By Daniela Rueda |Staff Writer|

University professors receive tenure much too quickly and easily, according to a Los Angeles Times survey.

Tenure is the status given to an educator who satisfactorily completed teaching for a trial period and is therefore protected against summary dismissal by the employer.

At CSUSB, teachers receive tenure after six years through an evaluation process.

New teachers on campus are pressured to be at the same teaching level as those who have been here longer.

Nathaniel Lastrapes, a communication studies major, believes teachers should not have tenure.

“Teachers get too comfortable and new younger teachers get laid off first,” said Lastrapes.

According to the Los Angeles Times survey, 38 percent said they should not be given tenure – which comes with strong job security and makes it more difficult to fire under-performing teachers.

According to the Los Angeles Times, more than half of voters said teachers who receive low marks when they are observed in their classroom should be the first dismissed. Twenty-six percent of voters said teachers whose students are not progressing on standardized tests should be the first to be laid off.

CSUSB students take up to 17 units per quarter and constantly review a teacher before registering for classes. They are paying for a class they hope to learn from.

There are many students who have taken a class with an under-performing teacher and have left the class learning nothing.

Lastrapes mentioned he took a class at Chaffey College a few years ago and felt he did not learn anything from a tenured teacher.

“The teacher didn’t put much of his time into the class,” said Lastrapes.

Students believe teachers who are under performing and have tenure keep other teachers from showing their knowledge.

Professor Ece Algan has taught at CSUSB for eight years and believes in the tenure system.

“If we don’t have the tenure system, we are measured by other things, such as grants and how well we contribute to the production of sharing knowledge,” said Algan.

Algan also believes that voters do not want the tenure system because it is more expensive to keep a teacher with seniority.

“If a teacher has seniority, it’s more expensive to keep them. The tenure system tries to mask the economy issue with quality discourse,” said Algan.

Voters trust teachers to improve public schools, consider them underpaid and back measures to support and improve their performance in classrooms, according to the Los Angeles Times.