New York
Related: About this forumNYSUT Pledges to Defend Teacher Tenure Against ‘Celebrity Dilettantes’
Liz Benjamin
NYSUT is pledging to defend New York’s teacher tenure system in the face of a legal challenge backed by former CNN anchor Campbell Brown’s education reform organization.
In a lengthy statement, NYSUT President Karen Magee said the more than 100-year-old teacher tenure system in New York is “wildly misunderstood,” insisting that it is neither negotiated by teachers as part of their contract nor a promise of a job for life – even with poor performance or a history of mistreatment of students.
“Earning tenure in New York simply means that, if a teacher is accused of incompetence or wrongdoing, she is entitled to a fair hearing before she can be fired,” Magee said. “In the United States, we call that due process of law.”
“Well-off schools with the highest student test scores come under the same tenure law as struggling schools in high-poverty areas. Tenure is not a cause of low student achievement.”
http://www.nystateofpolitics.com/2014/06/nysut-pledges-to-defend-teacher-tenure-against-celebrity-dilettantes/
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Smarmie Doofus
(14,498 posts)Magee seems to come from the "Whatever." -wing of NYSUT. (Mulgrew, Weingarten, etc.) It's ranks are overloaded w. "professional" unionists. ( i.e apparatchiks who've learned how to manipulate the system for their own $$$ gain and/or personal aggrandizement.)
Point: tenure protects the rights of *teachers*. But these people are lawyers and politicians. They really could not care less about tenure. In most cases, scratch the surface and you'll find they're actually HOSTILE to it.
Tenure promotes security and autonomy for teachers in the classroom. That's the LAST thing that institutional NYSUT (and UFT, AFT) wants.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Liz Benjamin
Michael Rebell, a veteran education advocate, expressed doubt during an interview on CapTon last night that an effort to duplicate the results of a California lawsuit that overturned teacher tenure laws in that state will be equally successful here in New York.
Rebell said he’s not even sure this issue is one the courts should be addressing.
“On the one hand, the law – at least the way it’s getting enforced – does keep certain people who are not effective teachers on the job,” he explained.
“On the other hand, I think it’s a positive in terms of recruitment, job stability for teachers – and let’s face it, teaching is still a relatively low paid job. So it may be if you eliminated tenure, we would be worse off because we’d be recruiting fewer capable teachers.”
http://www.nystateofpolitics.com/2014/07/tenure-track/
