The newest addition to Gov. Chris Christie’s busy political agenda happily calls for limiting the already outrageous salary compensations for school superintendents. They illustrate an arrogance within educational bureaucracies in New Jersey as are the political and union influences for supporting tenure for school teachers.
Dramatic changes by Gov. Christie’s educational agendas and budget demands may have played havoc with teachers’ jobs and layoffs, resulting in tenure becoming the “golden parachute” of all prizes. But has Gov. Christie’s budget scenarios dealt with the tenure question? Sadly, no.
America’s private sector workers operate under the premise they are employed and obligated to maintain high pre-arranged standards of expertise and are prone to being discharged should they fail to maintain monitored levels of excellence.
That is not necessarily so in the teaching profession.
The level of teacher status is usually evaluated by time frames of seniority regardless of any substantial monitoring of their expertise. The road to tenure has evolved as a job for life and usually fails to be professionally evaluated on a regular basis, free from the influences or pressures of politics or their teacher unions.
Extraordinary safety perks in tenure have created bungling systems now unable to discharge a teacher or effectively determine whether they are qualified to teach. Complex political or union constraints now dictate requirements that have left our New Jersey educational system under fire because of the growing “audacity of tenure.”
Herbert Resnick
Marlboro