As with many other things, tenure was intended to prevent teachers from being victims of a local version of the political spoils system. When the school board changed due to elections, the thought was, qualified teachers ought not to lose their positions because a new school board director wanted to reward supporters with jobs for themselves or their relatives and friends. Tenure predated unions.

I have nothing against teachers' unions or tenure, but one or the other has got to go. Personally, I think that tenure has outlived its usefulness.

You do understand that the spoils system described only really works if the school is a legal monopoly. ;)

Obviously, if the customer has a choice, and a school has flooded itself with relatives of the new director who can't teach worth crap, the customers will go somewhere else. On the other hand, if his cousins are great teachers, who cares?

I have studied the subject of restraint of entry. Teacher certification is a form of professional licensing. I have found that while there are some cases where licensing serves a valid purpose, in many other cases it serves the primary purpose of protecting a selected group from competition. I'm sorry to say, I think teacher certification now largely falls into this category.

The uncomfortable truth is that an awful lot of people would make good teachers, particularly at lower grade levels. My kids have had teachers who taught math one year, and social studies the next. And done a good job at it. How hard can learning the material be? I can't help but feel that many other people, even without the coveted credential and union membership, could do it just as well. And I get the impression the unions and education bureaucracy are well aware of this.

The sooner the education systems sees some serious competition, the better.