Tenure This?

With school budgets tighter than my grandfather's wallet and an ever-bearing interest on highly-effective teachers, is tenure still an untouchable aspect of public education? Many taxpayers I have spoken with think that tenure should be absolved due to the number of teachers who do not take their job seriously. Sometimes I am disheartened by some teachers that I find to be overbearing on students and seem to be in the profession for the perks and not for the students themselves. One way that we could solve these problems is to get rid of tenure. Not only could you soften the budget by releasing teachers who are ineffective or "past their prime", but ridding the profession of tenure could cause teachers to work harder at their jobs.

However, with the presence of teacher unions, it appears that tenure is untouchable for the moment, even though today there were historic compromises in the Washington D.C. district regarding ineffective teachers. National Public Radio is quoted as saying that the new plan-of-action for D.C. schools could "serve as the model for school reform around the country". As teachers, we all love tenure (I don't have it yet, but will soon), but what are your true feelings on the subject of tenure?