Anti-tenue law punishes more than rewards
Published March 14, 2014
Editorial by Fayetteville Observer, March 13, 2014.
Lawmakers say some lousy teachers show little ability or inclination to educate but can't be removed from the classroom because of tenure contracts.
So the General Assembly decided last year to crack down on this problem, which had been widely publicized and politicized by conservative groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council. Legislators adopted a plan to replace tenure in North Carolina with a system that gives multi-year contracts to 25 percent of teachers.
This widely criticized arbitrary cutoff is a major reason why Cumberland County's Board of Education this week joined at least two dozen other districts in calling for the misguided legislation's repeal.
But a more basic problem with the new law may be legislative misunderstanding. Those awful teachers with lifetime contracts through tenure? They aren't in North Carolina.
Tenure in this state gives a teacher legal recourse - due process rights - if terminated. Tenure protects educators from being fired at the whim of a principal, school board member or politically influential parent. Untenured teachers had no recourse.
What legislators tried to address was a form of tenure that never existed in North Carolina. Even if it had, you don't punish 75 percent of teachers because you're concerned about a few bad apples.
The law's author, Sen. Phil Berger, denies ALEC had a hand in writing the measure - something it's been accused of doing with anti-tenure bills elsewhere.
Berger says the law will make it possible to reward teachers for superior performance, not just length of service. That 25 percent cap on who can receive contracts belies this claim.
Considering how badly it missed the mark, was teacher merit ever the real target of the law? Or were legislative Republicans annoyed that the North Carolina Educators Association takes money from teachers' paychecks that it then uses for political efforts, almost exclusively to aid Democrats?
The teachers group is anti-Republican. Republicans are anti-teachers group. Who can say which is cause and which is effect?
But education policy affects schoolchildren, taxpayers and all teachers, each of whom has individual political beliefs. The health of our schools directly affects our state's ability to recruit employers and grow our economy.
This law should be repealed.
Is a law allowing some sort of teacher merit recognition appropriate? Certainly, despite expected NCAE objections. But this new law is only about punishment.
http://www.fayobserver.com/opinion/article_3fd0ea86-6d66-5b5f-847e-d3298693a720.html
March 14, 2014 at 2:18 pm
Mike Armstrong says:
Wonder how many employees at the Fayetteville Observer have "tenure" When it is time to reward outstanding results, do all employees get the same raise. If the Observer ran their business like a school system, the quality of their paper would decline even more and bankruptcy would be the result.
Teachers and educrats never had the chance to choose between a republican educational agenda and a democrat one. In case you have forgotten, we have been under the yoke of the democrats for a good century. for those caught up in the latest fad of common core, that is 100 years. And finally, let's spell it "tenure"
March 15, 2014 at 10:19 am
Rip Arrowood says:
Equating those who handle newspapers and those who handle our children is a bit of a stretch...
According to your rationale, those who have proven themselves trustworthy with our children should be treated no better than anyone who walks in off the street.
So children are now a commodity to be handled like newspapers?
Their care is entrusted to the lowest bidder.
March 15, 2014 at 3:40 pm
Richard Bunce says:
Obviously the government school systems and the government education industrial complex that guides them believes that about their students given that the majority are not proficient at basic skills. Government school employees should not be given any government employment protections above any other employee. The real question is why you do not want the children's parents to have a real choice in alternate education systems for their children?
March 16, 2014 at 10:06 am
Rip Arrowood says:
You have no answer to how we can assure our children are in the hands of trustworthy people - other than tenure. You are obviously satisfied with lowering the bar and telling the world we are satisfied with placing our students in the care of the best of the worst.
March 16, 2014 at 1:25 pm
Richard Bunce says:
Parents can determine what is best for their children... government bureaucrats cannot.
March 15, 2014 at 4:40 pm
Robert McPhail says:
What I argue is that without good teachers, who would there be to read these newspapers? I am not comparing anything to teaching. The point is that it is an extremely important profession. Obviously parents don't want to do it. Communities don't want to do it. Nope. Let's not even teach our kids right and wrong, morals, and ethics. Just ship them off to school to let them learn all that. Nevermind actually getting to any type of governed curriculum. And when that doesn't work, lets blame the under-paid, under-appreciated, under-staffed, public employee. It is all the teacher's fault anyway. Right?
All I know is that our society hinges on being educated. If we do not take care of our teachers and our schools, hold school administration accountable for poor teachers, and make education a priority again in our homes, counties, state, and country, we will all suffer for it in the end. I don't know about you, but I do not want my children growing up in a society filled with Honey Boo Boo's. I hate I even know who that is.
March 16, 2014 at 11:57 am
Richard Bunce says:
What we need is good teaching no matter which education system is used by parents and their children. When one system is failing parents and their children then they should have real access to alternate education systems for their children with the resources already allocated for the child's education being made available by the State to the parents... and means tested if necessary. What is not acceptable is the persons responsible for the government education system, the education bureaucrats, and governments school administrators/teachers, blocking access to every alternative education system unless the parents are relatively wealthy showing that they really do not need the student, just the money allocated for that student that is no longer in that government school system. Of course those relatively wealthy parents who choose to send their children to alternate education systems have significant representation among elected officials, education bureaucrats, government school administrators/teachers. It is the relatively poor parents and their children who are trapped in failing schools.
March 15, 2014 at 11:28 am
Richard Bunce says:
That's the New Spelling...
March 14, 2014 at 10:02 pm
Richard Bunce says:
No reason for this class of employees should have any additional employment protections than any other class of employees.
