By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org

TRENTON, N.J. – Will he or won’t he?

That’s what New Jersey’s education reformers are wondering as they await Gov. Chris Christie’s decision about whether or not to sign a new teacher tenure reform bill that recently breezed through the state’s legislature.

But there’s another, more basic question people should be asking: If this tenure bill is real reform, then why is the New Jersey Education Association backing it?

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Most observers argue it is. They say the unpopular union understands it cannot win this fight, and is gracefully accepting defeat.

We’re not so sure.

Supporters of this potential law concede the union won the “last in, first out” seniority debate. That’s regrettable, they say, but hardly enough to void the bill’s huge accomplishments: linking a teacher’s performance to student learning, and allowing bad teachers to be fired.

“Teachers who don’t perform well will be removed from the classroom,” asserts a recent Star-Ledger editorial. “And for the first time, evidence of student progress – including test scores – will be central to that evaluation.”

That sounds great … but is it true?

Under this pending law, it is possible for a teacher to lose tenure protection if he or she is found ineffective. But losing tenure isn’t the same as being removed from the classroom, as the Star Ledger suggests.

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Losing tenure and losing a job are two separate and distinct concepts under the proposed law.

Cases involving “de-tenured” teachers will go before an arbitrator, who could decide to fire them outright or to freeze their pay while allowing them to remain in the classroom, reports MyCentralJersey.com.

But arbitrators are notorious for issuing nonsensical and counterintuitive rulings that have as much rationale as a coin flip. For New Jersey lawmakers to entrust such important decisions to the whims of an arbitrator is either naïve or irresponsible – or both.

The NJEA understands this concession is little more than a fifty-fifty proposition for “de-tenured” teachers, which is hardly the “landmark achievement” some are making it out to be.

So if the union won the seniority debate and managed to get tenure cases decided by sympathetic third-party arbitrators, what have New Jersey families really gained?

That’s not to say the probable law doesn’t have some merit – it certainly does.

It establishes the premise that student learning is a factor in a teacher’s performance, which is a significant victory that can be built upon in the future.

The bill also increases the time it takes for teachers to earn tenure, from three years to four. That will give administrators more opportunities to identify and remove subpar teachers before they are given the full suit of armor known as tenure.

And, yes, the likely law will lead to some poorly performing teachers being removed from the classroom. That’s a good thing, no question about it.
But Instead of asking whether or not Christie will ultimately sign this bill (observers say he will), reformers should be wondering if this bill is really enough.

Reformers have the wind at their back, and a popular, determined governor. Those conditions won’t always exist. (As baseball’s Catfish Hunter once said, “The sun don’t shine on the same dog’s (bottom) all the time.”)

This is the reformers’ best possible chance, but is this best deal possible?