School Law: Examining Educational Freedom and the Rights of Teachers

This report analyzes an article discussing educational freedom and teacher rights, focusing on recruitment practices within different school systems. The article highlights the author's experiences seeking employment and the varying criteria used by schools, including biases related to community, ...Read More

Running head: SCHOOL LAW
Educational Freedom and the Rights of Teachers
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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The article talks about the choices made by parents while they admit their children in
a particular school along with the choices that a school makes while hiring a teacher. The
article talks on behalf of a teacher who seeks employment before a school and faces the
different criteria and policies before being recruited by the school authority. It is being
pointed out that in many cases, the school authorities are not directly responsible for
recruiting teachers, rather they are often recruited by different committees and offices, who
are often biased to a particular community, religion, race or even gender (Glenn, 2002). More
often seniority and better academic background becomes a criteria for being chosen for
employment under the American School System. The author says that it is discouraging for
him to seek improvement in urban schools in Massachusetts in respect to the recruitment of
skilled teaching staff due to the arduous recruitment procedure. The author points about the
easier recruitment policy of the charter schools that are free to directly recruit teachers,
thereby making it more comfortable for teachers to work at such school where they are given
the freedom to give perspective to their thoughts and opinions (Glenn, 2002). However, the
charter school are often said to be bound to recruit state-certified teachers and non-teaching
staffs only, which again puts an obstacle before the schools in recruiting candidates of their
choice and need. This could be summed up as the difference in freedom of choosing teaching
staff of different types of educational institutions.
The author has drawn comparison of schools under the American system and their
recruitment policies with that of schools in Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Netherlands
and New Zealand (Glenn, 2002). He has pointed out that the non-governmental schools in
Belgium are funded by the government and hence are required to recruit teachers having the
same qualification of a tea her in public school. It is also pointed out in the article that most
catholic schools over the above mentioned nations prefer to appoint catholic teachers. This is

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similar to the catholic schools in Canada as well. However, in Denmark, the publicly funded
private school are given the liberty to choose their candidate of choice as per the school
program and not as per the direction of the government. Teachers under contract of
employment cannot be made to follow the guidelines of the Catholic Church even if they are
recruited by one, under contract (Glenn, 2002). Therefore, it could be concluded that the
article majorly focused on the peculiarity of recruiting teachers under the American School
system, which has been later contrasted with the school system of different other nations.
To critically analyse the article, the author did support his position with facts and
statistical data regarding the rate of teachers teaching in private school with that of public
schools where even though the pay scale is higher yet the recruitment procedure is stricter
due to the various government policies. The author clearly justified his reasons of
differentiating between private and public school’s recruitment procedure, where the former
depends upon the direction of the government while the latter has the freedom to choose on
their own as per their school programs (Glenn, 2002). The author rightly pointed out the
religious discrimination that is often faced by many teachers who are rejected by Catholic
school’s recruitment boards due to their different religious faith. However, it could be argued
that the author has significantly emphasised on the religious aspect of recruitment in public or
missionary schools rather than talking about the qualifications of the teachers in detail. There
is hardly any mention about the qualification of the teachers in any of the schools, be it
private or public.
It could therefore be commented that the restrictive recruitment policy of different
educational system on the basis of religion or governmental regulation is a discrimination. It
bars a person from being recruited as a teacher in a religious institution due to his choice of
religion, thereby restricting such person to profess his choice of religion under the façade of
employment. The first amendment is clearly stating that the government cannot interfere with

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a person’s religious practices. Therefore, when religious choice becomes a criteria for being
recruited in an employment, it somehow acts as a barrier or discriminating factor for that
matter, as a person professing the choice of religion asked by the employment shall always be
preferred over another person who does not profess the particular religion (Levy, 2017).

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References
Glenn, C. L. (2002). Educational Freedom and the Rights of Teachers. The Clearing
House, 76(1), 30-33.
Levy, L. W. (2017). The establishment clause: Religion and the First Amendment. UNC
Press Books.