The Public Turns Against Teacher Tenure

[Geee]

Hoover Institute:

It's back-to-school season, but teacher tenure has been a hot topic since summer began. In June a California court ruled that the state's tenure and seniority laws are unconstitutional in Vergara v. State of California. Minority students have filed a similar case in New York, with more to come elsewhere.

 

Republican governors such as Chris Christie in New Jersey and Bobby Jindal in Louisiana have persuaded their legislatures to rein in teacher-tenure laws. Teachers unions are complaining bitterly, arguing that teachers deserve job protection because principals rate most of them as excellent or satisfactory.

 

But where does the public come down on teacher tenure? Do they agree that almost all teachers are performing well—or at least satisfactorily? What do parents think? And how do teachers rate their own colleagues?

 

Here are a few answers to those questions from the just-released eighth annual Education Next poll, overseen by the Harvard Program on Education Policy and conducted online in May and June by the polling firm Knowledge Networks. The survey was administered to representative samples of the general public, parents and teachers.

 

[Valin]

Meanwhile back at the ranch.....

Left-wing teacher groups launch sexist crusade
Kirsten Powers
8/19/14

The "war on women" isn't just for Republicans. Left-wing organizations in New York City have launched their own misogynist crusade against former CNN anchor turned education advocate Campbell Brown.

 

Brown is running the Partnership for Educational Justice, which she founded to challenge teacher tenure and other rules that protect underperforming teachers.

 

For this, she has been on the receiving end of a sexist assault by the American Federation of Teachers and opponents of education reform. AFT President Randi Weingarten took to Twitter to accuse Brown of not being balanced in her approach to school reform because "she's married to Romney adviser Dan Senor."

 

To Weingarten, women are not people with thoughts of their own. No, they're empty vessels who do their husband's bidding.

 

(Snip)