Christie, who wants to scrap teacher tenure, today said he would like a system that reviews teacher performance every five years Watch video
PARAMUS — Gov. Chris Christie, who wants to scrap teacher tenure, today said he would like a system that reviews teacher performance every five years.
Christie suggested placing teachers on five-year contracts. When a contract expires, the teacher’s performance would be reviewed and decision would be made whether to renew for another five years, he said today at a town hall meeting in Paramus.
"We need to give a teacher enough time to learn their craft," Christie said. "The school district and the teacher get to sit down and decide: is this working. I don’t understand why you can’t do that."
His office said that proposal is not definitive.
Christie, who called for an elimination of teacher tenure in his State of the State address on Tuesday, has offered few details about how he would replace it.
Currently, after three years of employment, firing a teacher requires a lengthy and costly process of notifications, oversight and legal proceedings. Christie has said this makes it virtually impossible to fire a public school teacher, despite any negative job performance.
Christie said a task force is reviewing criteria that would be used to review teachers, after being asked how to prevent teacher contract reviews from becoming a popularity test. The task force will report back March 1.
The governor’s proposal drew immediate criticism today from the New Jersey Education Association the state’s largest teachers union. Steve Wollmer, spokesman for the union, said it does not provide enough protection to prevent unfair or political decisions from infiltrating the teacher evaluation process.
"This is not reform, it’s patronage," Wollmer said. "We do not need 125,000 more patronage jobs in New Jersey, we already have enough corruption. Your job security under the Christie proposal would be at the whim of a principal who may or may not be acting in the best interest."
At the town hall meeting, Christie called attention to the opposition from the teacher’s union to his proposals.
"If you saw the teachers union’s response to my speech, you would think I would have advocated to close every public school in New Jersey," Christie said.
Wollmer said Christie’s speech was overwhelmingly negative and an assault on public schools.
"He says ‘New Jersey failing schools’ like it’s one word," Wollmer said.
During Christie’s Tuesday speech, he said failing schools should be closed.
"When we have schools like the 200 chronically failing schools in New Jersey, we’re going to close them and start over," Christie said at the town hall today, drawing applause from the crowd.
Previous coverage:
• N.J. Supreme Court requests 'special master' to look into legality of Christie's education cuts
• Gov. Christie, Senate education panel agree N.J. teacher tenure in need of reform
• Gov. Christie criticizes tenure reforms proposed by NJEA
• Poll: Majority of N.J. voters oppose Gov. Christie's education cuts, teacher merit pay
• N.J. education chief gets mixed reviews for reform plans, 'Race to the Top' grant
• Complete Star-Ledger coverage of the continuing dispute between N.J. Gov. Chris Christie, NJEA