Recently, Gov. Malloy said that tenure was a "job for life" that public school teachers are rewarded with for "just showing up for four years." Aside from the contempt and disrespect Malloy demonstrated with that statement, it is also not true.

Teacher tenure is merely a guarantee that a teacher will have access to due process before being terminated. This protects the teacher and the school from wrongful termination. Tenure means that a teacher is judged effective or not according to objective criteria rather than the subjective judgement of an administrator. Tenure provides the stability and institutional memory needed for the first-rate schools we enjoy here in Connecticut. Eliminating tenure and moving to a yearly evaluation plan places an undue burden on school administrations to fairly and accurately assess each teacher each year, will strain the relationships between teachers and administrators, and would result in a less experienced teacher work force overall.

Under the current system, a Connecticut teacher receives tenure after four years (among the longest probationary periods in the nation, only five states have a longer period) during which time beginning teachers undergo yearly evaluations and a rigorous state certification process.  At any time during this probationary period a beginning teacher can be released for any reason.

Once a teacher receives tenure, he or she is still regularly evaluated and those evaluations can be used as the basis for terminating a teacher contract.  The difference between the process for a tenured teacher and a beginning teacher is that tenure requires a 120 day period so both sides can prepare appropriately for a termination hearing and there is a three-member arbitration board which hears the argument for termination.  

Some have said this process is too long and too costly--the Connecticut Education Association, the largest teachers union in Connecticut, has put forth a plan to reduce both the cost and the time it takes to terminate a bad teacher.  But to remove the protection of tenure altogether will have repercussion in the classroom which will jeopardize Connecticut's status as leading the country in education.

Real reform will improve tenure, not eliminate it.