Jefferson Teachers Union Rep: Christie's Tenure Plan Hurts Collaboration

The Jefferson Township representative to the NJEA, the union representing teachers, is concerned that Gov. Chris Christie's plan to revamp teacher tenure and performance reviews would negatively affect teacher collaboration.

"As a teacher, I love to share ideas," Ernie Fisher, a 10-year veteran math teacher at Jefferson Township High School, said of the plan, announced Wednesday. "If my pay is suddenly going to be better if my students do better, I'm not going to be so quick to share my ideas."

In a speech at the Lewis Library at Princeton University, Christopher Cerf, Christie's acting commissioner of education, . He unveiled a plan for legislation establishing yearly evaluations and a new process to strip tenure from teachers who are not meeting requirements.

Under the proposal, teachers rated effective or highly effective for three consecutive years would be granted tenure. Teachers would lose tenure if they failed to meet requirements for two consecutive years.

Tenure is a set of legal protections that can be offered to teachers after three years and one day of service, guaranteeing educators a fourth year in their district and essentially offering them due process protections going forward. Under the current system, once a teacher achieves tenure, a district can't simply dismiss an educator like an "at-will" employee; tenure charges must be established, leading to an often costly and time-consuming process. 

"I think people often misunderstand what tenure really is," Fisher said. "Essentially it's a process of dismissal. It says that certain things need to be proved before a teacher can be dismissed. It protects teachers from being indiscriminately released just when their salary starts to increase."

Cerf also cited teacher effectiveness as part of the process.

“The effectiveness of the teacher in front of the class is the best way to determine how children learn,” Cerf said. “This alone is more important than the class size, or books we choose.”

Step one toward changing the system would be implementing evaluations, which would include yearly updates that are based on measures of student learning, including test scores.

Progress would be measured primarily on how much growth is seen in learning, regardless of the starting point, Cerf said Wednesday.

The methodology of effective teaching is something to be awarded, he said. Merely withstanding the test of time—in New Jersey’s tenured teachers’ cases, three years and one day—shouldn’t necessarily guarantee lifetime job security, he said.

Cerf said at the the proposed legislation “does everything in it’s power to retain those achieving success and get rid of those who aren’t,” and that the proposed legislation is not “trying to bash teachers for our education’s failure.”

Fisher disagreed with that notion.

"It's sad," he said. "All the teachers I know are very hard-working people, and it seems the idea the governor is putting out is that we are all lazy."

Instead, Cerf said Wednesday that the proposal is very “pro-teacher,” and that excellence in the classroom should be emphasized.

The proposal also calls for an end to seniority in layoff decisions. Under current law, districts making staff cuts are required to lay off the most junior educators.

“Our proposal would be to fix this, and these decisions would be made on demonstrated effectiveness,” Cerf said.

Compensation also could be affected, he said, with raises being tied to student learning.

"There's a different force than making money that drives teachers," Fisher said. "We want to help students succeed. The governor's plan just seems to me to be very disruptive to the teaching process."

Cerf said re-evaluating how teachers achieve tenure should be a bi-partisan issue.

“Are we politically too timid to give our children the best chance in life through an effective public school education?” he asked.

The proposal is part of Christie's overall plan to overhaul education in New Jersey. The Republican governor has also moved to cap school administrator salaries (generally at a rate no higher than his own salary); to open more charter schools, which he heralds as a far better method for fixing failing schools than increasing their funding; and to increase school choice.

Assembly Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver, in a statement released following Cerf's announcement, said she's skeptical of the Christie administration's plans. Oliver, a Democrat, said legislators will review the plan, but "will do so knowing that solving the problems facing our poorest children in failing in urban schools is more complicated than throwing around slogans and blaming teacher job protections." She also criticized the Christie administration for cuts to programs affecting New Jersey's urban and poor students.

Jefferson Township superintendent Kathaleen Fuchs and Board of Education president Cynthia Scott could not be reached for comment on this story.