Earlier this year, Education Action Group released a chart documenting the 15 separate steps involved in firing a tenured teacher in the state of New Jersey. The process involves a months-long investigation followed by a trial which can last a year or more. All told, it takes between two and five years (and a pile of money) to terminate an ineffective teacher in the Garden State.
The destructive nature of teacher tenure is, of course, not confined to New Jersey. If it were, we could all rest easy knowing that Gov. Chris Christie is on the case. Unfortunately, teacher tenure is wreaking havoc all across the fruited plains.
Take this recent case from Michigan. According to the Jackson Citizen Patriot, “A former Stockbridge High School teacher accused of threatening to kill the principal signed a severance agreement that will cost Stockbridge Community Schools about $135,000.”
This particular teacher had been suspended for two weeks by the principal for showing an R-rated movie to her students without permission from parents or school administrators. Apparently, this caused the teacher to go crackers, because she then threatened to “off” herself and the school principal, the paper reports.
But tenure served as the teacher’s ace-in-the-hole. Despite all of the teacher’s transgressions, it was the school that ended writing a six-figure check as a result of the episode.
“The sooner you can resolve the issue, the better off you are,” an official said of the district’s decision.
Think the Michigan case is an aberration? Consider this recent example of tenure-gone-wild from the state of California.
The Sacramento Bee reports that the Sacramento school district paid a middle school teacher $87,000 over 14 months as school and police officials investigated allegations that he sexually abused children. That includes $347 per day for the two weeks the teacher was in the Sacramento County jail awaiting trial on charges of sex crimes with young kids.
In the case of Sam Brannan Middle School teacher Preston Lewis, the union protections allowed him regular contact with young students despite repeated allegations of inappropriate sexual activity with his foster children and others. The Sacramento school district paid Lewis over the course of three administrative leaves stemming from child sexual abuse allegations since 2007, the Bee reports.
The paper finds that over the past five years, Sacramento City United school district has paid out $1.1 million in salary to 49 educators for 3,819 school days they stayed home while under investigation for misconduct. And that figure doesn’t include health insurance, retirement or substitute teacher expenses.
Granted, the Michigan and California cases are exotic examples of tenure-gone-wild. Much more common is the ineffective, indifferent or incompetent teacher who remains in the classroom because his or her school district cannot afford the termination process.
Ever wonder why administrators of failing schools don’t simply pink-slip all the lousy teachers? Tenure laws make that illegal.
The decision to fire a bad teacher requires a large commitment of time and money from a district, with no guarantee of a favorable outcome.
See more examples in Episode 6 of “Kids Aren’t Cars” for more examples from Indiana and Illinois.
Little wonder why districts attempt to fire only the most egregious offenders. As a result, incompetent teachers stay in the classroom and the students get shortchanged on their education.
It’s a deplorable situation, and it’s never going to change until we scrap or completely overhaul teacher tenure.
We’re all familiar with the “If you can read this, thank a teacher” bumper sticker.
Education reformers need our own bumper sticker that reads, “If your child is trapped in a classroom with a suspected child molester, a violent hothead or a teacher who is plain incompetent, thank your local teachers union.”
Sure, it’d make for a huge bumper sticker, but that would only highlight what a daunting, ingrained problem teacher tenure has become.
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