Originally Posted by kerry

I have a couple of thoughts about that. First off, tenure neither endorses nor ultimately protects bad teachers. It takes more effort to get rid of a bad tenured teacher than a bad non-tenured teacher but it is possible. I have seen it done. Tenure is an excuse for administrators without backbone to explain why they haven't done their job.

But secondly, in any large organization there are going to be slackers. It's unavoidable and I don't know of any method to rid a large organization of people who are less productive than others. I don't know what an acceptable percentage is. I'm guessing somewhere around 10% or so. We just have to tolerate a certain amount of it in any organization.

Teacher burn out is a problem. I know of one fairly effective way to deal with it since the organization I worked for had the policy for a short period of time and I took advantage of it. It allowed a teacher to work overtime without pay and 'bank' the extra work. Then, when the bank had enough credits, the teacher could take a long vacation. Typically, one semester. The teacher then comes back renewed. I know it worked for me and I think it would be an effective policy to combat burn out. It wouldn't take care of the 'slacker' issue because they wouldn't be motivated to work the initial overtime but it goes help a lot with burn out.