Introduction
Comparison/similarities between act 82 and tenure law act
Contrast/differences act 82 and tenure law act
Conclusion
Introduction
Both act 82 and tenure law act are legislations regulating teachers’ behavior on the job as it relates to delivery of safe/ethical practices. Act 82 is the more recent law embodying an effective teacher system of 2012 to be implemented in the 2014 - 2015 school year. There are four components of the act encompassing observation/evidence accounting for 50% of features entailed in the compliance process; elective data 20%; teacher specific data 15% and building level data also 15% (Pennsylvania Department of Education, 2012).
Importantly, the goal of this act is to enforce practicing the art of teaching, which involves application of Danielson’s framework for teaching. This framework emphasizes four basic features of the teaching process. They are curriculum, instruction, which encompasses four domains (planning and preparation; classroom environment; instruction and professional practice), assessment and data analysis (Pennsylvania Department of Education, 2012).
The first teachers’ tenure law act was passed in 1937. Since then there have been several modifications state amendments. Essentially, the goal was to set boundaries within which tenure teachers can function as well as establishing rights to continued employment once their conduct is compliant and rights of the education board to dismiss them on specific violation grounds. Specifically the term tenure was used to describe a body of professionals who are protected by law from being fired for frivolous reasons stabled in a professional code of conduct. However over the years historians have not been able to establish a real definition for teacher tenure, but deliberate on the concept as being vital to wrongful dismissal procedures (Lohman, 2002)
Comparison/similarities between act 82 and tenure law act
Clearly features, which the teacher tenure law act and act 82 have in common relate to raising the standard of education delivery within states first through retaining those who perform excellently protecting them from wrongful dismissal and facilitating instruction delivery through profound scientific evidence based guidelines. For example, the teacher tenure law establishes ‘strict termination and due process requirements for teachers’ (Lohman, 2002, p.1) regardless of whether they were represented under a tenure or not.
A House Bill 1901(Act 82 of 2012) was, however, signed into law by Gov. Corbett, which required the Secretary of Education to create a revised statewide rating system for evaluating teachers and principals. This Act 82 was requesting a the new rating system designed to place 50 percent of evaluations on a number of students’ performance measures inclusive of test scores. Classroom observation and practice will comprise the other 50 percent assessment criteria. It is hoped that while these are important other considerations could be included overtime. Act 82 as tenure law act would affect temporary professionals along with professional employees, which inclusive of principals, classroom teachers and educational specialists providing non-classroom instruction services (Pennsylvania Department of Education, 2012).
Originally, the tenure law act protected qualified professional employees under the superintendent category, but employed by a board of education for 90 days minimum at certification required position. The most recent revisions of the law act prior to 2012 cover teachers hired after 1996. Revisions are constantly made with the aim of improving teaching performance, which can be compared to student’s overall performance for that school year or during their tenure (Lohman, 2002).
Further, similarity between the teacher tenure act and act 82 can be cited in the deliberate attempt of bringing teacher performance into alignment with that of students for establishing dismissal under just cause. If students’ performance is below the acceptable standard often education superintendents blame the teacher and not teaching strategies. Act 82 attempts through effective strategies to facilitate the process by improving output (Lohman, 2002).
For example, in 2007, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg expressed concerns that even though it was easy to fire a teacher during the three year probationary period seldom this was done among New York schools. Consequently, a year later, in 2008, mayor introduced what was known as the Principal Portal. It was a tool designed to facilitate teacher evaluation. Specifically, the mechanism offered principals guidelines on which to base their firing decisions. Evaluating teachers’ performance based on student’s test scores was a major indicator for firing teachers. Subsequently the amount of teachers fired during their probationary period based on this revision doubled in New York State. Conclusions derived from this experiment with the New York teacher tenure act application model that ‘Principal Portal’ is a successful intervention (Lohman, 2002).
Contrast/differences act 82 and tenure law act
Evidently, dismissing teachers based on student’s performance under the teacher tenure law act in an effort to improve the education delivery process in America is not a solution to poor academic student performance. Herein lay the broad differences between act 82 and tenure law act. The teacher tenure law addresses a dysfunction from the perspective of symptoms in dismissing teachers due to poor student academic performance. Symptoms always have en underlying cause and an easy way of treating pain is to merely offering an analgesic/pain pill which will offer temporary relief. This is how the teacher tenure act addresses less than adequate academic performance, by dismissing teachers, but this is temporary; unless the source of pain is discovered and treated pain will be a recurring symptom.
As such, educators with profound evidenced based knowledge enforced Act 82 which is a teacher effectiveness program embodying relevant strategies for raising students’ academic performance levels along teaching confidence in delivery of a scientific curriculum. While both laws focused on improving education standards within United States of America the target groups are different. Teacher tenure targeted teachers as failure even before they begin executing duties. Act 82 perceives them as valuable once they are given effective tools to resolve difficult situations in the classroom.
Even though article 11: 38.83a endorses the teacher in probationary period; individualized development plan; performance evaluation; basis, there seems that very little was devoted to this aspect of the probationary period as it pertains to the development plan. Precisely, it has been stated in the act that the teacher must be provided with an individualized development plan created by appropriate administrative authority. This must be done in consultation with the targeted teacher (Lohman, 2002).
One wonders whether this aspect of the act was considered or implemented in the New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg Principal Portal application of the teacher tenure act in New York. However, act 82 considers both the teacher and student to be valuable participants in the education practice process. For example, the act considers domains of learning applicable to effective teaching practice revising bloom’s taxonomy for a twenty-first century classroom.
This model embraces planning and perception developing creativity skills in students and emergence of more in the teacher for effective delivery. Importantly, observation and evidence derived through on stage research is the measure of both teacher and student performance levels. There is no subjective analysis based on students’ academic grades in judgmentally assessing teachers’ performance as in the tenure law act regulations (Lohman, 2002).
Act 82 allows school districts to design their own rating tools and use them if approved by PED as meeting act 82 standards. Specific steps regarding professional responsibilities are outlined in this act. They include collecting and charting data (Step 1); analyzing data and prioritizing needs (Step 11); setting review or revising instructional goals to meet prioritized needs (Step 111); selecting common instructional or prioritized strategies ( Step 1V); determining results indicators ( Step V) and monitoring and evaluating results ( Step V1) (Pennsylvania Department of Education, 2012).
Finally, instead of the current ‘satisfactory’ and ‘unsatisfactory’ rating scales used for evaluating teachers under tenure law act now the terms ‘distinguished,’ ‘proficient,’ ‘need improvement’ and ‘failing’ would be utilized as evaluating measurements. Also act 82 covers tenure, non-tenure professionals in public and vocational schools. Charter schools are not mandated to apply the regulations and it is left to the school administration to institute performance based pay incentive systems (Pennsylvania Department of Education, 2012).
Conclusion
The foregoing analysis comparing and contrasting act 82 and tenure law act revealed that the basic similarities lay in teacher evaluating strategies. Ultimately, the focus was on improving students’ academic performance. The difference identified between the two was that tenure law act focused on teacher performance based students’ test score only without evaluating other criteria. Act 82 included these criteria and principal evaluation categories too.
References
Lohman, J. (2002). Teacher Tenure Law. Retrieved on November 12th, 2013 from
http://www.cga.ct.gov/2002/olrdata/ed/rpt/2002-r-0469.htm
Pennsylvania Department of Education (2012).Educator Effectiveness Administrative Manual.
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Education
