The trade-offs of tenure in public education

The NY Times offers a compelling profile on Michelle Rhee's efforts to transform the DC school system. She's now offering dramatic pay increases to teachers willing to forgo tenure - and being fought every step of the way by the United Federation of Teachers.

The rationale for tenure in public education does make sense, as articulated by Dr. Jeffrey Mirel from the University of Michigan:

“And the historical rationale remains good,” Dr. Mirel said, pointing to the case of a renowned high school biology teacher in Kansas who was forced to retire nine years ago because he refused to teach creationism.

“Without tenure,” Dr. Mirel said, “teachers can still face arbitrary firing because of religious views, or simply because of the highly politicized nature of American society.”

There clearly is a public value to having tenure. But what Dr. Mirel fails to do is to balance that against the potential costs of tenure on the quality of public education. Ms. Rhee would argue (and I'll readily agree) that the benefits of tenure are far outweighed by the costs.