Attacking teachers doesn’t improve education.
As with the Vergara case in California, a central claim of the New York City Parents Union is that the presence of statutory tenure protections in New York State leads to a persistent and systematic deprivation of a sound basic education which falls disproportionately on the state’s low income and minority children.
Let’s review again the basic structure of this argument. The argument challenges state statutes that impose restrictions on district contractual agreements pertaining to procedures for evaluation and dismissal of teachers once they achieve “tenure” or continuing contract status.
The argument goes – within districts, minority and low income are disproportionately assigned the “least effective” teachers.
Within districts, minority and low income children are disproportionately affected by assignment of the least qualified teachers, including novice teachers and those not classified as “highly qualified.”
And this occurs because of statutory definitions of and job protections pertaining to “tenure.”
Now, to…
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