Just days after a national teachers’ union called for his head, Education Secretary Arne Duncan took a swipe at the low-bar that teachers have to clear to get tenure.
On July 4, members of the powerful National Education Association voted to call for Duncan’s resignation, after he supported a California lawsuit that struck down teacher tenure there, on the basis that kids’ civil rights weren’t being protected.
New York’s teacher tenure system is under threat from a parents’ lawsuit prompted by the California suit.
Duncan met with President Obama and teachers at a White House event Monday, where he said he supports tenure, but California’s 18-month requirement was too easy.
“I will always support the right to tenure. We just want that to be a meaningful bar,” Duncan said, noting that California teachers got tenure after just 18 months, adding tenure “is something that should be earned through demonstrated effectiveness.”
Duncan brushed off the news Monday, saying he tried to stay out of “local union politics. I think most teachers do, too,” and noting that American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten is “standing with us.”
The Obama administration wants every state to submit an equity plan for how it places “effective teachers” – not just putting them in neighborhoods with wealthy kids. It wants states to cough up data on where the best teachers end up.