Tenure Rules! Tenure Stinks! Tenure Rules! Tenure Stinks!

There’s an excellent article in the New Jersey Record on tenure for teachers. Unlike many articles it's very fair and even handed; lots of great points, no matter what side of the debate you fall on.

One quote I liked was from Ronald Shaw, who left his district after being accused of negligence, bad management, and insubordination. The newspaper called him up to ask his side, and he said:

“It’s my opinion that it’s really none of The Record’s business. Any agreement that was made between us was made in private without it being privy to scrutiny with everyone. I choose not to comment about it because it was a private matter.”

Bad news, dude: you’re a public employee. If they gave you a 6-month buyout and let you land in another teaching position, that’s a story.

In Mr. Shaw’s defense, there aren’t any indications that he’s having trouble at his new job, though getting your name in the newspaper like this can’t be a happy thing.

Later in the article you’ll find one of those really unfortunate quotes that the anti-union crowd loves to use:

Union officials claim their job is to protect members who could otherwise be subject to pressure from parents and administrators, not to worry if a teacher has done something wrong.

“From our point of view, there’s no deficient teachers,” said George Lambert, who has been a Bergen County NJEA representative for the past 15 years. “Our job is basically to represent and not make a judgment.”

This isn’t OK on a couple of levels. If you vocalize this you’re just giving ammunition to those who would see teacher’s unions blown up entirely (see Klein, Joel). This also isn’t a good policy in practice; any defense of the teacher who slept with their student is beyond justification and a misuse of union resources.

In sum, it’s a great article. I’ll be putting it with my contract as a good reminder the next time we negotiate.

Update: It's also interesting to read the Letters to the Editor that were inspired by the article, as well as this great piece defending teacher tenure and giving a pretty thorough overview of the teacher pay system in New Jersey.