The Disadvantages of Teacher Tenure

Tenure is a lifetime commitment of employment made to an employee by an employer. Common in many academic teaching positions, tenure is typically awarded to a teacher after he shows five to 10 years of commitment to teaching, research, when applicable, and the institution. The intent of tenure is to offer employees academic freedom, particular for research endeavors, while helping the institution retain top employees.

Performance Complacency

Detractors of tenure routinely point to a complacency that can set in when employees are virtually guaranteed lifetime employment. Motivation typically results when someone has a goal or a need that is unsatisfied. When an employee has a lifetime employment commitment from an employer regardless of performance, he can easily lose interest and perform only as he wants, according to Russell B. Moore in his Education Week article, "Tenure Should Not Be for Life." While some people maintain a reasonable level of professionalism, some tenured teachers continue to collect paychecks even when overall quality of teaching and research fail, indicates Moore.

Handcuffed Employer

Academic institutions offer tenure because they feel the benefits outweigh the drawbacks and risks. This becomes a problem when a teacher pushes the limits of acceptable behavior. Aside from legal problems related to work, there is little that can stop a tenured teacher. Strong conduct policies that outline specific causes for termination of a tenured employee help, but a teacher can still fight the institution through school appeal processes and the courts by claiming the school went against its contractual commitment of tenure. Jon A. Preston, in his article "Advantages and Disadvantages of Tenure" for Georgia Tech University, indicates that some teachers have retained jobs even in lieu of felony convictions because employers feared backlash and costs.

Salary Focus

Tenure is more common at research institutions to provide a safeguard to research professors that work in controversial areas. Preston points out that tenure actually encourages teachers to focus more on salary advancement and other benefits of their jobs than on teaching and research. In essence, an employee driven initially by research passion may lose sight of his pursuits once the incentive of tenure is obtained. Some institutions have formal or informal publication requirements to earn tenure, which drives professors to research and produce work that garners recognition. If tenure slows a professor's momentum, it has contradicted its main premise.


Tenure has two important cost variables that are detrimental to an institution. Teachers are typically paid according to a rate schedule, with income increasing with experience. In a tenure system, employees stick around longer, which may cause the school to employ more high-earning teachers and focus less on developing young teachers, according to Preston. Additionally, if a school does choose to take the risky approach of terminating a tenured teacher, it incurs significant costs. This factor contributed to administrator concerns expressed when the state of Virginia surveyed its educators during a 1998 tenure process review. Thorough documentation of incidents leading to termination and defense against a tenured employee's institutional and legal grievances can get expensive. This is why some schools simply bide their time with non-performing tenured teachers.


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