Christie Tackles Tenure

Yesterday, in a speech at Princeton University in front of several educational leaders throughout the state, the New Jersey Commissioner of Education, Christopher Cerf, unveiled Governor Christie's new plan to reform the tenure system in public education. It will set up a new rating scale whereby teachers will be evaluated by their superiors as "highly effective," "effective," "partially effective," or "ineffective."  Instead of teachers being automatically granted tenure by surviving three years and a day in their positions, they will have to earn it by achieving a rating of "highly effective" or "effective" for three straight years.

The plan has evoked strong reactions from both those who support the governor's position and those who are diametrically opposed to it. Needless to say, the NJEA is accusing the governor of launching an all-out assault on teachers. But having attended one of the governor's town hall meetings, I know exactly where he is coming from and why he is doing what he's doing.

At his town hall meeting in Paramus, Governor Christie picked two people from the audience. He said to them, "Imagine that I'm your principal and you're both teachers in my school." Then he went on to praise one of them as being a highly effective teacher who deserves all the credit in the world for the job she's doing. "For that," he said, "you get a pat on the back and a 4% raise."

Then he looked at the other and said, "You, on the other hand, have been highly ineffective in the classroom." He emphasized to the audience that this person had tenure in the school district. After laying out his concerns and criticisms, he said to her, "For this, you get a pat on the back and a 4% raise."

His point was crystal clear. Tenure rewards bad teachers and treats the good ones unfairly. The governor went on to say that he is more concerned about the good ones than the lousy ones. Why? Because if they see that the lousy ones are getting the same raises and the same rewards as they are for doing inferior work, then they might become discouraged. They might say, "Why am I busting my butt when so-and-so does nothing and gets the same raises I do?" It's understandable why anyone in that position would stop going that extra mile for the kids and start doing the bare minimum to get by. They may even leave the teaching profession altogether.

Let me state very clearly that there are many tenured teachers who never stop working hard and never fail to bend over backwards for their students. But unfortunately, there are many who don't, and these are the ones who give tenured teachers a bad name.

When I went through the doctoral program in educational leadership at Seton Hall University, I made it a point to do research on the subject of tenure. I was curious about what the findings were, and whether studies had been done to examine whether or not tenure had an impact on the quality of education. The answer to that question was a resounding "yes," though there was some disagreement on what that impact was. Let's take a brief look at the two heavy hitters who went head to head on this subject.

In one corner, you have Dr. Walter Metzger, a renowned professor emeritus at Columbia University. His findings indicated that tenure had a positive impact on the quality of education. He concluded that the job security associated with tenure enabled educators to teach freely on subjects they might otherwise be afraid to introduce to their students. Throughout his career, he was widely considered the most ardent defender of tenure in the United States.

In the other corner, you have Dr. James O'Toole, who for many years served as the Chairman of the Department of Business Management at the University of Southern California. He concluded that tenure rewarded instructors who were ineffective, and also forced non-tenured teachers to submit to their tenured colleagues and be deathly afraid of making waves.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions, but I take O'Toole's side for one major reason. Metzger was a devout liberal who decried McCarthyism and loyally served in both the ACLU and AAUP for many, many years. He was a huge proponent of unions, and there is no question that if he were alive today, he would be firmly entrenched in the camp of Barbara Keshishian and her cronies at NJEA.

If there's one thing you learn while completing a Ph.D., it's that researchers can easily manipulate their findings according to their ideology. Don't get me wrong. I am not accusing Metzger of unethical practices, but no one can tell me that he didn't tailor his research to help support his own liberal views.

Now put yourself in O'Toole's position. He was a tenured professor who reaped all the benefits of the system. Yet he critcized it as unfair and ineffective. Does that sound like bias to you? Again, draw your own conclusions.

Throughout my many years in education, I have come to form strong views on tenure based on a) my research and b) my experience. During my stints in both K-12 and higher education, I witnessed teachers, administrators, and professors who slacked off once they attained tenure. It was as if a whole new person emerged, one that could never have been sensed before. And they had every reason for slacking I suppose, simply because tenure made it all but impossible to remove them from their positions.

As taxpayers who pay the highest property tax rate in the entire country, New Jerseyans should be appalled that their hard-earned money goes toward supporting subpar educators who put themselves on cruise control once they get tenured. I've seen many educators who were adept at fooling their superiors for three years before showing their true colors. Once the cat was out of the bag, they became a chronic headache for which there was no cure. I can name several boards of education that have assigned ineffective administrators to performing mundane tasks with vague titles such as "Manager of Special Projects." For this, they often receive salaries well in excess of $100,000 per year.

I am pro-education and pro-teacher. Always have been and always will be. But the teaching profession needs to get in line with the rest of the world, where there is no tenure, no sweet pension deals, and workers contribute a good amount of money toward their health insurance premiums. The teachers who are crying about Governor Christie's agenda always have a choice. They can leave and do something else with their lives if they're no longer going to be happy.

One thing I know for certain is that we have thousands of people across the state who are looking to get into teaching. The NJEA is full of it when they say that Christie's reforms will drive people away from the profession. I can't even begin to tell you how many people in New Jersey have completed the first phase of alternate route teacher certification only to have to drop out of the program. Why? Because you need a job to go on and complete the rest of the phases. And so they are waiting patiently in the wings for something to open up, as are several college graduates from both 2009 and 2010 who still don't have a full-time teaching position.

The time has come for the tenure system to be reformed and put in line with the way that other jobs in society are evaluated. It certainly won't drive away the highly effective educators. In fact, it will give them all the more reason to stay. The dinosaurs who refuse to change their lesson plans from one year to the next and keep holding on to earn their high salaries and pad their pensions will be forced to retire. This will open up jobs for younger, more energetic aspiring teachers who are eager to bring their idealism into the classroom and make a difference in kids' lives. The bad teachers who are not yet of retirement age will be forced to shape up or get shipped out. Either of those results will only improve the overall quality of education. It's a win-win situation all around. Once again, the governor is to be applauded for taking a stand and initiating a bold reform that is much needed and long overdue. Time to teach those tenured slackers a lesson.