To fulfill their basic role as instructional leaders of young people, teachers need the degree of freedom that tenure guarantees. To assure optimal educational experiences for these same young people, school directors and administrators need more effective ways than current tenure laws provide. To reconcile these needs, state legislatures should modify their tenure laws so that each tenured professional is thoroughly evaluated every three, four, or five years under a system of "cyclical, periodic, or renewable tenure." The system should feature contracts that incorporate basic accountability elements so that a builtin evaluation plan is to be used during and at the end of the contractual period. Dismissal during the contract period would require whatever tenure proceedings now exist; dismissal at the end of a contractual period would require adherence to due process only. This tenure modification would afford the necessary protection to teachers and at the same time enhance the general quality of our public educational programs by (1) requiring periodic comprehensive evaluations of teaching performance based on stated, contractual objectives, and (2) providing school directors and administrators with greater flexibility in dismissing the incompetent. (Author/IRT)