In Louisiana, public school teachers are guaranteed due process rights under Title 17 of the Louisiana Revised Statutes.
In Louisiana, a tenured teacher is entitled to due process when he or she is threatened with dismissal or nonrenewal of contract for cause: that is, a tenured teacher shall not be removed from office except upon written and signed charges of

• willful neglect of duty
• incompetency
• dishonesty
• immorality
• being a member of or contributing to any group, organization, movement, or corporation that is by law or injunction prohibited from operating in the state of Louisiana

LAE supports legislation to maintain, preserve and strengthen due process provisions regarding contractual, statutory, and constitutional rights for all public school employees in Louisiana.

• The primary purpose of tenure is to protect competent teachers from arbitrary nonrenewal of contract for reasons unrelated to the educational process such as personal beliefs, personality conflicts with administrators or school board members.
• K-12 public school tenure is not the guarantee of a job for life as some would have you believe.  Tenure provides job security for teachers who have successfully completed a probationary period and is earned upon successful completion of a rigorous and closely monitored process
• Tenure guarantees academic freedom to teach according to the best practices in a teacher’s field of expertise.

Advocates opposed to due process rights for public school teachers suggest that teacher tenure is a mechanism of complacency in keeping ineffective teachers in the classroom.

Tenure is one small way to attempt to balance the system with the needs of the most critical players -- teachers themselves.

See following articles for more information:

Mythbusters: The truth about tenure

What Teacher Tenure Is - And What It's Not