House should pass tenure reform

Teachers, like employees in any profession, should be evaluated for their performance, with consequences for poor results and rewards for good ones.

Teachers should also be able to speak their minds about what's best for students without fear of firing or retribution.

Legislators must balance those sometimes-competing factors as they consider changes to Virginia's teacher contract system. School divisions now usually offer teachers a continuing contract after successful completion of a three-year probationary period, a kind of de facto tenure. Critics, including Gov. Bob McDonnell, say the system protects bad teachers and makes it difficult to remove them from the classroom.

Virginia has another, important reason to seek changes. The Obama administration has tied performance evaluations for teachers and principals to waivers from the No Child Left Behind law and its ever-escalating, nearly unattainable standards for student achievement. It has also tied changes to earning some of the billions of education dollars in the "Race to the Top" competition.

Under legislation pending in the Virginia House of Delegates, new teachers would get a three-year contract if they successfully complete a probation period, which would increase to five years from three. Teachers with existing continuing contracts would keep them, even if they change school divisions.

Teachers hold a unique ability to affect a child's future. Study after study has showed that one teacher can change a child's life for good or ill: students of strong teachers post higher test scores and boast increased future earning power. Those students are more likely to avoid teenage pregnancy, more likely to go to college.

The effects of good teachers are so dramatic, and the effects of bad ones so detrimental, that all teachers should be required to maintain high performance. The current system weeds out many who don't.

The Virginia Education Association argues that proposed changes represent piling on to educators who are already overworked, underpaid, and who face staff cuts, shifting standards and stagnant wages.

There's reason to worry. A single unsatisfactory evaluation could justify termination under the new system. That's a problem, especially in a profession where experience matters, and which struggles to attract qualified candidates.

A poor performance review should generate an intervention to see if training could turn around the situation.

Experienced teachers should continue to enjoy protection for speaking out about what's best for their students. Good teachers won't stay if they live in fear of firing for fighting for those kids.

A new teacher and principal evaluation system must base its measures on results and effectiveness, not politics.

But that doesn't mean that teachers who fail to improve, who continue to be unable to have a positive effect on young minds and young lives, should be permitted to indefinitely inflict their ineptitude on kids.