The Department of Education threw away its teacher-tenure rubber stamp this week, issuing new guidelines that set unions screeching.
It’s a case of little steps for little feet, but it’s a more-than-welcome move nevertheless.
Teachers must now be deemed “effective” for two straight years to receive tenure — a gift once bestowed automatically after three years on the job.
The good news: Test scores and student feedback will be factored into tenure evaluations written by the school principals who decide the matter.
Bizarrely, that data wasn’t being used in the past.
Deputy Chancellor John White said the old system handled teachers like “widgets on an assembly line,” treating the best and worst pretty much the same.
“If we’re going to professionalize teaching, we have to reward teachers, evaluate teachers and develop teachers like the 21st-century professionals that they are.”
Precisely. Though the new system still has problems of its own.
Principals must explain why teachers deserve jobs for life in three measly paragraphs — less space than most book reports their students are assigned.
And the rotten root remains: tenure it self, which breeds complacency among older teachers and makes it nearly impossible to fire bad ones.
It puts the interests of teachers before their students, a corruption and inversion of the very purpose of education.
Ultimately, the goal should be to end tenure entirely, not just curb it.
But, again, that doesn’t mean Monday’s shift wasn’t a good move.
The key now is aggressive application of the new guidelines to snap the inertia that allowed tenure approvals for 99.6 percent of teachers in 2006.
Since then, things have been inching in the right direction. Last year, 3.7 percent were refused tenure, while another 7 percent got probationary extensions.
Pretty much anything would be an improvement over that sorry state.
If tenure numbers drop again next year, it’ll prove that the city means business.