Posted on 03/13/2015 11:21:56 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
A lawsuit by parents who claim that tenure statutes undermine constitutional guarantees of an adequate public education has survived a motion to dismiss.
Staten Island Supreme Court Justice Philip Minardo determined that Davids v. State of New York, 101105/14, meets "minimal" standards for going forward at an early stage of the litigation and that the plantiffs—11 parents and two children—have standing.
The judge said plaintiffs have shown that they may be entitled to relief "under any reasonable view of the facts stated." He also said that children named among the plaintiffs are "clearly" within the zone of a protected interest that they are seeking to assert.
Two unions who are among the defendants, the United Federation of Teachers and the New York State United Teachers, said they would appeal.
The plaintiffs allege that the teacher tenure system, which provides strong job protections for teachers who reach tenure, usually after a three-year probationary period, allows too many ineffective or incompetent teachers to stay in the classroom for too long.
(Excerpt) Read more at newyorklawjournal.com ...
What constitution is that?
state
Probably the State Constitution.
Legal procedure will be the bane of this country.
Right you both are. New York State:
ARTICLE XI
Education
[Common schools]
Section 1. The legislature shall provide for the maintenance and support of a system of free common schools, wherein all the children of this state may be educated. (Formerly §1 of Art. 9. Renumbered by Constitutional Convention of 1938 and approved by vote of the people November 8, 1938.)
Life, Liberty and persuit of Highness...
1938..when education at least meant something.
I disagree. Teacher tenure only mandates one thing: That a tenured teacher be fired for cause only. A tenured teacher cannot be fired because he looked at his principal funny, or because a school board member wants to give that teacher's job to someone else.
As mentioned in the article, new teachers don't have tenure, and so can be fired for silly and arbitrary reasons. An excellent math teacher I know was fired after her first year, just because a school board member wanted to give her job to a relative. So yeah, tenure matters.
So why do incompetent teachers remain? It's because administrators are too lazy to go through the process of firing a tenured teacher. That's where the problem is.
Good.
This is a big deal.
...
So why do incompetent teachers remain? It's because administrators are too lazy to go through the process of firing a tenured teacher. That's where the problem is.
Thank you. If only more people (and Freepers) knew this, there would be much less teacher bashing.
There are a lot of teachers who suck, but they remain on the job because no one takes the time to document the suck.
“So why do incompetent teachers remain? It’s because administrators are too lazy to go through the process of firing a tenured teacher. That’s where the problem is.”
Oh BS! It takes about 5 years and 250,000.00+ to fire a teacher in NY, no matter what they did or how stupid they are.
All teachers unions should be stomped out of existence!
And they typically don't want to go there... because they lose 99.99% of the time when the case goes to binding arbitration. Then they are liable for reinstatement and back pay and then there is inevitable defamation lawsuit that follows once they win the arbitration which they settle by firing the administrator who initiated the proceedings in the first place.
You both have hit upon a secondary problem. When it comes to firing an incompetent teacher, it is not a level playing field. State laws have somewhat stacked the deck in favor of the employee.
No good teacher wants to work next to an incompetent teacher. I have taught for many years, and I sure don't. But this is not a tenure problem. It just isn't.
BTW, the lawsuit and subsequent firing of the administrator is for “creating a hostile work environment”.
I personally know three such administrators who felt so strongly that a teacher(s) in question didn’t belong in a classroom. And all three lost the cases at arbitration, and then the teacher(s) once reinstated sued the respective districts, and to settle the cases the districts fired the initiating administrators for the “hostile” BS.
Like clockwork.
It’s a problem in any state that has teacher tenure. Teachers unions should be abolished.
Don’t know about New York, but I am willing to bet all school districts are about the same.
5 years and 250K, that just tells me your district has the same common problem of all school districts.
BAD MANAGEMENT.
Management has nothing to do with it, it’s the worthless lowlife slug unions!
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