Opinion

Christie delivers

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was understandably proud Monday as he signed a landmark teacher-tenure bill into law.

The Garden State, after all, is a deep-blue state with a Democratic-controlled Legislature and a powerful teachers union.

Its old tenure law — the nation’s oldest — basically guaranteed lifelong jobs to even the worst educators after just three years.

Over the past decade, Jersey has only been able to fire 20 (that’s right, 20!) unfit teachers throughout the entire state.

It was a system, Christie rightly noted, that had “no rewards for excellence and no consequences for failure.”

That should be familiar to New Yorkers.

Now, incredibly, Jersey has a beefed-up law that passed with bipartisan political support and the teachers union’s blessing.

True, there was a price to pay: Christie had to agree to keep the state’s “last in, first out,” rule, which mandates that the newest — rather than the worst — teachers are let go first in the event of layoffs.

Just as teachers unions in New York successfully fought ending LIFO here.

But under the new measure, Jersey teachers will have to work for four years before becoming eligible for tenure.

They’ll also be rated annually on their effectiveness; two poor ratings in a row will be enough to remove tenure.

The system was also changed to ease efforts to shed incompetent teachers.

In New York City, new Department of Education regs have dramatically lowered the number of teachers granted tenure: In 2011, it was 58 percent, down from more than 95 percent just a few years ago.

But those figures could quickly shoot back up when Mayor Bloomberg’s successor — all too likely to be more subservient to the teachers union — takes office.

Meanwhile, a statewide deal on teacher evaluations remains as elusive as ever for many districts, despite Gov. Cuomo’s claim — just yesterday — that New York’s revised laws constitute clear-cut standards.

Christie’s triumph shows that it’s possible to make teachers more accountable, and with their union’s blessing. Just maybe not on this side of the Hudson.