To promote success among all students, schools hire an array of support staff, professional personnel, and administrators. The majority of a school's budget is dedicated to personnel costs, so when the Legislature cuts education funding, they are also cutting staff. However, changes in staffing have not been consistent over time or within staffing…

St. Edward's University is a private, four-year institution affiliated with the Roman Catholic Church that traces its beginnings to 1877, when the Congregation of Holy Cross, an order of French missionaries, founded St. Edward's Academy on farmland south of Austin, Texas. St. Edward's received its charter as a college in 1885 and as a university…

In places where Islamic State (ISIS) took hold in Syria and Iraq between 2014 and 2017, its domination was followed by an elaborate educational system. As such, the terrorist organization's 'state program' is a unique case in recent history. Indeed, not only did it overturn the existing education system in Syria and Iraq, resulting in a hiatus in…

This report concerns actions taken by the administration of the Community College of Aurora, during the fourth week of the fall 2016 semester, to terminate the appointment of part-time instructor of philosophy, Nathanial Bork, without affordance of academic due process. Mr. Bork was dismissed after conveying his intention to send to the college's…

Few studies examine employee responses to layoff-induced unemployment risk; none that we know of quantify the impact of job insecurity on individual employee productivity. Using data from the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and Washington State during the Great Recession, we provide the first evidence about the impact of the layoff…

Few studies examine employee responses to layoff-induced unemployment risk; none that we know of quantify the impact of job "insecurity" on individual employee productivity. Using data from the Los Angeles Unified School District and Washington State during the Great Recession, we provide the first evidence about the impact of the layoff…

Using data on charter and public school districts in Texas, we test the hypothesis that the labor practices in charter schools, in particular their ability to easily dismiss poorly performing teachers, diminishes the negative effect of teacher turnover on student achievement and graduation rates in comparison to public schools. We find some…

Fifty years ago, John G. Davis published an article on Teacher Dismissal on grounds of immorality and the "new morality" of the 1970s. While much has changed in terms of morality and moral turpitude in 50 years, this article reviews the current case law and reasons teachers continue to be fired today over issues of immorality and sexual…

Sidney Hook set the terms of debate on Communism, higher education, and academic freedom in the postwar United States. His view that Communists lacked the independence necessary for teaching and research--a view forged in the heated debates of New York City's radical left in the 1930s--provided the rationale for firing Communist professors across…

With the federal government's expanding role in K-12 public education, this study examines how the government's role led to the passage of the Illinois Performance Evaluation Reform Act (PERA). PERA made changes to Article 24A of the School Code, specifically the section that deals with teacher performance evaluation. PERA created a public school…

This study bridges a gap in qualitative research on teacher satisfaction in the United Arab Emirates. In line with the two-factor theory, we found that maintenance factors, such as perception of job insecurity, stagnant salaries and perceived heavy teaching loads, had more prominence in explaining teacher dissatisfaction. Motivational factors such…

The focus on using the courts to abolish tenure is a distraction from the important work of improving teacher quality. Unfortunately, the recent decision of Vergara v. California has only perpetuated the mistaken notion that only after tenure is abolished can underperforming teachers be removed. But the authors contend that administrators,…

Attacks on academic freedom in Turkey have become increasingly systematic in recent years and thousands of academics have been dismissed. This study reflects on the effects of this worsening repression through interviews with academics in the social sciences, both those dismissed and those still active in their profession. Although the dismissed…

After being involuntarily transferred from a suburban middle school near his home to an urban school facing many challenges, this case describes a series of events that led to a veteran teacher's termination. Upon claiming he was wrongfully terminated, the case narrative ends just prior to the teacher's hearing before the board of education, where…

Instructional leadership can be defined as an educational leadership approach whereby the school principal is involved in a wide range of activities aiming to improve teaching and learning for all students. Surprisingly, the literature about instructional leadership practices has not mentioned school leaders' practices for hiring appropriate…