The Biggest Lie is Calling Civil Service Protections for Teachers "Tenure"

There is no such thing for teachers and isn't even remotely comparable to college and university "tenure." State laws using the term don't help, either. Yet the term has been used for decades for public school teachers when the term of "civil service protections" for teachers is actually the accurate phrase. To say their protections are the same if not identical to police and fire personnel would have gone a long way in helping the public understand what "protections" are actually in place for teachers and why they are there. I believe using the more accurate term would have created a whole lot more sympathy for teachers by the public than using the loaded term "tenure." Teachers sure as hell don't have "lifetime jobs" ala tenured professors. Their continuing contracts aren't dependent on a committee after many years of service as in post-secondary education but on the whim of one individual, a principal, who can kill a teacher's career with a non-renewal (firing with no right to appeal).

But this and other lies don't stop the media, now in bed with with corporate interests. They are hellbent on demonizing and destroying teachers in order to force through a neoliberal agenda which says teachers should be paid the same as babysitters. Naturally, the reformers seldom talk about about administrators--the real problem in public ed.

More about this dire state of journalistic affairs in an article from last year here. One of the biggest problems with education reporting is the fact few reporters have any background at all as teachers.