Spokespersons for the corporate reform movement hope to launch legal attacks on tenure and seniority in Connecticut, following the example of the Vergara case in California.
Even though the laws in the two states are quite different, the corporate reformers object to any job security at all for teachers, and they assume that low scores anywhere must be caused by teachers who should be fired.
Here is one of Connecticut’s leading corporate reform voices: “”The Vergara case exposed the fact that children have unequal access to quality teachers in California. This problem exists in Connecticut as well,” said Jennifer Alexander, chief executive officer of ConnCAN, an organization that supports school reform.”
The head of the corporate reform Connecticut Parents Union said she wants a judge to rule that teachers in low-performing schools should have neither tenure or seniority.
But Connecticut has a much longer waiting period for tenure than California. In the latter state, teachers may win tenure in 18 months, but in Conne it cut, tenure is awarded after four years of teaching. In California, dismissing a teacher is a long and costly process, but in Connecticut, according to Cindy Mirochine, president of the Danbury Teachers Union, the time allotted to the termination process is limited: “”We reduced the time for due process,” Mirochine said, adding that the maximum time from notice of termination until termination was reduced from 125 days to 85 days.
Given the differences between the two states, it becomes clear that the goal of a lawsuit in Connecticut would be to remove any and all job protections for teachers so that they could be fired promptly, for any reason. There is no reason to believe that such changes would increase the number of “great teachers” or have any beneficial impact on students with low test scores.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Layoff teachers with seniority? At least that gives Pearson an example for oxymoron, legally steal retirement money.
Starting with the false statement that, “Vergara case exposed the fact that children have unequal access to quality teachers in California,” this woman takes a page from the MIchelle Rhee playbook. Follow Rhee’s language when she gleefully fired DC teachers. Alexander follows the Broad Academy litany of the Big Lie.
And don’t the kids in Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport and
Windham have access to the GREAT TFA newbies?
They are stellar and no where near the wealthy suburbs.
Poor Muffy and Chip.
It seems to me that there are so many problems with this situation. First, teachers’ education tend to be focused on content areas and pedagogy with some liberal arts and ed psych thrown in. Sometimes there are educ leadership courses. But the degree is very specific and man times the skills are seen as nontransferrable to other careers. Given that firing a teacher often takes away a license, that leaves the teacher with few, if any, possible career options. There are low paying hourly jobs or else the teacher must preschool for a new career.
With such disrespect for the profession and a lack of good paying jobs utilizing those skills, do these unfairly dismissed teachers have much hope of finding lucrative work?
I once had a mom who babysat children in the summer and before/after school that she basically had the same job as I did, teaching third grade. With that perception,is it any wonder that teachers get so many dismissive attitudes from corporate America?
Danny Malloy, a traitor and a liar, opened hunting season a few years ago.
Humiliating and destroying teachers is now a national sport.
May this be the final nail in his political coffin.
Vote Pelto/Murphy in November.
Governor Malloy: Tenure D E N I E D.
YOU ARE ONE AND DONE.
I have yet to hear any Democrat in my neck of the woods gush about the possibility of reelecting “DINO Dan”, whether they are teachers or not. It’s time to throw this jerk out!
Tomorrow I must get the countdown app and post in the Pelto blog.
Such a pity and Dan just sold his house. We can help him pack or send the kids.
I totally agree with you. It is all following Gates’ and “Race to the Bottom’s” plan – to make teaching so repulsive as a career that no one, in their right minds, would want to go into it. You and I both know that they are doing a SUPERIOR job in driving young people away from the teaching profession. By drastically reducing the teaching force, within 10 years it will be so much easier for the charter schools and online schools to move in and take everything over.
My husband and I have a wonderful daughter who will be starting her sophomore year in premed studies. We both had 32 year careers in education. It is taking us every dime we have to pay for her college tuition – and she even has outstanding scholarships. Believe me, young people will steer away from such a toxic, unrewarding, disrespected career which will cost them THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS to pay for. Actually, it is all happening as we speak. Fewer college professors are needed to oversee student teachers. Obama is trying to do a “Race to the Bottom” with colleges and shut down teaching departments in chosen colleges. There is a HUGE movement in full force right now to take away the professional status from teaching and move it into the service industry. Obama Care to medical doctors is “Race to the Bottom” for teachers. I think everyone can see why the United States will someday, not that far off, be a 3rd world country. We will go back to the times that the rich will only be the ones who are educated. They are already trying to keep a college education away from the middle class.
Linda, I am an Ohio teacher, and I feel the very same way about our governor, John Kasich. Kasich hates teachers, and I am sure his twin daughters do not have to suffer with the toxic policies that he makes Ohio students and teachers suffer with.
I would hate to be a governor and be despised by so many people. If I was in a room and had a chance to shake hands and meet him, I would walk out of the room. He makes me sick.
I don’t think I could even be in the same room or location. May their days be numbered and their time will come. Lies, cheats, and back stabbing will come back to haunt them eventually.
As my dad aed to say…if Kasich were on fire, I wouldn’t spit on him to put the fire out.
😀 👏👏👏
Its interesting that our politicians have no consciences and don’t stay awake at night concerned about all the harm they and the Rheeformers are inflicting on the kids and the profession of teaching.
Here’s the thing – they can’t touch private schools, schools that don’t get vouchers or blood money, right?
Perhaps what will be left for true, educated, trained, certified teachers … is private schools, the likes of what the reformers send their own kids to. Certainly THOSE teachers must be respected, right? Are they well paid? I’m not talking low-enrollment Catholic schools – I’m talking like Pingry Academy in NJ, and the like.
When all that is left is for profit charters, that will definitely be converted to on-line “institutions”, maybe the last choice left for the few teachers left will be private schools. Maybe there, they will get some respect and be able to earn a living.
If you get a job at Pingry Donna, let me know!
I am not a teacher. My daughter, sadly, is in her first year. Long story there, and I’m sure, one day in the future, despite that she got 3 fantastic ratings this year, she will be selling insurance for Prudential.
I ordered some IKEA furniture and the guy putting it together for me had a masters degree in education and was layed off by LAUSD due to budget cuts. There is very little respect for teachers but there seems to be oodles of respect for superintendents like Deasy whose only claim to educational savvy is TFA. The reformers tell America it’s time to ditch the rotten teachers and they are assuming we are all rotten. Even in the vegera trial the expert agreed he made up the statistics of 1 to 3 percent grossly incompetent teachers. So, the judge based his decision on a made up statistic. If we really want to see gross incompetence I’d point my finger at that judge and those experts, and the many administrators who take massive salaries, never give teachers any raises, cut programs, give public education to the highest charter bidder, revile teachers, kowtow to billionaires reform strategies, spend maintenance money on tech and expect the teachers to teach in rooms that are unsafe, dangerous and filthy. God if only we’d just have a massive state wide or nation wide strike and tell the media like it is. Well organized with talking points, how else are we ever going to get the message across that education is being raped by the rich and conscienceless.
The easiest way to win this argument is to attack a teacher for teaching “evolution,” and argue that they are selling science over religion. The origin of tenure was to preserve academic integrity anyway, and it is still a commanding argument. Showing how restrictive anti-tenure policies are regarding academic freedom is the strongest and easiest argument to make.
Claptrap about pensions could always be addressed by delaying tenure for two to five years, as many cities and states have, or by phasing it in or linking it to specific kinds of job performance (student attendance is probably more useful and indicative of skill than test scores anyway).
So a teachers performance will be based on whether or not he or she came to school?
Really?
That’s not what I wrote (reading 1.01). I wrote that teachers’ “performance” might be measured by their academic integrity, and that eliminating tenure guaranteed that other criteria – like anti-evolution, anti-science, ideology, etc., etc. – would displace academic ones. Pensions are, in fact, a very different matter, and if they accumulate too fast they actually risk the success of later teachers.
I thought you meant student attendance, not the teacher. That wasn’t clear to me. Thinking 1.01.
What I don’t understand is why other civil rights organizations are not getting involved in all this. For example, how long do you think it will take, once due process protections are removed, for gay teachers to be fired (provided that there isn’t the monumentally stupid mistake of saying it’s for that reason) in heavily conservative enclaves? How long til more and more African-American teachers are being removed, this time without the impetus of organizations like TFA which tend to be remarkably white?
These are a large group of the teachers who are being harassed and/or fired in LAUSD. The favorite music teacher in the district who won all sorts of awards for her choir, and even performed at the White House, was summarily dumped by Deasy after she returned with her choir from Europe. She has been at Crenshaw HS for over 30 years…and yes, she is black.
It is contractually the duty of the union to protect all teachers! And to UNITE with other unions in this case. Since Randi Weingarten began working in this industry, early 2000’s, we have been demonized and vilified continuously. We need a powerful, protective, defensive voice now!
In addition teaching is a female dominated industry. We are being crushed in the 21st century. We need powerful female activists!
“Even though the laws in the two states are quite different,”
Now there’s a shocker. Anyone who thought they weren’t going further with it the moment they won is, frankly, delusional.
I’m sort of mildly curious how the ed reformers who are NOT vehemently anti-organized labor continue to kid themselves that this “movement” isn’t anti-labor. What do you think it will take?
For goodness sakes, ordinary people who are in private sector unions know they’re coming for them next. In every state where they ended public sector union protections they immediately went after private sector unions. They thought billionaires were big labor supporters? Why?
Diane and Chiara,
Since this posting and Pelto’s addition, the CT post article has been revised to include love from Dannel and a new message from the edudilettante Alexander:
Alexander, from ConnCAN, said the California ruling affirms the fact that great teachers have a lasting, positive impact on their students.
“Every student in Connecticut, regardless of race or family income, deserves the highest quality teachers and public schools,” Alexander said. “To make that a reality we must ensure our policies help identify and support great educators, so that they in turn can prepare our kids to succeed in college, careers, and life. The Vergara ruling is an important step towards making our public schools better and improving opportunities for all kids.”
See Dan’s bull💩 here: http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Teacher-tenure-court-case-could-affect-Connecticut-5554244.php
Hope the rest of the public service unions are paying attention, their day of reckoning will be just around the corner too.
Perfectly put. This Vergara case signifies something larger than just teachers’ rights.
It is but part of a much bigger (but not less important) picture of restructuring power and wealth in the United States.
If we don’t look at the very big picture and continue to organize, mobilize, and push back against the United Plutocrats of America, then I am extremely and realistically fearful of rioting and violence.
I hope it never comes down to that, but that is the next, I think, inevitablity.
This will only make the need adn efforsts to prohibit high capacity weapons (I am a proponent of MUCH more stringent regulations on gun ownership!) more difficult to achieve.
America is a mess.
“Groups such as New Haven-based ConnCan and Connecticut Council for Education Reform, and StudentsFirst are widely recognized for their lobbying efforts to expand public charters, increase teacher and school accountability and increase funding for school choice programs.
Other groups such as Educators4Excellence, Teach for America and Achievement First have more distinct niches including operating public charters and training educators to advocate for change at the state level.”
I think it’s good they’re not longer pretending to advocate on behalf of existing public schools 🙂
Now if we could just get the ed reformers who are actually elected to stop hiding the ball we’d really be getting somewhere!
http://www.nhregister.com/general-news/20140503/connecticut-education-reform-groups-playing-pivitol-role-shaping-public-education
I really wonder when and who will be coming to New York to start the litigation here. . . . . . . . .
We, the People, will never be able to outspend the billionaires. All of this is smoke and mirrors while they continue their back-door destruction policies. Even when they come knocking down the front door with a bulldozer, and their true reasons a values become well known, they will likely still be able to get away with it.
Donna, David slayed Goliath. Americans gained independence from the British.
I am no fan of the Tea Party, but they managed to get rid of Eric Cantor (both he and the new guy are horrible in different ways). I loathe the Tea Party because, in part, they are manipulated by sponsors like the Koch brothers, but they did manage to voice themselves – however ignorant their voice – and get rid of one guy.
We can do the same to push back against the bad aspects of this reform.
Fear and apathy are our worst enemy.
I think they will file cases in courts where they already own the judge so they rack up a series of verdicts in their favor and then crow that this proves they are right to drum up support for the fake education movement.
Agree with you Lloyd, They will keep building on the Vergara precedent.
The real issue is lack of a strong convincing voice defending all teachers from our national union president.
Why isn’t this unconstitutional?
Currently, standard district hiring practice throughout the country is such that tenured teachers whose employment is terminated do not receive credit for more than 6-8 years experience when hired by another district.
In IL District 214, if an EA member having 23 years experience with MA + 60 has his/her employment terminated, . . .
* If hired by a similar paying district:
TOTAL LOSS PRIOR TO RETIREMENT: $227,273.00
$22,128.30 LOSS EACH YEAR AFTER RETIREMENT
(These calculations were performed prior to new legislation recently passed raising the age of retirement. Now, losses prior to retirement will be greater – more than double.)
* This does not include CPI increases (which, now in IL, do not exist after retirement).
The objective of underfunded districts is to SAVE money – this puts experienced teachers who sought continuing education at great risk of having their employment unjustifiably terminated, particularly since subjective evaluations lacking statistically proven inter-rater reliability are now used for teacher evaluation.
Currently, in this district less than 20% of new hires receive tenure, and IL District 214 is an adequately-funded district. We are already seeing new teacher rollover; and really, tenure is an archaic term. An administrator can easily use the new evaluation system to terminate any teacher’s employment; since administrators can, we would be naive to think none ever will.
It is one thing to be fired based on objective, justifiable criteria. It is quite another thing to ruin a teacher’s career and future livelihood due to a district’s need to save money resulting from mismanaged funding on the behalf of its legislators.
Reblogged this on We Are More and commented:
Corporate Education Deformers Strike Again!