Opinion: Don’t tamper with teacher tenure - Opinion - NorthJersey.com

Opinion: Don’t tamper with teacher tenure - Opinion - NorthJersey.com:

Opinion: Don’t tamper with teacher tenure

JUNE 12, 2014, 5:42 PM    LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2014, 5:42 PM

BY MARK WEBER

THE RECORD

Mark Weber, a member of the New Jersey Education Association, is a New Jersey public school music teacher in Warren Township and a doctoral student in education policy at Rutgers University.

IF THE POLITICIANS who want to get rid of teacher tenure have their way, every school district in New Jersey might soon become as dysfunctional and politically entangled as the Port Authority.

On June 10, a California court ruled that state’s tenure statutes were unconstitutional; one day later, citing the Vergara case, state Sen. Joe Kyrillos, R-Monmouth County, rushed out with a proposal that would upend New Jersey teachers’ workplace protections.

It’s true that tenure and seniority rights have a value for our teachers. But these workplace protections are just as valuable – maybe even more so – for New Jersey’s taxpayers. To understand why, a little history is in order.

American teacher tenure actually started in New Jersey in 1910, when the state granted fair-dismissal rights to college professors. Tenure was extended to school teachers later as part of the suffrage movement of the 1920’s: In a profession that remains overwhelmingly female, tenure helped ensure that teachers couldn’t be fired on the whims of administrators.

Over the years, while so many of New Jersey’s public institutions have fallen victim to cronyism, teaching staffs have remained largely immune from the stench of political

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