Chris Christie Takes On Education Reform: 'The Time To Eliminate Teacher Tenure Is Now'

In New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie is taking a firm stance on education reform, hoping to put his state on track to be the national example of new policies.

In his recent State of the State address, Christie explained "perhaps the biggest thing of all for the future of our State -- is education reform."

Christie went on to outline a familiar list of reforms -- including closing low performing schools, adding more charter schools and introducing merit pay for teachers -- that have been touted by controversial reformers such as Michelle Rhee, who was in attendance for Christie's speech.

The proposals fit into the Republican governor's vision of drastically slashing education costs to help balance the state's budget without increasing taxes.

In one of his most contentious announcements, Christie declared he is pushing for the complete abolition of teacher tenure.

The governor explained:

The time for a national conversation on tenure is long past due.

Teaching can no longer be the only profession where you have no rewards for excellence and no consequences for failure to perform.

Let New Jersey lead the way again. The time to eliminate teacher tenure is now.

The concepts aren't original -- they echo many being pursued in other states and some endorsed by President Obama -- but the governor's emphatic pursuit of the nation's most divisive reforms will likely catapult the state into a testing ground for education policies.

Christie's polarizing stance may have won him like-minded fans like former DC Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, but it's quickly making him enemies as well, especially within the state's teachers union.

The division echoes a national conversation. Across the country, reform-minded politicians are battling with unions over instituting merit pay, evaluating teachers based on student test scores and changing tenure rules. Each state will have to forge its own path among the slew of reforms on the national radar.

However, states that won Race to the Top funds will have to implement reforms, such as revised teacher evaluations, that they made in order to receive the federal education funds. States that didn't win -- including New Jersey -- will have to sort out how to address policy changes that have already been made or were promised in hopes of winning the grant money.

Christie's proposal to eliminate -- not just revise -- tenure rules takes an even more dramatic step than most proposed reforms in New Jersey and beyond.

National union leader Randi Weingarten objects to proposed reforms that weaken the rights of teachers and their unions.

The New York Times reports:

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said the hostility against teacher protections had intensified because of budget pressures. "The governors that are trying to roll back collective bargaining or other kinds of workers' rights are using their state budget crises as an excuse to do that," she said.

In order to implement his plan, Christie will have to convince a Democrat-controlled state legislature to pursue policies unpopular with their teachers union allies.

Comments

[andycash]

08:17 AM on 03/12/2011

1. Blame the victims
2. Shock the system!
then
3. Privatize the system
4. Sell it back to the victims at a higher cost.
5. Take the profits to the bank

[Jefferson Vickers]

10:44 PM on 02/23/2011

I agree as a teacher I see people that should NOT be there ABSOLUTELY.

In the 16 years I have taught in the public school system though there are SO many factors that make up "good" and "bad" teachers.

No child left behind has destroyed teaching and education.
Q. Can you remember the Geneva Convention?
BUBBLE A for yes
That is today. That is a Xerox Machine Education.

Teaching Should be-
Q.Research for me what went down.
Assignment- Then tell me what would have happened if history had veered this direction. What would we look like today as a nation and as a world? Prepare an iMovie or Power Point of your view in comparison and contract to what is our world around us today.

There are no funds to teach this, there is no time to teach anything but the test, computer skills falls in VERY few standards, creative thinking and problem solving is virtually an UNTAUGHT skill unless you have a teacher that goes over and above and sometimes bucks the monarchy in the office or district office.

NO time, no money, always the scapegoat, no resources, poor parent follow though, out of touch administration, culture wars introduced into the classroom by parents agendas.

I would love to fire more lazy, bad, abusive teachers then I could name. Sometimes though the cover on the book does not support the pages it encompasses...

[Jefferson Vickers]

10:29 PM on 02/23/2011

A Time to send you back to Florida has come

[RatPack78]

11:53 PM on 02/17/2011

Great ideas! Here in California it is extremely difficult to remove bad teachers. Not quite sure why teachers shouldn't be concerned about their job performance like the rest of us. In fact, I'd say it would be even more important to make sure people educating our children are doing the best jobs they can.

[Jefferson Vickers]

10:30 PM on 02/23/2011

do you teach?

[Robert Nazarete]

10:27 AM on 02/07/2011

Republican -save some money, destroy the system talk-- that's all they know- no imagination- no creation ME ME ME

[kel]

12:34 PM on 01/30/2011

You know something I may want to kiss his republican lips -

I totally believe we need the right to fire a bad teacher - we also should hold teachers accountable to test scores, complaints and if they earn the right for an increase in pay based upon performance.

[Ortho Stice]

05:00 PM on 01/28/2011

I am not sure how my district stacks up nationally, but the following numbers might be enlightening:
the federal government contributes 1.6% of our operating budget; the state 3.4%. The other 95% comes from property taxes. Three years ago, a neighboring district, upset with NCLB, told the federal government to keep its measly contribution and to stick its stupid assessment system. That's how little such funding matters to many schools.

[JessCostello]

04:39 PM on 01/28/2011

The teachers unions are a huge part of the problem, but I don't see how tenure should be priority number one. Yes, there are many bad teachers out there still on the payroll. It's the ability of the teachers unions to block reform that is the real threat to the country.

[Ortho Stice]

05:09 PM on 01/28/2011

Jess:

Let me ask you a question: if you were going to reform an industry, whom would you choose to involve in that process? Would you choose people who knew nothing about the industry, who had never worked in the industry?

This is the "reform" of which you speak in terms of education. Unions are not opposed to reform. They are opposed to the types of reform imposed upon educators by bureaucrats who never have set foot in a classroom and/or do not have the credentials to initiate reforms.

Arne Duncan, the Secretary of EDUCATION, has a bachelor's degree in sociology. He has never spent a second teaching a class. Despite that, he somehow managed to become the CEO of the Chicago Public Schools, leaving them as bad or worse than when he began, and SOE, a job he acquired mainly by being the President's basketball buddy.

Michelle Rhee has degrees in government and public policy and washed out as a teacher after three years in Teach for America.

You want to put American education in THESE people's hands?

[JessCostello]

05:23 PM on 01/28/2011

I would BUT the teachers unions have been fighting reforms for 30 years.


America no longer trusts teachers to do what's right. They have a moral hazard and can't be trusted to do reforms anymore than GM or Chrysler could be trusted to make more efficient and reliable cars. Congress had to step in and mandate that they meet a certain efficiency.

Once again, no one trusts teachers any longer because school is getting more expensive but American kids are less competitive. Teachers unions (and teachers) stood in the way of reform for decades so now they are being sidestepped.

[Ortho Stice]

04:38 PM on 01/28/2011

Everything anyone would want to know about the decline of this nation is encapsulated in the following statement: let's spend taxpayers' dollars to bail out billionaires, then give those same billionaires tax breaks, then blame municipal employees for all our financial problems.

[Ortho Stice]

04:11 PM on 01/28/2011

Christie's comments show just how uninformed he is. Tenure does not guarantee a job for life. It guarantees due process in a profession in which the professionals are extremely vulnerable, subject to the whims of disgruntled students and parents, capricious administrators, and ever-shifting legislative initiatives that change like the weather.

Furthermore, every time someone wants to bash teachers unions or public schools in general, (s)he points to the systems in large urban areas in which the problems of the schools mirror other societal problems. Meanwhile, there are thousands of terrific school districts in smaller cities, suburbs, and small towns that get painted with the same broad brush every time reformers want to scrap the public school system completely.

Note to Gov. Christie: please come to my district and tell the 10 tenured teachers who will be dismissed this year for budgetary reasons how effective tenure is in protecting teachers' jobs.

[JessCostello]

04:39 PM on 01/28/2011

Should it be easier to fire teachers?

[Ortho Stice]

04:49 PM on 01/28/2011

That is exactly what people like Christie want, and it has nothing to do with quality of schools. It has to do with budgets. As I mentioned in another post, my district would let me go tomorrow if they could replace me with a kid right out of college. And, I have met or exceeded expectations on every performance review of my 31-year career.

[Neaguy]

06:33 PM on 01/20/2011

That's right, the time to recall Gov. Christie is now, before he does any damage to education.

[JessCostello]

04:40 PM on 01/28/2011

Education is already damaged you fool.

[John Ramsey001]

10:54 PM on 03/10/2011

Exhibit A.

[Moliere]

05:12 PM on 01/19/2011

Christie talks about how important "education reform" is. Education reform to him is a euphemism for close all the "failing" schools,regardless of the students and teachers in them.

[Samcat604]

10:46 AM on 01/24/2011

Because the failing school is really benefiting the children.

[JessCostello]

04:41 PM on 01/28/2011

I'm sorry but our children's education matters more than your job security. 

Schools don't exist to give adults jobs, they exist to educate children. So when the adults stand in the way of reforming our education system, they need to lose out every time. If you can't understand that, you shouldn't be in a position of authority.

[Ariel Bonzai]

09:49 PM on 02/01/2011

i agree! But u do not see the bigger picture. Teachers are not the problem. Administration is. They are supposed keep bad teachers out of the classroom. Instead they make us disposable to be cost-effective. Don't buy the propoganda
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/kpfk-spends-3-days-showing-the-national-scope-of-lausd-white-chalk-crime.html#more

[John Ramsey001]

10:57 PM on 03/10/2011

How can you educate children that come from disfunctional families. Perhaps the irrespnsible parents should do their job and disicipline their children. Education starts at home.

[Seliotis]

11:55 AM on 01/19/2011

I think I understand how it's supposed to work: if a teacher loves his/her job he/she should be willing to take a pay cut for the privilege of teaching the most important asset of a country. So, the banks and bankers who love what they do should take a proportionally bigger cut of their salary. Or failing that, if I say I hate my job, can I get paid more?

The U.S. needs an enema. Michelle Pfeiffer made more to make "Dangerous Minds" than the actual teacher would have made in 9 lifetimes.

[Ortho Stice]

04:12 PM on 01/28/2011

You do realize that was a movie, right?

[Seliotis]

12:14 PM on 01/30/2011

Yes, that was the point. It is too bad you missed it so I'll spell it out in small words. Americans do not value teaching. Actually, they do not value ANY job that actually DOES something. That is why a woman was paid an obscene amount of money to PRETEND to teach whereas the actual teacher, who does the REAL job gets pittance. That is why you value bankers who PRETEND to know how to handle money and when they bring the country the brink of disaster you bail them out.

Is that clear enough for you or should I get hand puppets?

[JessCostello]

04:44 PM on 01/28/2011

Those bankers don't have the same job security. If I underperformed every year  against my  Chinese, Korean, German and now Chinese competitors I would be out of a job.

If you want to compare yourself to the private sector, be prepared to get hit with that same hammer. You won't be getting a bailout from the President the way GM and Chrysler did for making uncompetitive cars.

[Seliotis]

12:16 PM on 01/30/2011

Hey, let me do a lousy job like the bankers did, bring the country to the brink of ruin, and still make more in a year than a teacher in a lifetime. Who needs job security where failure brings pity bonuses of millions?