General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMy guess is we'll be hearing less teacher-bashing from CT. Gov. Malloy in the next few weeks:
"And to earn that tenure -- that job security -- in today's system basically the only thing you have to do is show up for four years," Malloy said in his speech to the Legislature on the session's opening day. "Do that, and tenure is yours."
Malloy, as part of his multi-pronged effort to improve public education and erase the state's highest-in-the nation achievement gap, wants to change that. Noting that 31 other states, including New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, have enacted tenure reform laws in the past three years, Malloy wants teachers to earn tenure -- not just once but every five years by proving themselves effective in the classroom.
His call to strip veteran teachers of "job security" if their performance slips has caused an uproar. Some teachers said they were flabbergasted and appalled at the governor's remark that earning tenure in the first place simply requires showing up for work.
"Why didn't someone tell me that?" said Kristen Record when she heard the comment. A physics teacher at Bunnell High School and 2011 Connecticut Teacher of the Year, Record said she was shocked to hear the governor imply tenure could be earned so easily.
"Being a beginning teacher is incredibly hard work and prior to achieving tenure, I was constantly evaluated by my administrators to make sure I was effective in the classroom," she said. "If someone isn't being effective during those first years, then they simply aren't hired back. Unfortunately, the governor's speech only added to the misunderstandings the general public has about teacher tenure."
Read more: http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Teacher-tenure-a-hot-button-issue-3342078.php#ixzz2FFxMUdi3
Sounds like boilerplate demagoguery from standard-issue, know-nothing RW DEM electeds. (Cuomo, Emanuel and Obama could have made the same speech.) Well-financed , no doubt, by people who stand to make a killing via corporate ed "reform".
MichiganVote
(21,086 posts)badhair77
(4,220 posts)If it must be renewed every 5 years then it is not really tenure, is it.
Disappointing coming from a Dem, but not surprising given the current appetite to go after education money.
senseandsensibility
(17,113 posts)He'll say whatever his contributors want him to say.