The school board's role in improving teacher competency involves avoiding incompetent teachers, improving competent ones, and maintaining highly competent ones. Because teacher competence is a complex social phenomenon, affected by many different variables, boards should keep in mind that actions to improve competency may not be preferred by…

Tenured faculty can be dismissed for reasons of financial exigency. If the employment contract provides a specific definition of fiscal exigency and the processes to be used in effecting retrenchment, then those terms govern in lieu of constitutional due process. In the absence of such guidance, courts are willing to allow dismissal for reasons of…

Eleven publications are reviewed dealing with tenure laws, establishing criteria for teacher evaluation, due process, relevant state laws, legal case studies, remediation, and the principal's role. The literature agrees that dismissal of tenured teachers is possible if evaluation criteria and evidence of incompetence are clear and if…

This handbook is designed to help Illinois school administrators and school board members achieve fairness and legality in teacher dismissal proceedings. In their discussion, the authors focus entirely on the procedures to be followed once it appears that dismissal is warranted; they make no attempt to define the legitimate causes for dismissal or…

Reduction in force (RIF) policies in community colleges are analyzed. The analysis focuses on the following topics: Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure (Gillis, 1971); RIF and Merit; Number of Colleges Involved in RIF; Strategies for Obviating RIF; Need for Carefully Prepared Policies and Procedures; RIF Policies; Faculty Participation;…

Faculty engaged in long-range planning for financial exigency, including the making of plans for faculty lay-off contingencies, must be aware of several problem areas arising from attitudes, assumptions, and intergroup relationships. Such problems and their implications are discussed, based on experiences at Bowling Green State University.…

A union leader relates his experience with the Toledo, Ohio, plan for identifying and dismissing incompetent teachers. Principals and supervisors resisted the peer review system at first, but later changed their minds because of its success. (TE)

Questions and answers address: defining financial exigency, how tenure affects termination, selecting faculty for severance, faculty's due process rights, tenured faculty challenges to termination, the institution's responsibility, and the governing board's responsibility in policy formation and implementation. (MSE)

The American Association of State Colleges and Universities' recently revised policy concerning the termination of faculty in conditions of institutional financial exigency is criticized in the context of AAUP's stated guidelines and standards. (MSE)

Examines a group of cases showing there are few restraints on a board of education's right to hire and reappoint only the best teachers and administrators. A board's decision not to renew the contract of an "average" teacher in order to look for a better teacher will stand. (MLF)

When Albania began its transition to a market economy, its education was geared to meeting the productive needs of a controlled economy and the social and ideological needs of a socialist state. Expanding the economy's long-term productive capacity in a market environment and building a democratic system called for thorough reform of the education…

The 1979 dismissals of three art department members, one tenured, are chronicled and examined. At issue were procedures for providing reasons upon request and opportunity for appropriate review, and breech of academic freedom in a professional dispute. Lack of a meaningful role for faculty in academic government is also discussed. (MSE)

Proposed is a "direct detrimental effect standard" that provides a framework for evaluating substantive grounds for dismissal of tenured faculty. It can be applied for immorality, incompetence, insubordination, financial exigency, and reduction in force. (AVAIL: Fred B. Rothman & Co., 10368 W. Centennial Rd., Littleton, CO 80123, $4.50) (MSE)

This review examines the reasoning behind court decisions in selected cases that define the specific conditions under which restrictions may be imposed on a teacher's right to freedom of speech in the classroom and in the selection of instructional materials. From this review, guidelines are drawn for formulating district policy. (Author/SJL)

AAUP staff members, on behalf of the Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, communicate with administrations under censure. Reported is the Associate General Secretary's appraisal of developments at the 33 listed institutions for the year preceding March 31, 1979. (AF)