New Jersey Passes Teacher Tenure Reform

Heather Haddon:

After signing a bill to overhaul teacher tenure rules Monday, Gov. Chris Christie said the changes represented one of his signature political achievements, ranking only behind a successful effort to limit government employees' pension and benefit costs.

"It's right behind pension and benefit reform just because the level of skepticism that we would get anything done," Mr. Christie said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal following a news conference at a middle school here. "There had been such inertia on this topic. I always enjoy defying expectations."

The new law doesn't go as far as tenure bills passed in other states in the past year. But it marks a significant shift in the nation's oldest teacher job-security law, requiring all teachers to undergo annual performance reviews and making it easier to fire poorly performing educators.

For Senator Teresa Ruiz, who tirelessly shepherded NJ's tenure reform bill through the gauntlet of the Senate, the Assembly, union opposition, aggressive reformers, and countless interest groups.

How collegial was the signing yesterday at a Middlesex middle school? Chris Christie sounded practically conciliatory, telling NJ Spotlight that he signed the bill because "my decision was there was enough really good things in this bill that I was not going to allow it not to become law because it didn't have everything I wanted" and seating arrangements placed B4K's Derrell Bradford in between NJEA President Barbara Keshishian and AFT President Joseph Del Grosso.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at August 8, 2012 3:27 AM
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