It turns out what most people thought was a cynical political move by the Colorado Education Association and Democrats to avoid a contentious divide right before the public voted on their precious baby Amendment 66 was, in fact, a cynical political move.
Having extended the deadline to file a lawsuit from August, the start of campaign season, to February 1st, proponents of Amendment 66 hoped to avoid showing how the CEA does not really have students’ best interest in their hearts. Yet, just days before the extended deadline expired on February 1st, the CEA did what was expected all along and filed a lawsuit over parts of the education reform bill passed in 2010. Vince Carroll from The Denver Post writes:
The radioactive reform involves teacher tenure. Senate Bill 191, passed in 2010, ended the outrageous practice of “forced placement,” under which tenured teachers were all but guaranteed jobs even when schools didn’t want them. What’s worse, those teachers in Denver typically were reassigned to the most troubled schools. [the Peak emphasis]
While the practice of tenure was started in the late 19th century with the lofty goals of protecting teachers from parents or administrators from dictating lesson plans or interfering with the teaching of controversial material like Huck Finn, it has quickly devolved to the become the refuge of the lazy and incompetent. And like The Denver Post points out in their criticism of the practice of “forced placement” above, it’s not the well-off schools that usually suffer but the disadvantage ones who are most in need of exceptional teachers.
We don’t know about you PeakNation™ but if a teacher is so bad at their job that after working in a school district long enough to acquire tenure no other school in their district wants them, well, we guess the proof is in the pudding. Kids at disadvantaged schools should not be punished for the sake of upholding an outdated measure.
When will Coloradans see the CEA as the destructive force that it is?
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