Tag Archives: teacher tenure

Minnesota Governor Vetoes Teacher Tenure Overhaul

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Governor Mike Dayton vetoed a proposal to overhaul teacher layoff rules earlier this month, a top priority for the state’s Republican lawmakers.  In defense of his veto, the governor said the measure was “an example of prejudice against public school teachers” that singled out hard-working teachers by negating long-establish[ed] bargaining rights, replacing them “with only vaguely formulated ideas.”

The proposal would have ended the “last in, first out” seniority-based layoff system in Minnesota public schools.  Existing teacher contracts also do not allow consideration of other issues such as teacher effectiveness.  This move has heightened the tension between the Democratic governor and Republican legislators in the state.

“The governor has dealt a major blow to teachers, schools, students and parents across the state,” said the proposal’s chief sponsor, Rep. Branden Peterson.  “I am sorry that Governor Dayton chose to side with big-labor special interests and sell out our children’s futures.”

The debate over the proposal sparked controversy across the state and led to heavy lobbying.  Education Minnesota, the state’s powerful teachers union, spent $500,000 battling the measure, Minnesota Campaign for Achievement Now (MinnCAN) spent another $260,000, and the state Chamber of Commerce spent whopping $2 million.

Dayton’s veto did not entirely close the book on revamping teacher layoff policies, however.   Dayton said that the measure was simply too early, since the state does not yet have a new teacher evaluation system in place.  After those systems are completed (in 2015 or 2016), only then would it be “appropriate for the Legislature to decide how to incorporate them into layoff decisions.  His reasoning did not please those who were in support of the bill.

“We shouldn’t be waiting around to embrace common-sense reforms to improve our schools,” said Tim Melton of StudentsFirst.

To read the full story, please visit http://www.startribune.com/politics/statelocal/150109845.html

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Connecticut Governor Calls for Tenure Overhaul

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Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy is calling for the state’s teacher tenure laws to be completely overhauled.  He has proposed that teacher tenure should be linked to student performance and teacher evaluations, and that the new law apply to new and veteran teachers alike.

Malloy claims the time has come for bold action: “I’m a Democrat.  I’ve been told that I can’t, or shouldn’t, touch teacher tenure…I do what I think is right for Connecticut, irrespective of the political consequences.”  His plan would give tenure to teachers after two and a half years of teaching only if they have exemplary grades on two teacher evaluations based largely on student achievement.  Teachers may also earn tenure after four years with three “proficient” evaluations.

Teachers who do not meet these standards will be deemed ineffective, and given a one-year probation to improve.  The standard will also apply to teachers who already have tenure.  In order to keep tenure, teachers must continue to show they are effective in the classroom.

However, Mary Loftus Levine of the Connecticut Teacher Association believes that the governor is acting on a mistaken understanding of tenure practices.  “It’s not a job for life, and it’s not just earned by showing up,” she said.  “You are constantly evaluated.”  For those who are not meeting the standard expected of a tenure teacher, principals “counsel them out of the profession.”  However, Patrick Riccards from ConnCAN, a school reform group, local school leaders cannot dismiss or require training for these teachers—they cannot be forced out without a long, drawn out struggle.

If the state legislature approves the tenure overhaul, it will join 19 other states that allow teachers to be dismissed based on evaluations, according to the National Council of Teacher Quality.  Riccards believes up to 15% of teachers will be flagged as needing improvement, but only those who do not improve through training will be let go.

The reaction from the education community has been mixed.  The Connecticut Educators Association has said they need to see the full details of the governor’s plan before they can determine whether to support it.  They have their own plan, recommending that the time it takes to dismiss a non-tenured teacher be reduced, but that the default tenure after four years of teaching should remain in place.  Conversely, Acting Superintendent for Bridgeport schools, Paul Vallas, has publicly supported the governor’s proposal.  “Anything that brings greater accountability to the profession is a positive step.”

To read the full story, please visit http://ctmirror.com/story/15375/malloy-teacher-tenure-will-have-be-earned-and-reearned

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Should Tenure Be Abolished?

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In a recent article for Time, Andrew Rotherham explored the tenure system in higher education.  Critics claim that the tenure system is outdated and no longer necessary; while proponents claim that tenure ensures a continued culture of intellectual independence and inquiry.  Rotherham begins with an examination of the complaints against the tenure system:

It creates negative incentives and reduces productivity.  The tenure system does not have any mechanism for ensuring professors remain productive after they have been tenured.  Administrators can do nothing, and so instead turn to cheaper, contract-based adjunct professors.

There are no across the board standards for tenure requirements.  Each school can determine its own standards for tenure, and in no school is quality of teaching taken into account.

Tenure can be easily abused.  The system has extended the blanket of “academic freedom” to cover all sorts of questionable behaviors, such as accessing pornography from university computers.

But for all this, proponents point out that administrators can use a variety of tools to keep their professors in check, including subtle and overt retaliation for non-mainstream views.  Furthermore, it is the administrators themselves who have set (or accepted) the standards for tenure in their respective institutions; if the bar is so low as to be meaningless, they have no one to blame but themselves.

Several states have tried to modify their university tenure systems, but have not been successful in the face of vehement opposition.  However the current economic situation is actually doing more to undermine the tenure system than any legislative reform: adjunct professors are cheaper.

Rotherham notes that where people come down on the issue depends heavily on where they sit in the classroom.   An interesting exception, however, are the general opinions of college presidents.  To find out their interesting viewpoints, read the full article at http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2080601,00.html?artId=2080601?contType=article?chn=us

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Illinois Senate Bill 7

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The Illinois Senate passed SB7 unanimously in April, 57 to 0. Last Thursday, the bill also passed House nearly unanimously (112 for, 1 abstaining and 1 against).  The Bill now goes to Governor Quinn’s desk for signature.

SB 7 was developed during months of discussions involving a wide variety of education stakeholders including the Illinois Educators Association, the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Chicago Teachers Union, along with school administrators, the state board of education, lawmakers and others, including the education reform groups Stand for Children and Advance Illinois.

The bill ties teacher tenure and dismissal to performance in the classroom, rather than experience, and makes it more difficult for teachers to strike. The new law would maintain the existing rights of teachers while addressing the most contentious issues in education—seniority, tenure, dismissal, strikes, and longer school days. Specifically, the bill accomplishes the following:

Streamlines the dismissal process for ineffective teachers by allowing the state school superintendent to suspend or revoke a teacher’s certificate after two unsatisfactory ratings in a seven-year period. Currently, in the Chicago Public Schools, it can take up to 27 steps to dismiss an ineffective teacher.

Reduces the length of time necessary for school boards to dismiss tenured teachers who consistently perform poorly. In performance-related dismissals, the district must involve a second evaluator in the remediation and post-evaluation process.

Shifts the focus of the human capital system from seniority to performance. A teacher’s subject specialty, performance, and ability will be considered when layoffs are necessary, and seniority will be used only as a tiebreaker. The law would signify the end to the “last in, first out” policy of firing the newest teachers first in Illinois.

Tranforms tenure. Teachers will no longer automatically receive tenure after four years in the classroom. In order to earn tenure, teachers will need to earn two “proficient” or “excellent” evaluation scores during the last three years of a four-year probationary period. If new teachers receive these ratings within their first three years, they can receive tenure in only three years. Tenure status becomes portable for teachers who transfer to another school district.

Preserves teachers’ right to strike but makes striking more difficult in Chicago, where more students would be affected. The bill requires negotiation and public disclosure of bargaining positions before a union launches a strike, and 75% of all Chicago Teacher Union members would need to vote to strike (up from the current requirement of 50%).

Allows the Chicago Board of Education to unilaterally lengthen the school day or year and retains the right for the Chicago Teachers Union to collectively bargain over pay and benefits for the extended hours.

It is expected that there will be a second bill (called a “trailer bill” because it follows and is linked to another piece of legislation, in this case SB7) that will address the concerns raised by unions about language which was inserted at the last hour. With the trailer bill and renewed union support for this legislation, Illinois will have passed a landmark educator human capital law with widespread support among stakeholder groups.

For a fact sheet related to the bill, please see http://www.stand.org/Document.Doc?id=3057

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Teacher Tenure Reform: Two Resources

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A new paper from Public Impact titled Teacher Tenure Reform: Applying Lessons from the Civil Service and Higher Education examines lessons from higher education and the civil service and applies fresh thinking to offer new “elite” and “inclusive” tenure designs that could improve student learning and help grow the size and power of an elite teaching corps that reaches far more children.  The report also provides a framework for policymakers who want to make tenure meaningful.

Discussions about tenure nearly always fall into the “keep it” or “scrap it” camps. This paper inserts a new way of thinking about the K-12 tenure debate. The report is available at http://www.publicimpact.com/opportunityculture.org/images/stories/teacher_tenure_reform-public_impact.pdf

On the same topic, the State Collaborative on Reforming Education (SCORE) released a video, narrated by Dr. Bill Frist, Chairman of SCORE and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader, on the importance of reforming Tennessee’s tenure system as a way to improve teacher effectiveness.

“Teachers are the most important factor in determining how much a student learns,” said Dr. Frist. “A crucial step in ensuring there is a great teacher at the front of every classroom is reforming the way Tennessee grants tenure. Tenure should be a reward for excellent teachers and an incentive for others to improve. The legislation proposed by Governor Haslam and currently moving through the General Assembly will make tenure for teachers meaningful by clearly tying it to classroom performance.”

The video highlights recent statistics on teacher effectiveness and tenure, and encourages Tennesseans to sign a SCORE-sponsored petition supporting tenure reform at www.tenurereform.com.

Tenure reform is an issue being taken up in many states that currently have tenure laws. Examining possibilities and alternatives, and involving teachers in this critical reform effort are actions every state must take as they explore modifications to current policy.

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Thousands of Great Teachers at Risk

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Outdated rules and budget shortfalls could force schools nationwide to dismiss top teachers, with devastating consequences for the neediest students. As school districts across the country grapple with massive budget cuts, thousands of great teachers could lose their jobs despite a track record of success in the classroom, according to an analysis released  by The New Teacher Project (TNTP). “The Case Against Quality-Blind Layoffs” identifies 14 states where top teachers are in greatest danger of losing their jobs this spring, because of laws making it illegal for schools to consider job performance in making layoff decisions. Revenue shortfalls in 10 of these states are projected to be greater than 10 percent, making layoffs a serious possibility.

Schools in these 14 states are mandated to lay off the least senior teachers first, meaning that success in the classroom provides no additional job security. TNTP’s analysis summarizes recent research showing that that these quality-blind policies–sometimes called “last-in, first-out,” or “LIFO”–strip schools of great teachers, with potentially devastating consequences for the neediest students.

“This is a real test of leadership for policymakers across the country,” said Timothy Daly, president of TNTP. “Almost nobody disputes that quality-blind layoff policies have disastrous consequences for students and teachers. Will policymakers really stand by and allow great teachers to lose their jobs because of these outdated rules? There’s still time to put common sense back into layoff policies–but we have to take action right now.”

The 14 states that mandate quality-blind layoffs are Alaska, California, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, West Virginia and Wisconsin. A combined 40 percent of the nation’s teachers (1.25 million) work in these states.

Despite a national emphasis on teacher effectiveness in recent years, only the District of Columbia and three states–Arizona, Colorado and Oklahoma–require schools to make job performance a major factor in teacher layoff decisions. Legislation requiring quality-based layoffs is currently pending in several states, including Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, New York and Washington.

Research shows that basing layoff decisions on seniority alone has disastrous consequences for students, teachers and school communities:
–Better teachers are forced to leave classrooms, while lower-performing teachers remain.
–Schools serving the poorest students bear the brunt of the layoffs–an average of 25% more than wealthier schools.
–Students in impacted classrooms lose an average of 2.5-3.5 months of learning a year–the equivalent of ending the school year in March.
–More total job losses are necessary to achieve a given budget reduction, since quality-blind layoffs affect only the newest, lowest-paid teachers.

To view TNTP’s analysis go to: http://tntp.org/publications/issue-analysis/view/the-case-against-quality-blind-layoffs/Core Education supports districts in the creation of teacher evaluation systems that clearly rate teacher effectiveness using standards-based criteria. To view a description of our services, see http://www.coreeducationllc.com/page5.php
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“Quality-Blind” Teacher Layoffs

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As education budgets across the nation contract in response to the recent financial crisis, many school districts have been forced to lay off a sizeable number of teachers. This raises two important questions: what determines which teachers will be let go, and is the existing policy offer best for students?

Legislators in the state of Washington recently introduced a bill (SB 5399), sponsored by State Senator Rodney Tom, which would require the use of teacher evaluations in layoff decisions. Yet as a result of collective bargaining agreements in the heavily-unionized teaching industry, most school systems take a seniority-based approach to layoff decisions, adopting a “last in, first out” strategy. First-year teachers are over twice as likely to be let go as their colleagues with 4-6 years of experience, and senior teachers face almost no risk of being laid off. A recent study by Dan Goldhaber and the Center for Education Data & Research (CEDR) at the University of Washington-Bothell–a study which has already influenced the legislation proposed in Washington state–demonstrates that this “quality-blind” approach short-changes both students and district budgets.

Using data from recent teacher layoffs in Washington State, Goldhaber simulates an alternative system which bases layoff decisions on value-added estimates of teacher effectiveness rather than seniority. His findings are striking:

–36% of the teachers in Goldhaber’s sample who actually received layoff notices were estimated to be more effective than the average teacher whose job was not at risk, implying that there is a lot of room for making informed effectiveness-based decisions.
–Under the current seniority-based system, students lose about 2 to 4 months’ worth of learning in the year following layoffs; retaining highly effective teachers would preserve that learning.
–Seniority-driven systems have a disproportionate effect on various student sub-groups, with African-American students far more likely to be in a classroom with a teacher who receives a layoff notice than white students.
–A system relying on teacher effectiveness would result in 10% fewer jobs lost. Because senior teachers who have been around a long time but who may or may not be more effective than their colleagues collect higher salaries than their junior counterparts, a seniority-based system necessitates that more teachers will need to be laid off to meet the district’s budget targets. In Goldhaber’s sample, novice teachers who were cut earned roughly $14,000 less per year than the teachers who were retained.

While the study notes that seniority is not the only factor considered in layoff decisions, it clearly indicates that experience is weighted too heavily relative to effectiveness. As Goldhaber notes, “it’s hard to argue that a seniority-driven system is best if student achievement is your bottom line.”

The study is available online at http://www.aei.org/paper/100188.

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