Time for Plan B
Published May 17, 2014
Editorial by Greensboro News-Record, May 16, 2014.
Judge Robert Hobgood’s ruling in the teacher tenure case Friday ought to put an end to a bad idea. Although Senate leader Phil Berger vowed to appeal, Republican legislators should accept defeat and join Gov. Pat McCrory in finding a better way to employ and reward teachers.
Hobgood, a veteran Superior Court judge from Franklin County, equated teacher tenure to an earned right that can’t be removed once granted. He struck down a mandate tucked into the state budget last year that directed school boards to designate 25 percent of eligible teachers to receive four-year contracts and bonuses if they surrender their career status, or tenure, rights. The measure called for ending tenure for all teachers by 2018.
Hobgood’s decision came in response to a lawsuit filed by the North Carolina Association of Educators. Judge Richard Doughton issued a similar ruling last month in a challenge brought by the Guilford and Durham school boards, but his order halting the program applied only to those two systems. Hobgood placed it on hold statewide.
He said removal of tenure violates the contracts clause of the U.S. Constitution and was an illegal taking of property under the state constitution. He further found that the 25 percent mandate doesn’t serve a public purpose or set a clear standard for selecting favored teachers.
Hobgood provided the same relief for all school systems that Doughton gave Guilford and Durham. More than 40 school boards passed resolutions opposing the state directive, which required them to implement the 25 percent plan before July 1. That would give them inadequate time to determine teacher effectiveness during the current school year, even if they had a reliable means of evaluation.
There was also a movement among teachers to reject the contract deal if they were selected to participate. So, without court intervention, the initiative was bound to create more trouble than any benefit it would provide.
McCrory noted the mandate’s “implementation” problems but didn’t directly challenge it. Instead, he offered his own plan to raise pay for all teachers and craft a “career pathway” to reward teachers for obtaining relevant graduate degrees or taking on special assignments. His proposal didn’t mesh with the 25 percent scheme.
Another key difference between the governor’s approach and that of the legislature was that he consulted with school leaders first and won some tentative support. Legislators told school boards, in effect, “These are your orders. Do what we say.” Naturally, that drew a negative response.
A cooperative attitude gets better results every time. Superintendents and school boards want to attract and keep good teachers and don’t want to retain ineffective ones. But base pay must improve as a starting point. And all teachers deserve fair treatment, which means protecting rights they’ve already earned.
Neither judge said tenure can’t be phased out. It isn’t owed to new teachers. There may be other ways to provide them with proper due process and fair compensation, as well as incentives to really develop their skills.
The legislature failed badly to achieve anything positive with its mandate. It should drop the plan and work consultatively to find a better way.
May 17, 2014 at 2:04 pm
Norm Kellly says:
Suddenly, when public sector employees 'might' be affected, contracts mean something. When the occupier put investors behind union employees with the auto company bailouts, contrary to contract law, which lib spoke up and protested? You can't think of one either? Imagine that. Funny when it is that libs decide to follow the law or accept a contract.
So the bottom line, according to this most recent ruling, is that once a 'benefit' is given to a government employee, that benefit can NEVER be taken away? No matter how bad that benefit may be for the system as a whole, the benefit MUST EXIST FOREVER because they are government employees? How about if the judge did the same thing with this law that SCOTUS did with Obamacancer? Remember how SCOTUS ruled on socialized medicine? They said that Congress did not have the authority to FINE citizens, as the law stated, but by changing the wording from FINE to TAX, the law was Constitutional. So SCOTUS simply changed the wording of the law FOR CONGRESS in order to say that it was Constitutional. Can ANY LIB point to any other time when SCOTUS changed the wording of a law passed by Congress in order to make the law Constitutional?
Believe it or not, this is not me straying from the topic of this post. Government employees are protected by a FOREVER contract that can NEVER be changed, but private sector employees and private citizens can be FORCED to participate in socialized medicine in violation of the Constitution because SCOTUS didn't want to be seen as racist or in opposition to the occupier? Contracts are good in one sense but Constitution is easily overridden.
But the contract is only relevant to existing teachers? Good. Let's say the legislature does away with tenure, lifetime contract regardless of performance, for all new teachers hired after June 1, 2014. Would that satisfy libs? Would it satisfy the contract with government employees? Of course not! The teachers union would still have a cow and file endless lawsuits. Every lib in the state would continue to claim that a lifetime contract, pretty much regardless of performance, was the right thing because ... (pick a reason!).
A cooperative approach gets better results? But only in certain cases, right? Like conservatives/Republicans need to cooperate with the demons but when demons have the majority, then it's 'elections have consequences'? Like when the libs controlled Raleigh, and the gov decided to steal money from the county sales tax revenue to pay for state budget line items? That kind of cooperative approach? The one that left the counties short of funds because the libs in Raleigh STOLE IT! Like when the gov stole money from the E911 fund to pay for state budget line items. Leaving people with cell or voip service hanging because the money charged on every phone bill wasn't spent on the upgrades it was meant to pay for. Is this the kind of cooperation being called for here? Or does allowing private citizens to get scre-ed not count as a time when cooperation is required? If the libs are the ones violating a contract or a trust or an agreement, then it's acceptable? Where was this blogger when the libs were doing the deeds/shenanigans they were doing? Gov Mike was a slime-ball from the get-go. Where was this blogger/editorialist?
