If you took the "20/20" presentation of tenure seriously, you'd conclude that tenure is an insult to common sense.

There is currently a big attack on teacher tenure -- particularly in the media. Look, for example, at the "20/20" segment that aired in February. If you took its presentation of tenure seriously, you'd conclude that tenure is an insult to common sense and its principal effect is to protect incompetent teachers by giving them lifetime jobs from which it is almost impossible to remove them. I'll take up this gross distortion in a moment. First, though, "20/20" did not even get the facts right. During a parade of horrors, it said that a Michigan school was "unable to dismiss a teacher who threatened a third-grade student with a knife" and implied that the teacher got away without punishment. What really happened? According to the Michigan Department of Education (Education Week, Letters, June 19, 1996), the threat was an unfortunate joke, and the tenure commission decided not to fire the teacher because it weighed his error in judgment against a 22-year record of "effective" teaching. Instead, it suspended him for two years without pay. But the caricature of a teacher (protected by tenure) pulling a knife on a young child -- and then getting off scot-free - -is what will stick in the minds of "20/20" viewers. Unless, of course, they read Education Week's even more sensational version of the story (April 17, 1996), in which the teacher "threatened children with knives."

But doesn't tenure protect incompetent teachers? No, it protects competent ones by giving them the right to due process. Tenure means that a teacher can't be let go just because he or she has said something that annoyed the principal or because a parent objects to a book on the reading list and is making it hot for the school board. And it means that a teacher can't be fired because a board member has a young friend or relative who needs a job.

Remember the story of Adele Jones? She's the Delaware math teacher who was fired for "incompetence" because the school board said she had flunked "too many" students. (The kids said she was a good teacher, and if they flunked it was because they hadn't done the work.). Ultimately, Adele Jones got her job back because of tenure. Occasionally, there is an injustice and somebody who deserves to be fired keeps his job. That, as people realize in connection with our system of justice, is the price for having fair procedures. As for hiring and retaining mediocre or incompetent teachers, the principals and the school boards are the main culprits here. The union acts as a kind of defense attorney when a tenured teacher is in trouble -- that is its legal responsibility. However, the problems start much earlier. When working conditions or pay are poor, administrators may have to hire people they know are marginal. At the end of the probationary period, which is three years on average, a large majority of probationary teachers end up getting tenure, whether or not they deserve it. Sometimes administrators don't think they can find replacements who'll be any better; sometimes it's just that they hate to fire anybody. Administrators are also the ones who let incompetent teachers with tenure hang on without either trying to help them, or, if it is clear that they will never improve, easing them out or making the case for firing them.

Probably the biggest reason administrators don't get rid of poor teachers is that firing someone is an unpleasant thing to do. In the southern states where teachers are not protected by tenure, administrators could fire them much more freely, but there is no evidence that they do. And it doesn't happen much in businesses, either, which is why you find marginal employees who draw their paychecks year after year. What about the objection that tenure means it takes too long and costs too much to get rid of a bad teacher? There is no question that procedures in many jurisdictions are cumbersome and expensive, but that is no reason to get rid of tenure. Other lines of work with adversarial proceedings avoid roadblocks by using procedures like expedited arbitration and making rules that prevent delay. There is no reason why we couldn't work out something similar for hearings involving teachers and school boards.

The policies and procedures governing tenure are not perfect or perfectly carried out, but the principal is sound. Perhaps most Americans understand that, despite the deluge of anti-tenure propaganda from the media. That's what is suggested by the results of an informal poll conducted by a New York State senator in his district. The senator didn't mention tenure. Instead, he asked constituents. "Should teachers who have successfully served a three-year probation be entitled to a due process hearing before being disciplined?" Seventy-six percent said yes. Instead of getting rid of tenure, which is what the one-sided accounts in the media are pushing, we need to reacquaint people with what the word tenure really means.