Teacher tenure plan getting public boos

After Tuesday's meeting where school board members approved a resolution decrying N.C. lawmakers' vote to end teacher tenure and give 25 percent of the state's teachers paltry raises, the board chair said: "We can do better. I would rather see a more equitable base pay." 

That wasn't the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system's chair. It was Cumberland County's in Fayetteville. Both the Cumberland County board and the CMS board on Tuesday joined a growing list of education boards across the state in publicly lambasted the change which they say inadequately compensates teachers and creates pay inequities.

State Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat and former Cumberland County school board member who was at the Fayetteville meeting noted to the Fayetteville Observer aptly: "My suspicion is this will cascade. The public is speaking pretty clearly on this."

That's been pretty clear. Teachers came out in droves to voice opposition in Charlotte and in Fayetteville on Tuesday. Surveys by two UNC Wilmington professors detailed the public's thumbs-down. Gov. Pat McCrory seems to be listening. He said last week that his staff is considering offering changes to the tenure legislation in the coming short legislative session. “I think it’s an example of passing a policy without clearly understanding the execution,” he said.

It's also an example of passing policy that has little impact on the problem legislators said that were trying to solve - ensuring that North Carolina has the most effective teachers and got rid of the poorly performing ones. Declining to give teachers a pay raise, keeping N.C. teachers' salaries in the cellar of teacher compensation nationwide and arbitrarily deciding that only 25 percent of the state's teachers will be top performers and be eligible for $500 a year pay bumps  as a reward won't address either issue. 

Interestingly, a comparison of states nationwide and the performance of their students show little relationship between teacher tenure policies and teaching effectiveness as shown in test scores. Of the top states on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), several also have the most lenient teacher tenure (teachers able to get tenure in a short period of time). Massachusetts tops the list on NAEP performance (2010) yet it was one of 32 states (in 2010) where teachers got tenure in three years. In North Carolina, which was 29th in NAEP performance among the 50 states, the District of Columbia and overseas military schools, it was four years. In Maine, which was 14th on NAEP, tenure took just two years to kick in. Vermont is second in NAEP performance, and teacher tenure kicks in after two years.

Mississippi, dead last on NAEP, gave teacher tenure after one year on the job - the only state to do so. But the perennial bottom-sitter on education performance was in the minority with that correlation.

Gov. McCrory might be taking a cue from some political history in taking a second look at the teacher tenure change which he signed into law with the state budget last year. In 2000, Georgia Governor Roy Barnes, a Democrat, successfully pushed a law through the legislature eliminating tenure for new teachers. When Barnes was up for reelection in 2002, teachers refused to support him, helping Sonny Perdue to become the first Republican Governor of Georgia since 1872.

No one believes mediocre teachers should be kept in the classroom. But the change N.C. lawmakers made doesn't really address that problem. It simply hurts good teachers, fails to compensate them for the good work they do and doesn't help them help students improve their academic performance. 

Lawmakers should repeal this bad law.

- Associate Editor Fannie Flono