Teachers’ Strike – My View on the Most Controversial Issue

A week has passed since the Teachers Union announced a strike in high schools across the country. The major stumbling block is the issue of personal contracts by which the teachers are to be employed, akin to the same principle as in the private sector. The principal in this case, receives additional authority to reward hard working teachers, excellent in class management, creative and innovative, whose initiatives improve the system they work in. The bigger the merit, the bigger the financial reward. This new system of rewards is supposed to attract young and talented teachers and get rid of bad ones, as the Minister of Finance has recently explained.

The reason why personal contracts are such a problem for teachers is the precarious situation Israeli teachers find themselves in. They feel unprotected from all angles: from students, parents and the principal. They see tenure as their only anchor in the turbulent sea of Israeli reality in and off the classroom. Here’s why.
Teachers in Israel have virtually no power over students. There are no useful sanctions a teacher can enforce, in order to establish discipline and personal responsibility during class. A student can get a suspension only in the rarest of cases, such as when extreme violence was used or smoking on the school premises. Even ordering a student out of the classroom is permissible for symbolic five minutes, after which a teacher must let them in. If a teacher refuses to do so, they are ordered this by a homeroom teacher or a grade level coordinator, or a principal deputy. As for disciplinary remarks, they are meaningless, since students know they bear virtually no repercussions for their high school careers. In other words, teachers are toothless. It is merely by good will and persuasion that an acceptable lesson might be possible in a classroom of about forty teenagers, bursting with energy and hormones so typical at this age. There are teacher magicians who can deal with all that successfully. But most educators have their share of difficulties, which they experience on a daily basis.

In addition, there are the parents, who put immense pressure on the school, forcing principals to succumb to their demands, such as at which level their offspring should study Math and English or the decisions on uniform and policy in general. They unabashedly call teachers directly and tactlessly put out their demands, without so much as listening to the professional on the other end, who is trying to reflect the real situation about their offspring. They treat teachers as service providers and themselves and their children as customers. In such a scheme, a customer is always right and should be happy, receiving the best service possible. However, students aren’t customers and the role of the school is not to make them always happy. Its role is to help shape their critical thinking and teach them a thing or two. This might come at a price of them being at times unhappy, or even miserable, as they learn to cope with challenges. Students are decisively not customers, they are young people in desperate need of guidance and boundaries they usually don’t have at home.

Another angle in this triangle is the relationship with the school management, notably with the principal. A school, like no other organization, is based on and defined by personal relationships on all sides. Having a healthy working relationship with the principal is imperative to the teacher’s success. Having the principal’s back is vital in dealing with students and parents. If this relationship is somehow compromised, it affects the teacher’s work short and long term.

Hence, in order to implement the changes the Ministry of Finance proposes, a profound reform in the educational system is necessary. When teachers are re-empowered, when practical tools for dealing with discipline are reintroduced in the classroom, and when the respect begins from the parents at home, the Israeli teachers might feel confident enough to give up their demand for tenure. But even as things are standing now, there is a way to give up the tenure and accept a system of meritocracy under certain critical conditions.

First, prior to signing a contract, there must be a fundamental agreement over rewards and dismissal. Both have to be decided by a panel of several professionals: the principal, the subject coordinator, the deputy principal of pedagogy and a representative from a Teachers Union. In other words, firing a teacher shouldn’t be a one-person decision, but rather that of a panel consisting of these professionals, so that an impartial approach is ensured in deciding the fate of an educator. The same goes for a decision to raise a person’s wages by giving a bonus, or a reward – that same panel decides that, and not the principal alone. These or similar guardrails are imperative to ensure fairness in decision making regarding an educator.

In addition, when a teacher is hired, their wages are decided by several factors, such as: years of experience, expertise, as well as the willingness to take on additional roles, such as homeroom teaching, coordinating, etc. The final agreement should include stipulations on starting salary, depending on the aforementioned factors. Furthermore, retaining the sabbatical year, the teachers’ trust fund and the various training rewards must be included in the new agreement. These benefits must remain as before.

In conclusion, being an experienced teacher myself, I see no reason to fear a transition to personal contracts, as long as it is anchored in an a-priory deal to protect the educators’ basic rights, ensuring a fair decision-making process concerning their salary raise or dismissals. The educators’ ongoing concern that relinquishing tenure might harm them in the long term is understandable, since it allows for a financially secure future. However, the educational system is in dire need of professional teachers in all subject matters. Therefore, educators who do their job professionally, having the students’ interests at heart, as the vast majority of us do, should have nothing to be concerned about. The system needs good teachers and tenure or no tenure doesn’t change that.