Melissa Harris-Perry | MSNBC
The fight over teacher tenure is now raging coast to coast, and the latest battleground is the courtroom. Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman, Dana Goldstein from The Marshall Project, Randi Weingarten from the American Federation of Teachers and Darrell Bradford from NY Campaign for Achievement Now discuss with Melissa Harris-Perry.
By Rishawn Biddle | Dropout Nation
“There’s one thing that can be guaranteed when reformers and Parent Power activists take on the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association — especially in opposing the near-lifetime employment laws and traditional teacher compensation regimes at the heart of their influence: They will go strike back with any weapon available.
wpid-threethoughslogoAt times, the two unions will engage in the nastiest of rhetoric (including quietly setting up Web sites such as the now-defunct RheeFirst) instead of addressing the facts. Other times, the unions will issue enemies’ lists, as the AFT and its president, Randi Weingarten, has done over the past two years with its reports on money managers that bankroll reform outfits. Occasionally, the NEA and AFT will even offer an honest defense for the policies and practices they support.”
By Charles Stern | New York Charter Chatter
“The personal attacks on Campbell Brown are profound, and represent much more than the absence of good counter arguments to teacher tenure reform. My wife and I were the targets of ad hominem attacks for years while I served on the Board of Education in Mount Vernon, NY and here’s what I think is really going on:
Campbell Brown, in this role as the face of tenure reform in New York, is a Rorschach test on race. She has a leadership position in a civil rights battle. The vast majority of teachers are white women, and Brown looks like a teacher.
Citizen Stewart wrote a blog entry this week that crystallizes it:
“To earn this level hostility Ms. Brown only needed to take up the cause of poor black and brown mothers who want the same level of quality in their children’s classrooms as you’ll find in neighborhoods with the most demanding, affluent families.”
“More than 85 percent of RBJ Daily Report Snap Poll respondents oppose New York’s tenure and seniority protections for teachers.
The battle over teacher tenure moved to New York last month. In a pair of lawsuits, parents backed by advocacy groups challenged the state’s tenure and seniority protections for teachers, arguing that these are the product of outdated laws that effectively deny students’ constitutional right to a sound basic education.
The New York suits were filed in the wake of a June decision in which a California judge struck down that state’s laws on tenure and seniority. Among the plaintiffs in the latest New York case, filed last week, are parents of two Rochester schoolchildren.
The plaintiffs argue that New York’s education system protects “ineffective teachers well above what due process requires and at the direct expense of their students’ constitutional rights. … Cumulatively, these laws make it nearly impossible to dismiss and discipline teachers with a proven track record of ineffectiveness or misconduct.”
School districts statewide typically grant tenure to new teachers after a three-year probationary period and after only two years of performance review, which “is inadequate to assess whether a teacher has earned the lifelong benefits of tenure,” the suit maintains.
In addition, the plaintiffs contend that under New York’s “LIFO (“Last In First Out) Statute,” school districts conducting layoffs for economic reasons “must fire junior, high-performing teachers (while) senior, low-performing and more highly paid teachers continue to provide poor instruction to their students.”
In response, New York State United Teachers president Karen Magee described the suit as “a politically motivated attack against every dedicated teacher in New York.” She said tenure “ensures that teachers have the freedom to teach effectively and the liberty to oppose policies or cuts that harm students,” adding that the seniority system “guards against abuses by those who would use ‘layoffs’ as another way to terminate those who advocate too fiercely, are older or are at the top of the pay scale.”
Roughly 875 readers participated in this week’s poll, conducted Aug. 4 and 5.
Do you support or oppose New York’s tenure and seniority protections for teachers?
Support: 14%
Oppose: 86%”
By Juana Summers | NPR Education
“Celebrities are becoming a prominent fixture in the debate over K-12 education.
This week Whoopi Goldberg used her platform on ABC’s The View to speak out against teacher tenure.
“To me, bad teachers don’t do anybody any good. So the union needs to recognize that parents are not going to stand for it anymore,” she said.
Goldberg followed up with a YouTube video, responding to the backlash she’d received after making those statements. Her mother, she notes in the video, was a teacher, and Goldberg describes herself as “all about teachers.”
“I like great teachers. I don’t like bad teachers, so I don’t think bad teachers should be given the gift of teaching forever — badly,” she says.
Goldberg follows Campbell Brown, the former CNN anchor, into the tenure debate ignited by the California lawsuit. David Boies, the high profile trial lawyer known for his role in the legal challenge that overturned California’s gay marriage ban, also recently joined Brown’s group, the Partnership for Education Justice.”
NY1 VIDEO: Campbell Brown, founder of the Partnership for Educational Justice, and Keoni Wright, a NY Parent who is a plaintiff in the Wright v NY lawsuit against the state, joined Inside City Hall with Errol Louis to discuss their call to change New York’s teacher tenure rules.
“Campbell Brown is white. She has money. She’s married to a man. By any objective standard, she is pretty.
I know these truths about her because I read Twitter, and that medium is ablaze with traffic from a bazillion teacher unionists who are appalled that Ms. Brown would dare touch the third rail of teacher tenure.”
By Rebecca Klein | The Huffington Post
“Hosts of “The View” caused a stir in the education world this week after sounding off on teacher tenure on Monday’s show.
As shown in the clip below, “The View” co-hosts, including regulars Whoopi Goldberg and Jenny McCarthy, and guests Nicolle Wallace and Kayleigh McEnany, appear to stake out positions unfriendly to teacher tenure rules protecting job security.”
By Debra Cassens Weiss | ABA Journal
“The lawyers who joined to fight California’s ban on gay marriage are united on another issue: the civil-rights implications of teacher tenure.
Ted Olson was among the lawyers who challenged teacher tenure laws in California. In a June ruling, a judge found the tenure laws violate students’ right to equal protection under the state constitution. The plaintiffs in Vergara v. California had argued the tenure laws keep ineffective teachers on the job, and these teachers are disproportionately assigned to poor and minority schools.”
The Washington Free Beacon
“Campbell Brown, head of the new Partnership for Educational Justice, said Monday on Morning Joe that her challenge of New York teacher tenure laws stemmed from her desire to treat teachers like other professionals who are evaluated based on their performance.”