fair to reward teachers on the actual results they achieve. Just as in the private sector, workers should be judged and rewarded on the actual results they achieve. Whether it's through sheer talent or through hard work, some teachers consistently deliver better results than other teachers. Those teachers are more effective and efficient at providing societal value: with the same amount of work-hours they manage to more effectively educate children. It is therefore only just that their pay is differentiated according to the results they achieve.",
"Teachers should be paid on merit, not seniority and titles \"Link Teacher Pay, Student Gains.\" An Atlanta Journal-Constitution. October 14, 2005.: \"As substitutes for performance-based standards, school systems now reward teachers on degrees and seniority. Yet neither of those measures may correlate with student achievement. In this competitive economy, companies would close their doors if they paid low-performing employees the highest salaries just because they’d been there a long time or had a grad school diploma on their wall.\"[5]",
"Teachers' salaries should be based on their students' academic performance. There are many schools where a teacher with more years of experience is paid more because of his service as teacher. Then why not a person with less experience but dedicated in teaching and working really hard for his students and making them to improve in their performance should also paid higher?",
"Teachers want to be held accountable, just not to tests. While accountability is often considered important among teachers, it is important to consider what teachers are being held accountable for. Many teachers feel they should be held accountable for a more holistic teaching approach, opposed to the kind of test-centric teaching NCLB requires. Teachers want to be accountable for actually educating their students, not merely teaching them how to take a test.",
"Merit Pay for Teachers Before I begin, I'd like to start off with a quote from the great Eli Broad: \"Public education is the key civil rights issue of the 21st century. Our nation's knowledge-based economy demands that we provide young people from all backgrounds and circumstances with the education and skills necessary to become knowledge workers. If we don't, we run the risk of creating an even larger gap between the middle class and the poor. This gap threatens our democracy, our society and the economic future of America.\" I'd also like to quote Cody-Franklin when he once said the following in one of my dreams \"Sometimes, the truth isn't good enough, sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes people deserve to have their faith rewarded. Although it's true that the world isn't fair, it's no reason for us not to strive to be. Let us surpass the world itself.\" Because I believe in the words of Mr Broad and Mr. Franklin, I strongly negate the resolution which states: Resolved: That merit pay based on student achievement should be a significant component of K-12 teacher compensation in United Sates public schools. As insisted, rebuttals to the instigator's contentions shall be made in round two. To start, I shall provide two contentions of my own: CONTENTION 1: Endorsing merit pay for teachers stimulates a conflict of interest between students and teachers A) During the year 2001, our former president George W. Bush initiated the infamous \"No Child Left Behind\" program. Like the system the opposition is upholding, it too revolved around funding on the basis of performance. A consequence of this policy was that teachers in many schools WILLINGLY ended up lowering their standards so that they would receive better funding [1]. Ladies and gentleman, the moral of the story is that performance based pay can and will drive people far enough to work in a manner even as depraved as depriving students of a decent education. Especially when taking into account the fact that our economy is not doing so well, teachers are all the more likely to behave no differently than teachers were behaving when it was. B) I would also like to add that even for the teachers that are less likely to just flat out manipulate the curriculum in order to insure that it is easy, that merit based pay suffers from another problem that NCLB did and that is that it encourages teachers to focus on teaching students the skills needed to excel (\"narrow subset of skills\") in standardized testing rather than a broad range of skills which we are to expect from those attempting to receive a proper education.[2] Given the massive amount of evidence in favor of this assertion, it's rather clear merit pay based on student achievement will easily further the United States' dismal education record in comparison to the rest of the world. CONTENTION 2: Adhering to the Merit pay system is unfair amongst teachers as there is no way to fairly give out payment based on performance. We must keep in mind many factors when taking this subject int consideration. Lo and behold, I offer the video on the right as my source for the claims I'm making below. A) Some score gains might not be equivalent amongst teachers. For instance, lets say at the end of a year, certain students in a certain teachers class manage to go from the 75th percentile to the 80th percentile. Let us also say certain students in a rival teachers class manage to go from the 90th to the 95th percentile. Naturally, such teachers would receive equal increases in pay for improving such students up 5 percentiles. However the fact remains that more educated children might be easier to teach and that it may very well prove easier to move students from the 70th percentile to the 75th percentile than it would to move them from the 85th to the 90th. The only way to go against equal pay for equal increases would be to flat out reward the teachers who have the best performance with their students more moolah! Yet this still is quite problematic as we are still faced with the fact that student background can easily be a vast influence on their success. In other words, \"smart kids\" can do well without the teacher's influence. B) Other people can quite easily effect what teachers do. There are some schools who have rather supportive and helpful principle willing to work alongside teachers and insure that their efforts to teach go smoothly whereas there are other schools were principles are completely apathetic. In other words, teachers who have a helping hand are likely to do perform better (hence receive better pay) whereas teachers who have to put up with incorrigible jerky administration have a lower salary. This also applies to the very students themselves. I'm sure most of us here have been or are around peers who are quite often \"out of control\" as well as peers who are reserved and polite during our days in grade school. The fact of the matter is that it can be difficult to put up with the former group of students and that it can be breeze to put up with the latter. Teaching one or other alone can determine one's salary. There were additional points made in the aforementioned video and I invite others to watch it. That said, I feel the two points I've presented here to be the most important as they demonstrate just how totally unfair merit pay is when attempting to run it. I assert that there is no way to run the system while adhering to fairness and await my opponent's attempts to insist otherwise. With that said, I now await the affirmative side's first rebuttal. SOURCES: 1: http://www.factcheck.org... 2: http://www.reading.org... http://www.youtube.com...",
"Merit pay for teachers Merit pay for teachers risks favoritism and cronyism",
"Teachers who aren't here for more than 90% of the year should get fired if the teacher is unable to commit to her students, then she should get fired. It's hurting the students education Andy they should find a better teacher that is sable and can be here ready to teach 98% of the time.",
"Teachers Cooperating for Homework I believe that teachers should cooperate for homework. Too many kids get too much homework. Kids should not be up till 11 at night working. Especially teenagers, they need their sleep. So if teachers cooperate about this, students will get more sleep and be ready for the next day",
"All teachers should be paid more, not just a select few Beth Lewis. \"Pros and Cons of Merit Pay For Teachers\". About.com: \"Opponents to Merit Pay argue that a better solution to the current educational crisis is to pay all teachers more. Rather than design and regulate a messy Merit Pay program, why not simply pay teachers what they are already worth?\"",
"Freedom of speech should apply to teachers as much as anyone else This is not a freedom of speech issue. Teachers are already free to express their own views during their own free time. When teaching in a school however they are limited by the demands of what is necessary to teach their pupils. Freedom of speech does not give teachers qualified in one subject the wherewithal to teach their class a different subject which is effectively what teaching creationism means. Creationism should remain in religion classes and evolution should remain in science classes. Teachers are employed by the state in order to teach children facts, not spread personal ideology. It is therefore best to seperate facts and ideas into seperate subjects.",
"Merit-pay helps attract teachers where there are shortages Beth Lewis. \"Pros and Cons of Merit Pay For Teachers\". About.com: \"We are in the middle of a teaching shortage. Merit pay would inspire potential teachers to give the profession more consideration as a viable career choice, rather than a personal sacrifice for the higher good. By tying teaching salaries to performance, the profession would look more modern and credible, thus attracting young college graduates to the classroom.\"",
"Teachers Should be Paid More You have argued that more funding should be allocated to teachers in order for them to achieve more of their goals and yet more than enough funds have been allocated to the education department for that purpose. In such countries as Zimbabwe, some kids dont even have a clue as to what a computer looks like and yet they have the highest literacy rate in Africa. Now if you compare the funding of the United States to that of Zimbabwe you find that we actually have an excess of funds and there really arent any needs to match those. Why should government waste resources on satisfying contented wants of the teachers. There is no need to augment the wages of the teaching staff. What they do is out of passion and not the love of money. So what if Floyd is earning $83k per sec. Its his job to wow the millions of enthusiasts that watch across the world and these enthusiasts also include a sizeable number of teachers...He is bringing in a large volume of foreign revenue through boxing yet the teacher is bringing nothing more than boredom to a small uninterested class. If a teacher would get as much as an engineer, who do you think would want to go to varsity for some challenging task when you can just get a teaching degree in college and get just as much cash..clearly this motion does not stand",
"100 Debate Challenge 11:THB Tennessee is correct to protect teachers who teach creationism Freedom of Speech- Freedom of speech applies to teachers as well as students and everyone else[1] If a teacher believes that evolution is bunk and creationism is in fact the way to go the teacher should be allowed to state his or her opinion. This in no way takes away from the curriculum and actually helps students to learn critical thinking skills by examining several different scientific theories. Doesn't exclude Evolution- The Tennessee bill doesn't exclude evolution and as a matter of fact still requires it as part of the curriculum. The students aren't losing anything by granting teachers their freedom of speech. [2] Critical Thinking- Students can't possibly learn critical thinking skills when only presented with one type of argument or theory. In order to learn how to think for themselves they should be exposed to several different competing scientific theories. sources [1] http://www.law.cornell.edu... [2] http://www.capitol.tn.gov...",
"Merit based pay for the Education System Claim: 1. It is impractical on the federal level. 2. State and Local levels would complicate the grading and rewarding of teachers. 3. It is difficult to prove there is improvement. 4. 'Scores' on standardized tests to measue improvement would result into the same problems of the past. 5. Teachers will care less about their students and more about getting raises. Rebuttal: 1. My opponent is correct, it is both impractical and unconstitutional at the federal level. Education has been delegated a state function. In turn, states often pass this along to the local level. 2. Certainly states could be convinced of the benefit of a universal grading system. Even if they could not, would it not be simple enough to devise a conversion system between the two (or more)? More importantly, it is to a particular state and/or region that each teacher must answer. That makes this an unimportant issue. Finally, private schools already measure teacher performance in a number of ways: peer review, parent feedback, standardized student testing, subsequent education levels (for students), or any variation thereof. 3. The same method that suggests the U.S. is beginning to lag behind other nations would be the same method to 'prove' student improvement. If we can measure a drop, certainly we can measure improvement. Quick facts on student test scores in relation to other nations: http://nces.ed.gov... 4. You may be correct in this respect, however there are other was to measure a teacher's performance, as mentioned above. 5. Almost every other profession has a merit based pay. If you are a poor lawyer you will not retain clients and/or lose your job. Teachering as a profession is in the minority in a tenure track system, that is to say, pay based on years on the job and degree, not performance. Is it my opponent's contention that all professions that are merit based suffer the same as he claims teachers would? Is it necessarily a bad thing for a teacher to care about a raise? On a merit based system, in order to receive a raise a teacher must earn it based on his/her performance. Therefore the fate of the student and that of the raise go hand in hand. Resolved: That more pay with rewards based on merit will attract a higher quality of educator. Resolved: That more pay for teachers will justify raising the education requirements for educators, resulting in a higher quality of educator.",
"Merit pay for teachers All teachers should be paid more, not just a select few",
"Should teachers union be abolished \"Verizon and general motors aren't teaching the future.\" Of course they are not but a union is a union. If it is my opponent's argument that the teachers union should be abolished because they have the ability to strike, perhaps my opponent can state how many times teachers have took to the picket lines, the length of time of the strikes and exactly how these strikes hurt the future of America. Please elaborate how this is relevant to the debate. The barrier to entry into the profession is relevant to this debate. A teacher in New York City has a to achieve a level of education comparable to doctors and attorneys. New York is a right to work state, meaning that employees can be fired at any time for any reason, except if the employer violates the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. With this being said, it is my argument that it would not be beneficial to society if a teaching professional who has obtained a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, passed state licensing exams, and completed an internship to be terminated simply because a principal may not like the teacher personally. A principal could do this if it were not for the protection that the teachers union provides. \"Your right. There are a lot more variables to why a student might fail. But when you have a teacher who is show over and over again to be proven ineffective, that's not a coincidence. But because it's nearly impossible to fire that teacher due to the unions, there's a problem.\" It takes 3 years of teaching in a classroom before tenure is awarded. When a teacher becomes tenured the teacher is considered to be qualified to continue as a teaching professional. In the event that a school board or city wishes to terminate a teacher, the first step in the process is remediation, where the teacher is given a 1 year period in which to improve his or her job performance. In the event the teacher fails during the remediation period a series of hearings take place to ensure the reasons for the teacher to be fired are warranted. This process takes approximately 10 months but only takes place if the teacher requests the hearings. At the end of the hearings, which again take approximately 10 months if the school board agrees with the finding the teacher is terminated. [1] As you can see, this process takes approximately 2 years in which a majority of the time is spent trying to correct the teacher's deficiencies. It's not impossible, it's called due process. \"That's not a sufficient enough argument to justify why teachers deserve union protection.\" Fair enough, \"the point of tenure is to protect teachers from arbitrarily being fired. Teachers need protection from over-zealous bosses and ideological politicians. This is the same thinking behind seniority rules, which protect more expensive teachers from being laid off due to budget cuts. Teaching is not a high-paying job compared to jobs in the private sector, and one of the benefits is some job security. Occasionally this means bad teachers take longer to fire.\" [1] I have an idea! How about we make teachers unions illegal, and if a teacher is show to be effective we give them a pay raise, if not we fire them. Simple. Merit pay is a topic for another debate but if a teacher is not performing as he or she should they can be fired via due process. I fail to see how abolishing the teachers union will have a positive effect on the education the future of America receives. [1]http://www.forbes.com...",
"should teachers be able to hold students in at recces Even though kids need fresh air, they also need to do their work. Teachers need a good punishment for the children.",
"Teachers Should be Paid More I feel that teachers should be provided more funding to achieve their goals within the schools and I also feel like they should be paid more for the services that they are offering to the community that they are engaged in. Teachers are raising the future engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc. But they are not being paid anywhere near as much as the students they are teaching go on to make in those professions. In the mean time, Floyd Mayweather is earning $83,000 per second to beat Manny Pacquiao to a pulp in his fights. I feel like America is really placing an emphasis more on sports and entertainment achievement than rewarding those who are actually contributing to the future scholars of America.",
"Teachers Should Have the Right to Bear Arms I believe that teachers should have the right to bear arms.If you need clarification please comment.1st round is acceptanceNext 3 rounds will determine the winnerLet's make this debate fun and serious!Cheers! :)",
"Merit pay based on student achievement should be a significant part of K-12 teacher compensation What a shame. After CON's last rebuttal (or lack, thereof) I would posit that not only should we give teachers merit based pay, but we should give debaters merit based pay also. This might encourage people like my opponent to stop posting debates and not following up on them. The problem is rampant. Of the 16 total debates I've had, 5 had forfeits. http://www.debate.org... http://www.debate.org... (due to someone's poor judging, I'm actually losing this one) http://www.debate.org... http://www.debate.org... http://www.debate.org...",
"Teachers Evaluations in NYC What are you talking about obviously you are not aware of how these evaluations work they are graded according to their overall classroom successes. The children have a very small part in deciding which teacher gets a grade of achievement or under achievement. The Department of Education grades them on their own merit system and procedure that the department calls for. Why would nyc leave the grading system up to students who are in the learning process themselves that would be ridiculous. The teacher is the one who has to follow a curriculum and depending upon how well the information is portrayed and received by the students the teacher has the obligation to go forth and give the students an outlet to scoping the minds of tommorrow. The teachers will be graded based upon their attendance, their overall rates of the reading and math scores of the students, the parent teacher meetings about the student, the interaction between the students and the teacher. The teacher is no longer comfortable in having tenure they have to work hard in order to keep their position. This gives the teachers a heads up on how well or not well they are doing their job and also it gives those who want to have a career in teaching an incentive or how they can change or better the school system for the students learning and for the teachers who are constantly learning everyday. The Department of Education has the guidelines for these teachers conduct and achievements and the students can only be surveyed as to what the class has given them not much of a which teacher needs to go or stay but what each teacher can do to keep the students attentive and how they can make it more interesting and exciting to learn new material. The students are like the lab rats except there is no harm being done to them intentionally.",
"Yummy debtors for lunch. Great argument! I concede. We're on the same page. How much should a professor with tenure be paid? What's a fair value in a failing country? $200k? When .gov provides the loans, yup.",
"pay state school teachers based on merit It is fair to reward teachers on the actual results they achieve.",
"Merit pay based on student achievement should be a significant part of K-12 teacher compensation I will let my opponent go first as I am arguing for the Con",
"Teachers should not be allowed to strike. Teachers provide an essential education to our future generations. It is unfair to allow them the power to simply walk off the job because they feel they're not being paid enough. There are other ways to ensure that they are being treated equitably without sacrificing the benefits to our children. For example, mediation has worked in the past for other professionals such as in the healthcare industry to avoid detrimental effects on society. If we allow teachers the ability to go on strike, they will never be happy with what they have.",
"Universities are bastions of free expression Historically, universities have been centres of free speech and expression. The idea of tenure for professors was developed to ensure academic freedom both for teachers and students.[1] Censorship of any type of expression is a direct assault on the principles of a university. As Oliver Wendell Holmes commented, \"The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think what we like and say what we think.\" Free speech on campus is responsible for producing, or at least fostering many of the progressive ideas of the 20th century even though these ideas were threatening and caused emotion distress to many people. [1] American Association of University Professors (AAUP), ‘1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure’, 1940, http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/policydocs/contents/1940statement.htm",
"Merit pay for teachers would be a bureaucratic nightmare Beth Lewis. \"Pros and Cons of Merit Pay For Teachers\". About.com: \"Virtually everyone agrees that designing and monitoring a Merit Pay program would be a bureaucratic nightmare of almost epic proportions. Many major questions would have to be adequately answered before educators could even consider implementing Merit Pay for teachers. Such deliberations would inevitably take away from our real goal which is to focus on the students and give them the best education possible.\"",
"Should teachers union be abolished However, in places such as New York City, teachers are not allowed to strike as a result of the Taylor Law This is true. However teachers in other places can still go on strike as they did in Chicago (the 3rd largest district in the US) in September [1]. During this 3 year period a teacher can be terminated for being ineffective. Again this is true. One again though after tenure is earned the process of firing a teacher is long complicated process that is costly [2]. In New York firing a teacher is like breaking a diamond. What happens is the ineffective teachers typically get passed along from school to school without ever getting fired. I'd agree with my opponent’s agenda point. why deal with the negative stigma of the profession which on average earns a person approximately $42,000 per year. It's important to that teachers wages tend to rise with experience and there are other factors too like cost-of living. For example a teacher North Dakota makes half of the average salary but living costs are cheaper in North Dakota then in New York [4]. The reason we should deal with the negative stigma is because as said they're teaching the future of America. There only a handful of jobs that guide the direction of America’s future economic viability. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com... [2] http://nj1015.com...[3] http://www.oprah.com...[4] http://www.payscale.com...",
"merit pay based on student achievement should be a significant component for teacher compensation Coral is a really bad name for a kid. Teachers who work hard and put extra time into making sure their students understand and learn the curriculum should get more money than the teachers who sit around, assign things without telling the students what to do, and making toast instead of teaching.",
"These scenarios ought to be treated equally in the eyes of the law. Teachers employed by public high schools should be strictly prohibited by a law governing the contracts by which teachers may be signed from options 1 and 3, yet not options 2 and 4 (e.g. it should be illegal to sign a teacher without a clause that prohibits heterosexual student-teacher sex, and, naturally, illegal for them to violate this clause). The reason for this is that they are creating a risk of pregnancy. Teachers impregnating students or being impregnated by students ensures that both ends of the system result in a highly precarious situation-- A pregnancy or an abortion are both rather bad for academic performance, and a teacher is paid to ensure high academic performance of his students. A mere afterglow is nothing compared to the distraction of either of these possibilities, especially when BOTH parties are distracted and so neither can help snap the other out of it.",
"Homosexual Teachers ought not be hired as teachers You have given a suitable argument... if the debate was \"Principals can not hire homosexuals if they don't want to\". But it isn't, it's about whether homosexuals ought or ought not be hired for a job. It seems that you have strayed from the topic, and I'd encourage you to think more about whether homosexuals are suitable for the job, which is what your debate topic is about.Saying this, there are still some aspects of your debate that I'd like to rebut.Firstly, \"Principal Brown is in charge of the school.\"Unless you are reffering to private schools (you should have specified) this is incorrect. Although a principal is hired to manage the staff and school, the school is still in the power of the government, as it is a government-funded institution, therefore, the Government does have ruling power, and the principal doesn't have permission to do whatever he or she would like. If you meant that the principal is in charge of hiring staff you should have said so. Even in Private Schools where the government isn't in charge, the school still has a Governer and a board of governers (like gov-funded schools have) and the school Governer is at a higher position of authority that the school principal. After all, the governer and board of governers can dismiss (fire) the principal, whereas the principal can't fire the governer. Secondly, \"Principal Brown has the authority to choose who to hire and who not to hire\"I'm not rebutting this point per se, as it is true, but more the context in which you have used it. It is true that the principal has the authority to hire a teacher, but this should be based on their qualifications, experience and how suitable they are for the job. Not their gender, race, ethnicity or sexuality. This is discrimination. I think you'd agree with me if I said that it was wrong for a male principal to only hire other men, because he just didn't want women working in his school- yet you beleive it's okay if \"women\" in replaced with \"homosexuals\"? It is against the law to hire someone discriminatively, so your next point, \"Principal Brown is justified in not hiring the homosexual teacher.\" is entirely false.",
"That would be the better solution If teachers get merit pay for the success of their students,then they will strive harder in order to yield successful individuals. And that would greatly help for the success of its nation. Teachers are not just getting into school to teach but also to learn and to study for the betterment of their discussion so that their students would also be interested to learn and be important.",
"Homosexual Teachers ought not be hired as teachers Resolution: Homosexual Teachers ought not be hired as teachers. I wished to challenge Riversidegirl4life to this debate after seeing the last one participated in by her was done horribly on the pro's half. I hope to do a better job why schools are justified in not hiring teachers based off of their sexual preferences.",
"Teachers shouldnt be laid off because of senority Good luck! I negate. Con's resolution: Teachers should be laid off because of seniority. Clarification: Teacher are not laid off SOLELY on seniority. Teachers are laid off based on the number of years he or she worked at the same district. Con: 1) New teachers have little to no experience in teaching by themselves. Teaching a subject takes years of experience. A teacher must learn and adapt to different styles of learning, a new teacher cannot do this off the bat during the first day. Hiring many new teachers who experiment with abnormal teaching styles will detriment the school's placement in the state. This has happened at my school last year (some retired, so the school hired new teachers) and our API score dropped by 61 points. ..860 to 799. Due to the recession, many retirees are returning to the workforce. This has happened in the nurse sector, an influx of retired and experienced nurses are returning to their jobs causing employers to hire veterans over freshly graduated students. 2) Seniority rewards teachers for his or her commitment to the school system of years. Why dismiss a loyal employee? Pro: 1) Your music teacher was probably laid off because there wasn't a satisfactory enrollment demand. Can't wait for Round 2!",
"Social Policy for satisfied teachers A key concern for government’s education policy is ensuring efficiency in the allocation of resources. Investment is required in management structures - to ensure teachers accept the social contract of responsibility, and duty, to the services provided and enable the efficient allocation of public resources. Weaknesses have been identified with regards to resources being lost or misused in districts or schools. The rising cases of ‘Ghost teachers’ - teachers who are not real but created to exist on paper - indicates the scope of chaotic management structures and persistent corruption. Resources are being lost through cases of manipulation, whether by teachers or government officials embezzling money. Reports from Sierre Leone, Uganda, and Libya, showcase the concerning reality[1]. Before higher wages can be provided, forgeries need to be resolved. A system needs to be built which enables monitoring to ensure real teachers are paid and found. [1] See further readings: All Africa, 2012; The Informer, 2013; and BBC News, 2008.",
"Teachers shouldnt be laid off because of senority but new teachers need experience to teach like any other teacher out there. Students should choose because its there education.",
"Should Bad Teachers Be Fired I BELIEVE THAT TEACHERS, who have the rights to be at a school teaching should be responsible and respectful in every way. Otherwise, their is no point of teaching at the first place. If not fired, i believe it could damage many students as well as the schools curricular activities. Teachers who are bad should be fired because students lives are at risk of earning behavioral issues and would ruin their generation. Instead of their fun school life they earn disrespected opportunities which isn't fair if their the ones paying the school for good education. Each teacher should be respectful if want to be respected otherwise their is no point for a student to learn or be able to learn.",
"Freedom of speech should apply to teachers as much as anyone else Freedom of speech and expression are protected by the first amendment to the US constitution[1] and teachers are entitled to freedom of speech and their academic freedom as much as anyone else. If a science teacher does not believe that the evidence supports evolution then why should s/he have to teach evolution as fact rather than just as one of several competing theories? The Tennessee bill protects freedom of expression by freeing teachers to include whatever other angles on controversies such as evolution or climate change as they wish. [1] Legal Information Institute, ‘First Amendment: An overview’, Cornell University Law School, 19 August 2010, http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/First_amendment",
"The United States Federal Government ought to ban tenure from all high schools. Thank you for accepting this challenge. First defense: Private vs. Public While the topic says ALL high schools, I did mean public schools (hence my first round not saying anything about private schools.) This was my fault. I should have been more specific. I didn't do that to be abusive and attempt to present a moving target. I hope this will no longer be an issue in the final round of the debate. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Second defense: USFG Although my opponent makes a very good point, the USFG does have federal laws passed that have to do with public education. Examples are Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act which established confidentiality for student records as well as allowing a request of modification. Another: Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 which dealt with discrimination based on gender. Although the government shouldn't butt in in businesses and the like, it is my strong belief that the federal government should be devoted to the well being of its citizens. And it has been conceded (silence is compliance) that tenure affects the well being of students. Therefore, the federal government (1) has this power; and (2) should use this power.",
"Teachers should be paid more; based on merit Darcy Ann Olsen. \"Teachers Deserve Merit Pay, Not Special Interest Pay\". CATO. May 22, 2001: \"This article appeared on cato.org on May 22, 2001. \"Teachers need more money, according to a new survey by the American Federation of Teachers. Noting that teacher salaries last year climbed 3.2 percent, or 0.2 percent less than inflation, AFT president Sandra Feldman said, 'Salaries must at least become competitive to attract and keep quality teachers.'\"",
"High schools should add students to the teacher evaluation system. Arguments: The Flaws With the Current SystemTest Scores: The National Center for Fair and Open Testing (NFT) (1) notes that many schools focus a little too much on tests scores for teacher evaluation in order to get grants from No Child Left Behind. So the school's real reasoning behind giving test scores too much worth when it comes to teacher evaluation is not actually the accuracy of such an evaluation, but the opportunity to obtain grants. Principle Reviews: This one is very obvious. Teachers can easily change up their regular way of teaching the moment a principle walks in. I see this all the time with teachers that I have had.Of course, both these factors should not go away but it is clear that something is missing. NFT explains, \"To measure teacher and principal quality and effectiveness, use multiple measures based on school and classroom evidence.\" Accuracy of Student EvaluationsStudent evaluations are just what high schools need to correctly asses teachers’ abilities. The Atlantic cites a study performed on various teacher evaluations filled out by students. (2) These evaluations were proved to be much more accurate than any known way of assessing a instructor’s abilities. This study was able to show that teachers with high ratings were able to fit in six more months of learning than teachers with the lowest ratings. This shows that students don’t always give teachers high ratings because they like the easiness of the class. Improves the School SystemTeacher's Union Exposed notes that today, bad teachers are actually protected (3). Only 1 in 1,000 bad teachers are fired. This is because once teachers gain tenure, they basically cannot be fired. It takes about 3 years of mostly positive evaluations to achieve tenure in most cases. As I have proved above, the current evaluation system can protect bad teachers because test scores and administrator assessments alone cannot accurately measure a teacher's worth. By adding the accuracy student evaluations, the chance of bad teachers getting tenure become much lower. Student's First Organization (SFO) strongly believes that student evaluations are the key to putting students first which should be the ultimate goal in every school system. I'll get more into that later. Benefits the Student and TeacherStudents: Obviously, if the student is put first, the students will be satisfied. Nubia Baptestie enjoyed this system being integrated into this school system (2). \"A classmate standing next to her shook her head. They should've done this since I was in the eighth grade.\" Ben Johnson, a teacher and administrator himself, conducted a study showing that there is an overwhelming gap between what students expect from their teachers and what they actually get. The average gap is 35% (4). No one can assess a teacher's abilities better than a student because they are being taught by the teacher daily. If students feel like teachers cannot meet their expectations, student evaluations of teachers will give them a way to make their voice heard. (not just to the administration but to the teacher)Teachers: With this point, I'm mainly talking about the teachers who strive to learn how to teach better. Above, I showed the large gap between students expectations of a teacher vs. what students receive. When students note what teachers do right/wrong, teachers can know how to improve their methods of teaching. ConclusionElaborating on Student's First Organization card: According to SFO, \"If our evaluation systems put students first, this dissonance would be impossible. Good evaluations are honest and transparent, are calculated in an understandable manner, accurately asses overall performance, and identify opportunities for teachers to improve.\" Essentially, this can only be done with student evaluations. Benefitting the school by picking out the good teachers and making sure the school's priorities are right, benefitting the students by helping them feel like they have a say, and benefiting the teachers by letting them know how to improve is why these evaluations should be integrated into high schools (5). (1) http://www.fairtest.org...(2) http://www.theatlantic.com...(3) http://teachersunionexposed.com...(4) http://www.edutopia.org...(5) http://www.studentsfirst.org... Thank you to unknown_player for accepting. Good luck; i'm looking forward to a great debate!!",
"Tenured teachers don't always deserve protection from unions We are going to make two points. The first is to stipulate as factual Instigator's contention bad teachers are allowed to remain in the classroom rather than give an opportunity to more innovative and qualified teachers. The second is to state it's not the unions fault. The fault lies with the administration and with the school board. What Instigator suggests is the unions not do their job or at least one of their jobs which is to represent and protect the interests of their members. Ethical standards and legal requirements do not allow them to decline to represent 'bad' teachers. There is a way to get rid of bad teachers-- school boards can enact policies allowing for removing such teachers; and administrators can document cases against them. Unions can fight it as they should but if the school boards and administrators do their jobs the bad teachers will go-- and the good teachers who may be unfairly or mistakenly targeted. will be protected. It is the last point why unions should be allowed to protect bad teachers",
"Tennessee is correct to protect teachers who wish to explore the merits of creationism Teachers should not have freedom to teach whatever they wish as fact",
"Merit pay works in markets, can work for teachers Darcy Ann Olsen. \"Teachers Deserve Merit Pay, Not Special Interest Pay\". CATO. May 22, 2001: \"Pay for performance is not a new concept. It works for businessmen, lawyers, waitresses, travel agents, journalists, athletes, accountants, in fact, for most of us. Why not teachers? If a school faces a teacher shortage, let wages increase to attract them. Let schools compete to secure, retain and reward the best teachers. Let schools say \"sayonara\" to those unable or unwilling to get the job done.\"",
"Public Schooling Systems Should Operate Year-Round Im a little disappointed with the rebuttal, I was hoping for a response with some counter-arguemets. I'm not sure what you mean by your first statement \"someone can be tenured after a certain number of years leading to decrease in education\" Do you mean a decrease in the education of the teacher? Or the teacher becoming a worse teacher to the students? Either way this doesn't completely make sense. There are teachers that can improve or worsen in their teaching over time, but all schools have annual or more frequent, workshops to develop their teaching skills. Even tho the teachers contracts are based on an entire 'year' of work. Their contracts would have to be re-negotiated based on the number of hours worked. But, the less-stringent schedule to meet the strict curriculum requirements , would have to be considered as well as the shorter work day. You are correct, the taxes would increase, and this would likely cause the combining of school districts to consolidate the tax-payers (because local property owners pay school taxes regardless of whether or not they have children). My argument was more towards the inconvenience of having to care for/making sure they are cared for by someone, while the parents are at work. Most of the options for child care, do not include furthering their education. Which is money well spent vs having your child play at a day care center.",
"Teacher Tenure 1) Tenure: : the right to keep a job (especially the job of being a professor at a college or university) for as long as you want to have it. 2) Tenure (As defined by American Association of University Professors): Since its founding in 1915, the Association has seen tenure as necessary to protect academic freedom. Tenure, briefly stated, is an arrangement whereby faculty members, after successful completion of a period of probationary service, can be dismissed only for adequate cause or other possible circumstances and only after a hearing before a faculty committee. The Association, also from its inception, has assumed responsibility for developing standards and practices, sometimes in cooperation with other organizations, to give concrete meaning to tenure. Key Association policy statements are the 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the 1958 Statement on Procedural Standards in Faculty Dismissal Proceedings, and the Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure. I would like to allow the Pro to decide which definition will be used. So far as the debate structure goes, I would like the second round to be stating preliminary arguments. he third and fourth used for rebuttal and concluding statements accordingly, as long as this is amiable to the Pro. I look forward to this debate, best of luck. Sources 1. . http://www.merriam-webster.com... 2. . http://www.aaup.org...",
"Tennessee is correct to protect teachers who wish to explore the merits of creationism Freedom of speech should apply to teachers as much as anyone else",
"The United States Federal Government ought to ban tenure from all high schools. Though on the surface tenure is problematic, I have to object to the resolution's requirement of the USFG banning it from ALL high schools. After all, not all high schools are public high schools.The government, federal or otherwise, does not have the right to invade contracts between private schools and teachers merely because it disagrees with the prudence of those contracts. Incidentally, though this is not central to my argument, the US FEDERAL Government has a specific meaning. We have a federal system, in which constitutionally all powers not granted to the federal government are reserved to the states or \"the people\" . I find it doubtful that my conservative American opponent will really feel comfortable so blatantly violating the constitution (since Education is not among those powers granted the federal government, which is why at present the Department of Education is limited largely to \"collaborating with the states,\" helping them out, granting them, rather than bans) for the purpose of education reform, and also doubtful that an amendment on the matter is likely to happen, and that there aren't better things to do with the effort that such an amendment would take.",
"Should teachers union be abolished I would like to begin my rebuttal by addressing my opponent\"s statement that \"teachers have to strike.\" As with any unionized profession a strike is a last resort and normally occurs when there is a standstill in negotiations. However, in places such as New York City, teachers are not allowed to strike as a result of the Taylor Law [1]. The Taylor Law makes it illegal for any unionized public employee to strike. In the event that public employees do strike they are penalized by having to pay two (2) day\"s worth of wages for each (1) strike day. Stating that teachers have to strike is the same as saying that auto workers have to strike. With regard to tenure, tenure is earned after a probationary period of 3 years. [2] During this 3 year period a teacher can be terminated for being ineffective. Although the term tenure is, for the most part, synonymous with the profession of educator the term probationary period is not. Correction officers, police officers, firefighters and others in public service must also serve a probationary period in order to be afforded union protection against unfair and unjust termination. Non effective teachers are not protected by tenure. As with any unionized member in any profession, a non-effective employee can be terminated for job performance whether tenured or not. However, being tenured allows for due process should a school district or city wish to terminate a teacher for ineffectiveness. My opponent is correct in the statement that \"unions donate to politicians to push their own agenda.\" However, the teachers union is one of many unions. Basing an argument on this statement, I could easily argue that all unions should be abolished on this premise. However, unions donating to push their own agenda are no different than a person voting Republican, a person voting Democrat or for any other party line. Politics in itself revolves around agendas. Why does the National Rifle Association donate approximately $7,000,000 per year to Congress? [3] One has to ask, what is the agenda of teachers in the public education system? Personally I feel it is to educate the future of America. If not, why deal with the negative stigma of the profession which on average earns a person approximetly $42,000 per year. [4] [1] http://www.perb.ny.gov... [2] http://teaching.about.com... [3]http://ivn.us... [4]http://www.payscale.com...",
"Should Tenures Be Taken Away Thank you Con for helping to provide an engaging debate. I want to start off by taking off the CR's:Weak points: ~ CR1- Con's CR1 has nothing to do with this topic. \"What administrators want\" have nothing to do with tenures. I suggest Con to focus on the debate. ~ CR2- I urge Con to read my counter rebuttal. I addressed the flaws in the idea that \"\"The financial and career safety tenure provides, persuades better qualified candidates to be teachers. \" In Round 3, R2. Con has no reply and concedes. Now here are some things I would like to address for Con's Rebuttals:CR1- As shown in previous points, Con has ignored my arguments. I clearly provided how tenures inhibit new ideas in my 1st Support. He concedes. Also, notice that he provides his main point that \"they don't have to worry about being fired they are free to experiment\" near the end of the debate. Abusive argumentation is abusive. CR2- Once again, Con ignored my point that people aren't arbitrarily fired in my R2, Round 3. Furthermore, as he has also shown, when those without tenures are fired, those with tenures will NOT be fired which is unfair and supports my 1st and 2nd supports. CR3- My creative opponent has ignored the core of my argument. The point is that teachers may have undesirable habits on their personal basis but still influence children on a large scale. It doesn't have anything to do with other jobs-- the point is kids are affected by those that are backed up by tenures. Also, I did not say that tenures make teachers \"unfirable\", but rather harder to fire. Please don't stick words in my mouth. Here are some flaws with Con's argument as a whole:1. He concedes to many of my rebutals and agrees with my arguments.2. Con digresses from the main debate, while I stayed on topic.3. He overlooks the definition and supports/facts around tenures, while I have brought the debate back on track. Thank you to Con again for his efforts and viewers for their time.",
"Tenured teachers don't always deserve protection from unions Unions sometimes protect teachers that shouldn't be protected. Some teachers are stuck in a rut, \"babysitting\" until retirement, or getting complaints and being shuffled from school to school. They can't be fired and so they continue to take up space that could be used for younger/newer teachers with incredible ideas and innovative lessons.",
"Teacher Tenure I will be debating on the CON side of teacher tenure. PRO will use this first round as an acceptance round. Violation of the following rules will result in an automatic loss for PRO. Rules: Use this first round for acceptance Do not be rude or mean to each other Do not include personal beliefs, personal experiences are fine if backed up by evidence. Do not forfeit, for obvious reasons.",
"There should not be a teacher tenure. Hello and thank you for joining my debate I will be arguing to get rid of the teacher tenure.",
"Should Tenures Be Taken Away First off, I'd like to state my rebuttals to his arguments:R1: The fallicious logic connects being \"arbitrarily fired\" to having tenures. First, people don't get randomly fired unless for economic reasons. Even so, this would mean firing those without tenures which: - Supports my 1st point that new teacher possibilities are eliminated- Shows how unfair tenures are to new teachersR2: As a link to R1 the moral of the argument is flawed. Based on Con's work-for-treat idea, teachers would be encouraged to fight for their positions through pulling down others from getting a job. Also, he states that removal of tenures would drive away \"great teachers. \" He forgets that without tenures, the best teachers with new and innovative ideas continue to teach and are not \"arbitrarily fired\" without a definite reason. I would like to highlight are the flaws in my opponent's rebuttals to my points. They orginate from a lack of understanding of American economic stand and society markets. These are elaborated in the following:CR1: Con's entire argument in invalid. His sources are out-of-date and range from 2007-08 when there were many teachers needed. In 2011 to present, the situation is much different with a dearth of teaching positions. . http://tinyurl.com... [1] CR2: Tenures have nothing to do with teachers getting paid more. I stress Con to reflect upon the definition of tenure which is longer stay, but no implication of more pay. . http://tinyurl.com... [2]CR3: Con supports my 3rd point. Indeed tenures do not protect those from illegal acts. However, tenures do provide people with undesired personal values (such as smoking outside of campus--see my support 3) to continue to influence many children on a daily basis. . http://tinyurl.com... [3] Con's points and sources are invalidated and rebuttals are refuted.",
"Should Tenures Be Taken Away Thank you for the debate, however, all your points were refuted.The main goal of teachers is to educate students. That is why my two arguments focus on how having tenures is best for the students.CR1: In an academic environment people have differing views on touchy subjects. Tenures, thus, protect teachers from being fired for teaching contrary to what administrators want, they provide academic freedom. Prior to tenures teachers were fired for differing views and any reason administrators wanted. 1)http://www.mlive.com...CR2: My opponent never refuted my round one argument, \"The financial and career safety tenure provides, persuades better qualified candidates to be teachers.\"1)http://www.dukechronicle.com...R1: My opponent has failed to provide proof how tenures dive out innovation. On the contrary, it provides the freedom to come up with new styles of teaching. Since they don't have to worry about being fired they are free to experiment.1)http://www.joebaugher.com...R2: I also urge my opponent to reflect on tenures more, not just the surface level definition. What happens if teachers are not protected by tenures? They will be fired as soon as they start making more money. You can see that happens in every field of work. Thus, tenures do help teachers make more money. 1)http://www.huffingtonpost.com...R3: My opponent proposed in round one that tenures make teachers unfireable. I then completely refuted that point by providing a source. He then tries to cover up his defeated argument by saying they can not be fired for smoking. I ask, can any employee anywhere be fired for smoking?1)http://blog.timesunion.com...The proof is in the pudding, tenures allow teachers to provide a better education for students.",
"Teachers Evaluations in NYC Teachers who work in Nyc should be evaluated and awarded based upon their overall class achievements. Tenure should not be given easily after two or more years but given at an adequate time or point in the teacher's career. Evaluations can give in detail the overall outcome of the curriculum the teacher is providing for the student and allow the parents to be informed about the class and the setting and the curriculum taught to their child or children. When the evaluations came out in the ny post last month it raise a couple of questions. Mayor Bloomberg wanted to give out an incentive to those teachers who have excelled or achieved the goal within each grade level. He wanted to offer the teachers a 20,000 dollar award and begin to open up 50 more schools including charter schools to have more teachers apply for these positions and scope the children of tommorrow. Teachers need to be recognized not only by their scholarly academics and their potential to have progression within a classroom setting.",
"Should Tenures Be Taken Away This is a debate of tenures for teachers. The definitions are to be set such that: Tenures are to be defined as allowing a teacher to be guaranteed the teaching position for the rest of their life (just for this debate to simplify definitions). All terms and words are to be based on the U. S. culture, economy, system(s), etc. Pro will be for the removal of tenures while Con will be for the status quo which is the existence of tenures.",
"Should Tenures Be Taken Away I have to do this round a little bit different as Pro did not respond to any of my arguments. Instead, he used multiple fallacies throughout the debate. Namely, Ad Hominem(CR1), Ad hominem Tu Quoque(CR2), Appeal to Ridicule(CR1), Begging the Question(CR3), Post Hoc(round 3), and Red Herring(round 3). None of my contentions were refuted by Pro, therefore, I should win the debate. C1: Tenures prevent teachers from being arbitrarily fired, which allows academic freedom. If there was no tenures they could be fired for teaching about issues contrary to what the administration believes. My opponent tried to make it disappear by saying, \"it has nothing to do with tenures. \"C2: Tenures help draw and retain better teachers. It does this by having great job security, which rivals all other careers. If it was not for tenures, we would have worse teachers due to no job security. Again my opponent never did respond. My opponent also danced around my rebuttals. R1: My opponent attempts to assert that new innovative teachers will not be able to get a position. I then proceed to crush that argument in the next two rounds. The two things I prove are that teachers are needed and tenures actually foster an environment of innovation. R2: He makes an assertion that tenures will do great damage to the economy. However, I disprove that by showing teachers will make more. Like any industry, when people can be fired who make more they will be. That is why tenures help prevent seasoned teachers from being fired over salary. He decides to completely drop the argument after that. R3: Then he makes the claim that if a teacher is tenured they can not be fired. Which is completely false and a huge misconception. I prove that by providing links. Again, he chooses not to respond. 1. He never responded to my contentions.2. His contentions were completely defeated by my rebuttals.3. Drops all arguments in round 44. He committed multiple fallacies, especially in round 4.",
"Should Tenures Be Taken Away I am for the removal of tenures for teachers. There are 3 reasons that justify my position:1. Tenure PossibilitiesTenures allow for teachers to be guaranteed a lifetime teaching position according to the definition of tenure in the structure of this debate. By having this set out, many new teachers are prevented from teaching positions. Many include: - New people with new techniques for students- Fresh graduates with an eager heart to teach- People with new knowledge of a particular subjectBy barring these people from jobs, we stunt the growth of a new generation of Americans that provide our future with updated knowledge, ideas, and techniques. 2. Economic View From an economic viewpoint, tenures pull down our economy. Through keeping old teachers in positions, tenures make money flow only towards older generations of teachers. Thus, there is an imbalance of currency distribution which will:- New generations of teachers will struggle to earn a living - Contribute to the slowdown of money flow and economic downturn- Disable young people from working and benefiting the US while givingolder people the majority of money -- an imbalance3. Abuse of Teaching PositionsThrough allowing teachers fulfilling a number of years to have permanent jobs, tenures open the gateway for abuse of teaching positions. In 1999 six professors sued the state for banning them from watching porn on state computers. Tenures allow abuse of positions for people such as: - Those with corrupted moral standards- Teachers who might harm children indirectly through their depravity- Teachers not conductive to learning environmentNote that this \"corruption\" is not limited to being illegal in the sense that an arrest is at issue but also for such things that don't infringe on the law but still might be harmful for student values such as smoking outside of the school.Sources: http://tinyurl.com...http://tinyurl.com...http://tinyurl.com...http://tinyurl.com...http://tinyurl.com...",
"The United States Federal Government ought to ban tenure from all high schools. To My Future Opponent: Thank you for accepting my challenge. I started this debate to learn the pros and cons of this subject, and I chose the side that is my personal opinion (for now). Please feel free to any styles of debating. However I find it a more constructive debate if you hit each of my points as well as making your own. Hobey ho, lets go! In public high schools, tenure is considered a right for teachers who have passed their (usually) 3 year probationary term. Roughly 2.3 million public school teachers in the U.S. have tenure. (Time) Tenure is job security aimed at impeding wanton firing of \"unpopular\" teachers. Although noble in theory, tenure is simply wrong. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Point 1) If a teacher deserves to be fired, it is a daunting task for the school district to do so, leading to bad teachers staying in the system. According to a recent article in Time Magazine, \"Though tenure doesn't guarantee lifetime employment, it does make firing teachers a difficult and costly process, one that involves the union, the school board, the principal, the judicial system and thousands of dollars in legal fees. In most states, a tenured teacher can't be dismissed until charges are filed and months of evaluations, hearings and appeals have occurred. Meanwhile, school districts must shell out thousands of dollars for paid leave and substitute instructors. The system is deliberately slow and cumbersome, in order to dissuade school boards and parents from ousting a teacher for personal or political motives.\" As I mentioned before, a noble attempt at stopping corruption, yet it fails to recognize bad teachers in general. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Point 2) There are numerous cases of teachers that deserved to be fired, proved difficult because of tenure. Yet again, from Time, \"A Connecticut teacher received a mere 30-day suspension for helping students cheat on a standardized test; one California school board spent $8,000 to fire an instructor who preferred using R-rated movies instead of books; a Florida teacher remained in the classroom for a year despite incidents in which she threw books at her students and demanded they referred to her as ‘Ms. God.'\" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Point 3) Tenure can easily lead to teacher complacency. This point is simply logic. If a man or woman has a job they know they won't be fired from (within loose limits), are they really going to work extremely hard to better themselves at their job? In today's world, probably not. The same goes with teachers. Please note, I'm not saying all teachers are lazy scumbags who deserve to be fired, but this is simply a problem with tenure. I'm 100% sure that we've all had a teacher who just didn't care anymore. Mine was in a science class. She never taught a thing. All we did was handouts. Easiest ‘A' I've gotten in my life, but that's not the point of school. Tenure allows for ‘Blow off classes' and ‘easy a's', but is that necessarily a good thing, especially with legislation requiring standardized tests. If students are doing poorly, school districts get less grants, making it even harder to educate new students. It's a slippery slope that many schools are finding themselves in. You may be saying that tenure isn't the only cause of this, but it is a factor. Bad teachers = bad students. Simple. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Possible Solution: Get rid of the tenure system and create a new teacher grading system in which good teachers are kept and bad teachers are fired. I've been thinking about the education system a lot recently, and the only possible alternative I could find in my mind, is a merit based system. It would keep crass politics out of the system by assuring teachers their job (if they are up to it). I propose a three part test. A) Course Knowledge Exam- The teacher ought to know what they are talking about. B) Teacher Improvement Standards- There are numerous workshops and the like that are available to teachers. They should be required to attend a certain amount of such meetings yearly to keep up with the times and teaching styles. C) In Class Examination- Although teachers are often subjected to scheduled \"watching\" periods in which an official of the school sits in on a lesson, this is not enough. They should have a set number of random sit ins to insure the teacher is actually teaching, instead of simply making a show on that one scheduled day.",
"Colleges should abolish the ability for teachers to be tenured. Teachers who perform below benchmarks such as retention, attendance, academic performance results, assessing required learning outcomes and student feedback, should not be allowed tenure because students suffer to be successful and colleges suffer in graduation rates.",
"Should Tenures Be Taken Away Prevent Arbitrary Firings:If teachers did not receive tenure they could be fired for any reason. In other words, they would be limited in doing their job for fear of being fired. This promotes ineffective teachers for fear of being fired. That is something you do not want from teachers or students won't learn as much. (1) http://www.usatoday.com...(2) http://en.wikipedia.org...Tenures Retain the Best Teachers:The financial and career safety tenure provides, persuades better qualified candidates to be teachers. Many other careers offer higher pay, but very few offer as much security as tenures. Furthermore, to remove tenures would only drive more great teachers away from the profession. Which would then weaken our educational system even more. (1) http://lilt.ilstu.edu...Rebuttals:Tenure does not limit possibilities: My opponent states that tenures prevent new teachers from a teaching position. That is completely false with teachers being one of the most needed positions. There is even a grant the government has out to draw more teachers. (1) http://teaching.monster.com...(2) https://teach-ats.ed.gov...Tenure does not pull down our economy: Tenure boosts the economy by allowing teachers to be paid more. In addition, every single teacher, if they stay long enough, will get tenure. Tenure in no way restricts teachers from making more. (1) http://www.lasvegassun.com...Teacher tenure does not allow an abuse of position: \"It is a myth that teacher tenure provides a guarantee of lifetime employment, ensuring notice and providing a hearing for generally accepted reasons for termination, such as incompetence, insubordination, and immorality.\"(1) http://voices.washingtonpost.com..."
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Is vaping with e-cigarettes safe?
| ["Bloomberg's Ban on E-Cigs\nElectronic cigarettes comes with different cartridges including 6-18mg (...TRUNCATED)
| ["Cigarettes are, overall, more detrimental to the overall well-being of Americans than alcohol. Fir(...TRUNCATED)
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Should insider trading be allowed?
| ["Negotiations for the TPP agreement should be abandoned\nIf free trade were so amazing, there would(...TRUNCATED)
| ["creation of stocks should be banned 3000 character limit. 1 - Rampant stock speculation was just o(...TRUNCATED)
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Should corporal punishment be used in schools?
| ["Corporal punishment should be banned from schools\nhttp://abcnews.go.com... This article shows the(...TRUNCATED)
| ["My 99th Debate: Kids and Corporal Punishment In my family, we don't do punishment. I was never gro(...TRUNCATED)
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Should social security be privatized?
| ["Privatizing social security\nPrivatizing social security would wrongly enrich banks.","Social Secu(...TRUNCATED)
| ["Pensions should be privatised State involvement in pensions is deleterious to both pensioners and (...TRUNCATED)
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Is a college education worth it?
| ["Governemt Should Intervene to Lower College Costs\nHere, I will attempt to prove that college cost(...TRUNCATED)
| ["We regret the emphasis on college education Thanks to my opponent for continuing this debate so ef(...TRUNCATED)
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Should felons who have completed their sentence be allowed to vote?
| ["You Choose the Topic!\nI believe people shouldn't be jailed forever, so have a different consequen(...TRUNCATED)
| ["Felons should have voting rights in the modern U.S. I'm sorry, I'm going to waive this last round,(...TRUNCATED)
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Should abortion be legal?
| ["Abortion should be legal\n== Intro ==In this debate, I'll defend abortion being legal for some per(...TRUNCATED)
| ["Abortion should be illegal I have been painfully waiting for an intellectual discourse since I've (...TRUNCATED)
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Should students have to wear school uniforms?
| ["Students Should Not Wear Uniforms At Memphis City And Shelby County Schools\nkids should be allowe(...TRUNCATED)
| ["Private Schools Should Have Their Students Wear Uniforms Private Schools should have the right to (...TRUNCATED)
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Should any vaccines be required for children?
| ["Should doctors be aloud to give you vaccines\nMedical exemptions These are allowed when a child ha(...TRUNCATED)
| ["Vaccinations are necessary I am sincerely sorry for this waste of time. I wish my opponent had not(...TRUNCATED)
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