MORE GOOD NEWS!
RALEIGH, N.C. — Veteran teachers will keep their career status rights, what some call tenure, under a unanimous ruling issued by the state Supreme Court Friday.
The decision stems from a 2013 state law that would have forced teachers who had earned certain job protections to give those up starting in 2018. However, the ruling does not affect younger teachers who were hired after the 2013 law went into effect or teachers who had not served long enough to have achieved career status.
“We are glad the Court recognized the General Assembly’s attempt to strip away rights from teachers as unconstitutional,” Rodney Ellis, president of the North Carolina Association of Educators, said in a statement.
The NCAE and five veteran teachers had sued to overturn the law. Ellis vowed to keep pushing lawmakers to give career status to teachers who are currently excluded from the protections.
“Career status is an important tool to recruit and retain quality educators, just like fair compensation and working and learning conditions that lead to student success,” he said.
Legislative leaders were not available to immediately respond to the ruling. A spokeswoman for Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger said legislative attorneys were still reviewing the ruling.
Tenure rights have been part of a broader debate about reforming education, with Republicans who control the General Assembly arguing that state school systems need to be more nimble and better able to spur teachers to success. Democrats and teachers groups have argued that career status protects teachers from the whims of an oft-changing cast of administrators and occasionally unreasonable parents.
Read more at http://www.wral.com/supreme-court-upholds-tenure-rights-for-veteran-teachers/15644048/#BAzeM240FJ9fRjxP.99
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Yesterday, California rules against Vergara, today NC rules to keep ‘tenure’…we seem to be on a roll. Let’s hope NY weighs in with the same outcomes.
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The tide is turning, Ellen. Great comments lately, by the way.
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It’s not just younger teachers who might not have tenure; if you stop to have a baby and you stay home with your children for a number of years, you have to start over.
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The essential point that needs to be made to the general public nationwide about tenure is that it’s key purpose is to protect our nation from falling victim of the kind of official lies that led to fascism and Nazism. Already we’ve had so-called “history” textbooks pushed by Texas education authorities that tell students that slavery in our nation never happened, that all those black people who were brought here to work the plantations under inhuman conditions were “guest workers.” Only teachers who have the protection of tenure can stand up against such deception by authorities and refuse to teach it. Before tenure, what was taught in our schools changed each time there was a political change in local, county, or state governments. Tenure stopped that and enabled children to learn genuine truth, instead being force fed the fictional political ideology of those in power at the moment. Tenure protects the roots of our nation’s freedoms.
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You know what is really disturbing is that CEOs and “high level” personnel are generally given golden parachutes, signing bonuses, retention bonuses and enormous severance packages – these written into their employment contracts – along with Cadillac health benefits. While Wall Street was bleeding Main Street dry, its executives were raking in the cash–and taxpayers were bailing them out at the same time. Meanwhile, these same people want teachers to work for pennies, with no protections whatsoever, and without a pension, and to pay for their 2nd rate health care. Cerf in Newark, NJ gave the prescription benefits program over to a friend of his…and that is being fought. Some states bar public workers from social security – so what retirement are pubic workers entitled to then? The reformers begrudge the salaries of teachers–a pittance compared to their own salaries. It makes no sense.
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It is all very discouraging. One step forward,… It is essential that we keep fighting. As a late career returnee, I never had any protection and suffered for it. I also suffered from a naive belief in the “goodness” of my fellow man, but that extended/s only so far. The less we are personally connected, the less we can rely on basic decency. Those rule based protections are for those situations, so we can’t ignore the rights of those of less immediate connections. I may want to hire my brother-in-law, but that guy with ten years experience really should have “first dibs” on his social studies teaching gig. I can, however, kick out that teacher with only three straight years under their belt for any reason I damn well please. Someone’s connected parents don’t like their child’s report of your classroom? Well, heck, just trot on down to the superintendent if the principal doesn’t fold. The system isn’t perfect no matter what side of the picture you choose to view, but it is better than nothing.
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