Here most of us are in govt colleges, and tenure is provided.  At one time, it's very difficult to remove a civil servant from office.  But recently an exit policy was started, and so far, one person was removed, that I know of.  It's like you said: 'Unless they commit a "serious" crime, they cannot be fired.'  So the exit policy puts an end to that.  It's right that any teacher or worker should be accountable. (This gives an impact.)

https://themalaymailonline.wordpress.com/2015/12/17/exit-policy-will-create-productive-civil-service-says-public-service-department-d-g/

Education being a state/province jurisdiction in both the U.S. and Canada, a reasonable response might start by pointing out that there are substantial variations across state/provincial boundaries, but a study by the Center for American Progress

https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2010/02/pdf/teacher_tenure.pdf

looked at programs and policies in several states and noted:

“This study hoped to identify and explain the variance in tenure policies across states. But further investigation has revealed that very little variation in tenure policies exists; states have done remarkably little experimentation in this area.” (p. 3)

Further details on the legal status of tenure in the U.S. can be found at:

http://education.findlaw.com/teachers-rights/teachers-rights-tenure-and-dismissal.html

While Canadian data are not so easy to find, I have worked in three provinces, lived in four and studied another and it seems fair to say the same is true here.

In Ireland, I believe, teachers do not get tenure, but in the U.K. they do:

http://www.politics.ie/forum/education-science/206375-newly-qualified-second-level-teachers-uk-being-paid-15-greater-than-ireland.html

But the bigger question is about impact. Eric Hanushek has done a fair amount of research on tenure policies and practices in the U.S. , e.g.,:

http://media.trb.com/media/acrobat/2009-10/49898689.pdf

and he contends (though it might have been in another paper) that a large percentage of "harm" done to students is at the hands of a very tiny percentage of really bad teachers.  He laments, along with many other educational reformers, that tenure policies have the effect of making it exceedingly difficult and expensive to get these individuals out of the profession.

Tenure advocates, including teacher unions, argue that the problem is not tenure but school administrations that are too weak, too lazy, or too uncaring to take on the task of teacher dismissal.

I am not sure you asked, Robin, but I would say that one part of the difficulty is that teacher tenure systems (in N. America) do not involve the kind of rigorous performance examination we find in universities. Generally, holding on to a job for about two years gets a teacher tenure.  During that time they are likely to have one or two evaluations based on a small number of classroom visits by a supervisor. Universities generally require six years, have student evaluations of every course offering, demand a record of research productivity, use a peer assessment system in the form of tenure committee hearings for each individual case, and seek independent assessments by external experts to inform the committees' deliberations.

Last point: in Ontario, the Ontario College of Teachers keeps a public list of teachers charged with unprofessional activities and reports the outcomes of those cases. I don't  know if any research has been done to examine the effectiveness of this practice, but it certainly has the appearnane of adding a level of quality control.

Bill

@Bill - Thank you so much for your detailed post - the Hanushek reference looks particularly useful.  I do wonder if truly a "handful" of teacher do damage.  I hope this is true, but anecdotally I fear it is more than a handful.  The fact is, there is no real accountability for teacher sin Ontario - I don't know many other jobs that offer that kind of security.  I also wonder how one would actually measure the damage that poor teacher might do.  I will first start with Hanushek though.  Thanks again,  

My pleasure.  In looking for that literature, I saw other US studies that suggested something on the order of 3-4% of teachers are not really competent.  They also noted that there are others who are not really effective but maybe not doing harm.

Of course that reminds me of the old standardised test of teaching in use for a couple of years in Ontario early in this century--we had something like a 98% pass rate among teacher candidates.  The test had been developed in the U.S. by Educational Testing Service and in some states the pass rate for experienced teachers was under 50%.

There are differences.

Robin, I actuall made a submission about this in Queensland Australia where we generally have tenure similar to Canada. I have no data but a firm opinion based on 35 years observation of teachers. Queensland also has a system for managing underperfoming teachers which I have seen used, although rarely.

I do sometimes question the definition of underperforming as well. In my current positon I am 'boss' to 17 teachers. My bosses have questioned the performance of 1 or 2 but I have supported them by the description that they are 'not performing exceptionally' rather than underperforming. My basis for this is historical data and observation. Their results data is not dissimilar to the average results data of other teachers. They just do not make the huge difference to the kids that some teachers do, but then how many of us can be exceptional. In practice i do the same with them as I do with students. I remind myself that they do have some strengths and use those to increase their sense of efficacy. I ascertain their needs and weaknesses and work on those, slowly and carefully, and as long as there is improvement and no damage to students, I am comfortable with that.

To answer the question specifically: The answer isn't simple as you would expect. In brief, lack of tenure puts stress on teachers and tends to make them compliant, and willing to do what administrators/bosses want, but tends to mitigate against experimentation because of fear of perceived mistakes. There are of course a few teachers who do perform better under no tenure because they feel pressured to meet minimum expectations.

When there is tenure, those teachers who are uncreative or underperforming could avoid improvement, but this has not been my experience. They still improve, albeit slowly with support.

As long as there is a system for forced improvement or removal when incompetence is such that students are damaged, then I would come down on the tenure side to allow potentially exceptional teachers to be secure in their experimentation.

I guess we face a dilemma in Jordan regarding the tenure perspective. The government is still hiring teachers with fixed contracts, but on social security and not civil service. This issue is emphasizing and establishing the perspective of being secured. I guess we need understand the influence of being tenured or not... What in it for teachers, government, students and the academic life.

Are we influenced by social systems that try to stress the risk of losing jobs vs. our threat to peoples income (we call it rizq in Islam....) major questions are raised here...

Tenure, also known as "continuing contract", has been the target for school reform for quite sometime.  It is nationwide in the U.S. with variations on how it is achieved.  I find it interesting that when tenure comes under fire, the discussion is always limited to K-12 teachers.  It appears that the question of tenure is a topic that is taboo at the Higher Education level.  Discussions with colleagues who serve on the Board of Trustees at colleges state that if they attempt to do away with tenure, it would be nearly impossible to recruit and retain top quality professors.  If this is true, then tenure is a good thing.  The issue is not the concept but the application of criteria in order to obtain and grant tenure.  As with many processes, the minimums have become the maximums.  There is a tremendous philosophical difference between tenure that protects ineffective teachers and tenure that rewards constant high levels of performance.

@Mark - Thank you for your thoughtful reply.  Clearly the issue is not simple.  It is challenging to assess how well a teacher is preforming, particularly when his/he job might be on the line.  I do wonder, though, how we are assessing the quality of teaching.  I know in Ontario there is no formal or informal method to assess the quality of teaching past the first 2 years.  And if we do not even attempt to measure impact, how can we grow and improve as a profession.  I feel somewhat discouraged because while preaching evidence-based teaching and "knowthy impact" (Hattie, 2009), it seems a bit hopeless if there is absolutely no mechanism for monitoring and assuming quality.  I can't think of too many occupations where that practice is sustainable.

@Emad I understand there are clear ecumenical implications here and I think we would want to be fair and reasonable.  But in Canada, fair and reasonable has been exceeded and teachers have NO accountability.  As Bill says, that may not be problem and we can hope and believe that "most" teachers are doing a good job, but anecdotally, it appears that a number of teachers are mediocre, at best. So my question is - "Who stands up for the students?"

@Richard - Well said - Excellent point.  It is interesting that in Canada it is far easier for a K-12 teacher to get tenure than a higher education professional.  It takes a teacher 2 years with minimal evaluation and then they are set for life.  For a professor, it takes 6 years and the process is quite grueling.  So I think you are on to something here.  I would be all for earned tenure in the K-12 system where it took 6 years and the process was rigorous and thorough. 

Robin, the points you bring up are not directly related to tenure. There seems fo be in many comments a concaenation of tenure with motivation. They are not necessarily related except in a spurious negatice way. Motivation to improve is related to a person's professionalism. One could use evidence of effort to improve student outcomes as a measure of professionalism and then those that do not demonstrate that effort can be counselled of whatever is deemed necessry. So define that which makes a teacher professional, and then use that to enter into discussions of high performing or underperforming. Tenure is not needed as a (rather blunt) instrument to encourage professionalism. ACER in Australia is beginning a journey into measuring improvement rather than achievement as the goal of school assessment and reporting. Done well this may provide useful measures of effectiveness. Currently we (my department) are using a simple effect size process to measure effectiveness. I am not convinced that it is significant. Discussions of 'high impact strategies' tend to become quite complex because they may be different for different children at different times. And some of the things we value such as critical and creative thinking or social and psychological wellbeimg are very difficult to measure over short time frame and wouldn't contribute to effect size, so should we stop dping those things.

ACER in Australia is beginning a journey into measuring improvement rather than achievement as the goal of school assessment and reporting... Can you explain.. is it from employee/university perspective?

Emad, this is for students in primary and secondary schools NOT university or employees. ACER is Australian Council for Education Research. Geoff Masters is the CEO and is leading the research. He is trying to change the culture, political and educational around assessment and reorting to align with psychology of growth and resilience. An idea completely in line with my own research project from 2000 to 20005