Is Teacher Tenure Reform Possible without a Brawl?

Here’s this week’s post at WHYY’s Newsworks:

I stumbled out of the opening panel Thursday night at the Yale School of Management’s seventh annual Education Leadership Conference and gazed blearily at a fellow New Jersey-ite. “Do you feel like you’ve entered an alternate universe? They’re just so, so civil,” I sputtered. Where’s the drama? How can Connecticut’s Commissioner of Education, the head of the New Haven teacher union, and a charter school leader courteously discuss the implementation of Conn.’s new teacher evaluation system, remarkably similar to New Jersey’s own pilot? Can you imagine the scene if we put NJ’s Comm. Cerf, NJEA head Barbara Keshishian, and NJ Charter School Association’s Carlos Perez in the same room? (Flak jackets recommended.)

Read the rest here.