New Jersey Education Association just released a statement regarding Assemblyman Patrick Diegnan’s tenure reform bill. (See my post below on the proposal, which has yet to be released publicly.) President Barbara Keshishian says that she “welcomes the bill to the debate” and adds that “well-conceived tenure laws”give districts “a clear and reasonable way to remove ineffective teachers, but it also protects teachers and taxpayers from the pernicious influence of politics and patronage in the classroom — the very reason that New Jersey instituted tenure a century ago.”
That’s exactly my point. Diegnan’s bill, as publicized, conforms to conditions “a century ago,” much like current school calendars are still driven by agrarian concerns when kids were needed for harvesting crops. Is that really the model we’re looking for?
