A new report recommends eight ways to improve teacher tenure

Anticipating a nationwide showdown on teacher tenure laws, a teacher-focused nonprofit released a report today it says has eight ways to fix the system.

The solutions floated by TNTP, formerly known as The New Teacher Project, include lengthening a teacher’s probation period to five years and shortening the process by which teachers can appeal tenure decisions.

The report comes almost three months to the day after a judge struck down California’s teacher tenure law. Since then, two similar lawsuits have been filed in New York.

The TNTP report claims the argument about tenure has been reduced to “either, or.” In most states, tenure is granted to teachers based mostly on their number of years in a classroom. Critics of tenure claim the system protects lazy teachers and needs to be eliminated.

But, it doesn’t have to be that way, said Tim Daly, TNTP’s president.

“We think the solution is going to be somewhere in the middle,” he said. “It’s about the modernization of tenure.”

Several of the recommendations from the accountability-minded organization have already been adopted by Colorado’s similarly-oriented legislature. But there are some points, such as how to make tenure hearings more efficient, that are uncommon here.

The state’s educator effectiveness law, Senate Bill 11-191, effectively rewrote the rules of tenure in Colorado. Under the law, which has been subject to its own lawsuit, teachers are granted non-probationary status after three years. Teachers may lose that status after two years of less-than-effective evaluations.

Half of a Colorado teacher’s evaluation is based a formal observation by an administrator. The other half is made up of student growth data that tracks how much a student has learned year-to-year.

Colorado’s law went into full effect last year, but a poor evaluation did not affect a teacher’s tenure track in the program’s first year. This year, while local districts have more flexibility in what data it uses to rate teachers, a less-than-effective rating will count against a teacher.

Other recommendations include: districts should focus appeal hearings on students interests, not procedure; hire independent arbitrators to make decisions on appeals; enact a zero-tolerance policy for abuse and sexual misconduct; and lower the professional stakes for struggling teachers.

“Rebalancing teacher tenure” report