Tag: tenure
Tenure Battle In Wisconsin Seen As Bellwether By Educators Across U.S.

Tenure Battle In Wisconsin Seen As Bellwether By Educators Across U.S.

By Karen Herzog, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (TNS)

MILWAUKEE — With more voices joining the highly charged debate over tenure protections in the University of Wisconsin System, it has become increasingly clear that at least in education circles, what’s happening here is perceived as a bellwether for public universities across the country.

And as the national fervor rises, two assumptions are meriting a closer look.

The first assumption is that the proposed changes are drawing concern only from educators who are part of an entrenched liberal elite that exasperates the political leadership in Madison.

Last week, two conservative educators — both University of Wisconsin-Madison professors — echoed much of what many of their liberal-leaning colleagues have been saying for weeks, albeit with a twist.

Changing tenure rules would put their viewpoints at risk, too, Donald Downs and John Sharpless wrote in a Politico piece.

“As far as college campuses go, we’re a rare, endangered species: two long-tenured professors who lean right and libertarian,” the political science professor and history professor, respectively, wrote. “But we’re increasingly worried that in trying to take up another conservative crusade, our governor, Scott Walker, is going to silence the very voices he claims to support.”

Without strong tenure protections, they wrote, “professors like us who fight for free speech and liberty — values Walker himself espouses — could be even more at risk of being targeted on college campuses for our beliefs.”

Sharpless was a Republican candidate for Congress in a tight race with Democrat Tammy Baldwin in 2000; Downs served on his campaign strategy and finance committees. Both were leaders of the free speech/academic freedom movement at UW-Madison in the 1990s, when conservative and liberal professors with tenure protection stood together against speech codes that were perceived as censorship.

The second assumption in the national debate is that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — a certain presidential candidate in 2016 — is the behind-the-scenes architect of the provisions in the GOP plan put forward by the Legislature’s budget-writing Joint Finance Committee on May 29.

It’s unclear what role the governor played, if any, in the layoff language that faculty are most upset about. Walker has been noticeably silent on the matter.

Several key Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee have said they want to give the UW System more flexibility to manage personnel — including layoffs — given tight economic times and fast-changing educational demands in which some academic programs may lose their appeal and others need to be ramped up.

Asked whether Walker supports the more permissive layoff language for tenured faculty, and whether he played a role in developing that language in the GOP plan, his spokeswoman Laurel Patrick said in an email: “The specific provision you’re referencing was introduced by and approved by members of the budget committee and was not proposed by the governor. Gov. Walker will review the budget in its entirety when it gets to his desk.”

Pressed about the governor’s position on the layoff language, Patrick would only restate that it “is different from his original budget proposal.”

While the intent of tenure is to give scholars freedom to express unpopular opinions and pursue controversial research, critics in the Legislature argue it also has become ironclad job security for some professors to coast through the years to retirement.
The governor’s original budget proposal re-imagined the whole structure of the UW System, removing most of the state statute governing the system and creating a more autonomous public authority that would set its own governing policies.

Tenure wasn’t explicitly targeted, but the proposal did remove it from the state statute.

That idea fizzled, but in a revised plan now being considered by the GOP, tenure would be removed from state statute and placed under the control of the Board of Regents. Further, layoffs no longer would be a last resort response to a campuswide financial emergency. Tenured faculty instead could be laid off or terminated “when such an action is deemed necessary due to a budget or program decision requiring program discontinuance, curtailment, modification, or redirection.” The language is identical to parameters for academic staff layoffs.

The GOP plan does not specify a process for determining when faculty terminations are “deemed necessary” due to a budget or program decision. It also doesn’t specify who would be responsible for making such determinations, according to a memo from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, which advises the Joint Finance Committee and analyzes proposed legislation.

“If the provisions approved by the Joint Finance Committee were to become law, the Board of Regents would have the authority to adopt policies or promulgate rules regarding when and how faculty terminations would be deemed necessary due to a budget or program decision,” the memo says.

A regents-appointed task force that includes faculty members already is drafting a new tenure policy, and UW-Madison is working on one, too.

Republican Sen. Sheila Harsdorf, who co-sponsored the controversial Joint Finance Committee plan for the UW System, said the layoff provisions have been “very misrepresented” in public discussions.

“The reality is we are not eliminating tenure,” she said. “The Board of Regents will establish a tenure policy that will be comparable to other states and other institutions. That would be my expectation.”

The senator from River Falls said she understands, however, that “any time you have change, it’s difficult and people have fear of what that change is going to entail.”

So why did the Republican-led Joint Finance Committee quietly insert layoff provisions for tenured faculty in its biennial budget plan?

“It’s important we give our campuses and the UW System the flexibility to make the decisions they face to provide an affordable and competitive education,” Harsdorf said. “It is about giving them the tools they need in the marketplace.”

That’s exactly the kind of language that makes tenured faculty so wary — and it’s also why what’s happening in Wisconsin has caught the attention of the rest of the country, and even an international audience. No other state has broad layoff provisions for tenured faculty in statute, according to national higher education associations, which are rallying support behind UW System faculty.

Words like “flexibility” and phrases like “giving them tools” are the same as what Walker used over and over in explaining Act 10, the legislation that eviscerated the power of public employee unions. And in these hyperpolitical times, educators perceive themselves as under siege, particularly by the political right.

Just a couple of weeks ago, during budget deliberations, a last-minute amendment by GOP Senate leaders in North Carolina docked the University of North Carolina School of Law $3 million. Democrats alleged it was political payback for the school’s employment of Gene Nichol, a frequent and outspoken critic of Republican legislative leaders.

Earlier this year, the GOP-appointed UNC Board of Governors ordered the closure of the think tank Nichol used to lead, the privately funded Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity. Because he has tenure, Nichol is still employed. But one Democratic legislator, blindsided by the law school budget cut, said, “This feels like the Gene Nichol transfer amendment.”

UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank is trying to move the discussion to the bigger picture of what is needed to keep a highly regarded public university system strong.

In an op-ed piece published last week by the Chronicle of Higher Education, Blank said two key points in the debate over tenure have been misunderstood.

“First, the University of Wisconsin hasn’t abolished tenure,” she wrote. The second misunderstanding, she said, is about what tenure is and why it matters.

“Critics dismiss tenure as ‘a job for life,'” the chancellor wrote. “Tenure, however, is not about protecting people but rather about protecting open conversation and debate. It is about academic freedom — the ability to research and teach on all topics, without fear of reprisal.”

Blank and UW System President Ray Cross have both acknowledged that the “job for life” perception has been fueled by lax post-tenure reviews — done after a professor achieves tenure, but still has a long run as an educator ahead. Those reviews should be strengthened to hold professors accountable for lackluster performance and also reward excellence, they agree.

Blank said the university is strongly urging legislators to change the proposal that ignited the debate because it “created the impression that faculty members could be laid off when minor program changes occur.” Such layoffs won’t happen, the chancellor said, because the university is drafting a strong administrative policy defining “when and how we will lay off faculty members.”

Wisconsin may be the first state, but it won’t be the last to take up this issue, Blank predicted in her op-ed piece:
“I expect this same debate to play out in other states and on other campuses over time.”

Blank said in a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that her broader concern is “how we can ensure that Wisconsin maintains a world class public research university and the substantial benefits that brings to the state.”

A university’s reputation rests on the quality of its faculty, “so we’re very concerned about anything that makes it harder to recruit and retain top talent,” the chancellor said.

Photo: The University of Wisconsin at Madison. Richard Hurd via Flickr

Activists Protest Campbell Brown’s ‘Colbert Report’ Appearance

Activists Protest Campbell Brown’s ‘Colbert Report’ Appearance

While fans waited to get into Thursday’s taping of The Colbert Report, a small but dedicated group stood outside the studio, protesting Campbell Brown’s appearance on the Comedy Central show that night.

Brown, a former television journalist turned education reformer, announced on Monday that her group, the Partnership for Educational Justice, is helping seven families with a lawsuit against New York State’s tenure laws for teachers. Brown argues that tenure protections make it very difficult to fire incompetent teachers, and that her team is working to fight the cronyism in education.

“We’re under no illusions that this is[n’t] going to be incredibly challenging … when you’re trying to change a system like this, when you’re trying to fight powers that have been fighting to maintain the status quo for as long as they have,” she said at a press conference. “Do you think it’s going to be easy? Of course it’s not.”

The protesters, comprised of about 10 advocates from the Alliance for Quality Education, New York Communities for Change, and a few parents and teachers, could not disagree more. They argue that tenure is an essential protection for teachers.

“Due process is a very important process for our teachers,” Elzora Cleveland, a public school parent and member of New York Communities for Change and the Alliance for Quality Education, told The National Memo. “We want our teachers to be able to teach without worrying about their jobs. It allows them to be more creative, more focused. They can really spend their creative time zooming in on moving children forward in their education as opposed to worrying about whether they’ll have a job tomorrow.”

Cleveland doesn’t think that Brown should be speaking for parents and teachers, especially since she didn’t go to public school herself and her children attend private schools.

“If Campbell Brown is not publicly educated … what could she understand about this process?” Cleveland said. “I believe it is a political stunt.”

Zakiyah Ansari, Advocacy Director of the Alliance for Quality Education, agrees. She says that if Brown wants to improve the education system, then she should be focused on funding, and ensuring that students and teachers have access to the resources that they need. She finds it suspicious that this is the issue on which Brown’s chosen to focus.

“I believe the parents’ concerns are real but I don’t believe [Brown’s] intent to support them are real,” she told The National Memo. “The one percent is running around this country shuttering public education.”

Ansari also thinks that tenure is important because it allows so teachers to fight for funding and better opportunities for their students without fearing for their jobs.

“What would happen to those teachers if they didn’t have … the right to due process?” she said.

The group stood outside the studio for about an hour, holding signs such as “Campbell Brown Doesn’t Speak 4 Me,” and chanting, “Campbell, Campbell, who funds you, hedge funds and Wall Street, isn’t that true?”

Maureen Gephardt, a Colbert fan waiting on line to enter the studio, thought that Colbert was a great person to interview Brown because he would “challenge” her.

“I think public education needs to have advocates all over and they should be able to be here,” she told us.

Video of Brown’s interview with Colbert can be seen below, via Comedy Central:

Photo: The National Memo/Rachel Witkin

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Key Teacher Job Protections Violate California’s Constitution, Judge Rules

Key Teacher Job Protections Violate California’s Constitution, Judge Rules

By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that key job protections for teachers in California are unconstitutional, in a major loss for unions.

The verdict represents a complete victory by attorneys who argued that state laws governing teacher layoffs, tenure and dismissals harm students by making them more likely to suffer from grossly ineffective instruction.

If the preliminary ruling becomes final and is upheld, the effect will be sweeping across California and possibly the nation.

“The law was on our side and the evidence was overwhelming,” said Marcellus McRae, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “Whatever happens, we can’t go backward. The time of defending the status quo and business as usual — those days are over. We have to re-create a system that focuses on placing children’s interests at the forefront.”

Judge Rolf M. Treu ruled, in effect, that it was too easy for teachers to gain strong job protections and too difficult to dismiss those who performed poorly in the classroom. If the ruling stands, California will have to craft new rules for hiring and firing teachers.

During a two-month trial in the case, Vergara vs. California, both sides asserted that the interests of students were at stake.

The Silicon Valley-based group Students Matter brought the lawsuit on behalf of nine students, contending that five laws hindered the removal of ineffective teachers.

The result, attorneys for the plaintiffs said, is a workforce with thousands of “grossly ineffective” teachers, disproportionately hurting low-income and minority students. As a result, the suit argued, the laws violated California’s constitution, which provides for equal educational opportunity.

The laws were defended by the state of California and the two largest teacher unions — the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers. Their attorneys countered that it is not the laws but poor management that is to blame for districts’ failing to root out incompetent instructors.
Job protections benefit students by helping districts recruit and retain teachers, the state and the unions contended.

“This decision today is an attack on teachers, which is a socially acceptable way to attack children,” said Alex Caputo-Pearl, the president-elect of the Los Angeles teachers union. Instead of providing for smaller classes or more counselors, “you attack teacher and student rights.”

Seniority and due process are part of the democratic process, he added. Limiting teacher job protections won’t improve accountability, he said, because that must be accomplished by administrators doing their jobs at schools.

Both sides made their arguments inside and outside of court, fully expecting the case to reach the state Supreme Court.

The effort embodied a “broader communication goal,” said Felix Schein, a spokesman for the group that brought the case. “Our hope is that the trial sets a moral imperative for legislators or other policymakers,” Schein said.

Much of the case was a tutorial on school reform and competing theories of what works best to help students.

The evidence clearly showed that, in some cases, the teacher dismissal process can be long and expensive — and that teachers have more protections against wrongful termination than other state employees.

The plaintiffs’ side argued that the current situation was bad for students, forcing them to endure poor teachers and the state to squander educational resources trying to fire them.

The other side asserted that the rules resulted in fair outcomes for teachers, which helps students in the long run.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

California Lawsuit Pits Teacher-Protection Laws Against Right To Good Education

California Lawsuit Pits Teacher-Protection Laws Against Right To Good Education

By Brenda Iasevoli, The Hechinger Report

LOS ANGELES — On February 11 in California Superior Court in Los Angeles, Beatriz Vergara, 15, testified to enduring a string of bad public school teachers.

A sixth-grade math teacher allegedly slept in class. A seventh-grade history teacher allegedly told Latino students they would “clean houses for a living.” And a seventh-grade science teacher called female students “stick figure” and “whore,” Beatriz told the court.

Beatriz, her 16-year-old sister, Elizabeth, and seven other students say bad teachers denied their right to equal access to a quality education under the California Constitution. Their case, Vergara v. California, is attempting to overturn teacher-protection laws in the state that the students’ lawyers say make it nearly impossible to fire “grossly ineffective” teachers.

The nonprofit group Students Matter, which promotes access to quality education, filed the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs. The group was founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneur David Welch.

Both sides predict that the case will be the first in a long line of lawsuits to hit states over teacher-protection rights, opening a new front in the attack on laws that govern tenure, seniority and dismissal.

Should Vergara prove victorious, states such as California — whose constitution contains language that establishes a right to quality education — will be particularly vulnerable to lawsuits. Even states without such language in their constitutions won’t be off limits to litigation.

“Sometimes litigation is the only route,” said Eric Lerum, the vice president of national policy for StudentsFirst, an education-reform group led by former District of Columbia schools chief Michelle Rhee. “In states where it looks as though changes are not going to happen through the legislature, you may have to force action.”

Minnesota is one state to watch. Lerum said the state passed a litmus test that made it a possible target for court cases. StudentsFirst gives Minnesota a D for its education policies. The state, according to the organization’s “policy report card,” relies too much on seniority, as opposed to classroom performance, when making decisions about teachers. Seniority factors into pay, dismissals and placement of teachers.

Lerum isn’t the only one analyzing the lawsuit landscape. According to Sandi Jacobs, the vice president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, a Washington-based research group that tracks teacher policies, it’s likely there are groups across the country that are working behind the scenes to build cases challenging teacher tenure laws.

Jacobs, who testified for the plaintiffs in Vergara, expects to see litigation over the seniority practice of LIFO, or “last in, first out” — the last teacher hired is the first fired in bad economic times or when student enrollment declines. Jacobs said many states had work to do in ensuring that it was the best teachers, not just the most senior, who remained in classrooms.

Only 18 states require districts to include performance as a factor in layoff decisions, according to a recent report by the National Council on Teacher Quality. Ripe for litigation are 10 states in which seniority must be factored into layoff decisions: Hawaii, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Wisconsin and California, which has become the test case.

Defendants in the case, the two California teachers unions, charge that it’s an attempt to knock down the teacher protections that rich entrepreneurs see as obstacles to their goal to run schools more like businesses.

“Millionaires see this as a war on teachers,” said Joshua Pechthalt, the president of the California Federation of Teachers. “They want to use the idea of market forces to make teachers compete with each other. They think competition and the incentive of merit pay will make teachers better. But that’s not how it works.”

Photo: Greg953 via Wikimedia Commons