Resolution Against Chancellor Klein’s Campaign of Disinformation on the Tenure Issue (4-08)

Apr 16, 2008 3:23 PM

Resolution Against Chancellor Klein’s Campaign of Disinformation on the Tenure Issue (4-08)

                  Whereas, tenure is nothing more than a guarantee of due process – the right of a teacher to a fair hearing before s/he can be disciplined or dismissed from a position; and

                  Whereas, the awarding of tenure is a three-year process which only 68% of teachers successfully complete;

                  Whereas, the DOE has great managerial discretion over probationary teachers who have yet to complete the tenure process;

                 Whereas, NYC Schools Chancellor Klein has deliberately, publicly and repeatedly misrepresented existing state tenure law, falsely attributing many of the flaws and failings of his administration of the school system to it;

                  Whereas, the Chancellor’s willful distortions include the false claims that tenure provides “lifetime job security,” that “99 percent” of teachers are granted it and that teachers want to avoid accountability;

                  Whereas, the changes that the Chancellor wants to make in the tenure process, basing the awarding of tenure on the standardized test scores of the teacher’s students, is educationally unsound and would further narrow the schools curriculum to test preparation;

                  Whereas, independent scholarly experts have concluded that value-added models like the Chancellor’s are seriously flawed, and that, given our mid-year exams, it is impossible to use such measures to accurately and reliably isolate the contributions of an individual teacher to a student’s learning and test scores from myriad other influences that play a role and are beyond the teacher’s control;

                  Whereas, while the UFT and our allies were fighting in Albany to restore vital funds cut from New York City public schools, the Chancellor was missing in action from this effort and single-mindedly focusing on changing the tenure law to allow his “Test Prep Inc.” measures;

                  Whereas, the compromise recently reached in Albany does not, as the Chancellor alleges, work against the public interest, but simply clarifies last year’s budget language by making it explicit that a criterion for tenure decisions can be teachers’ use of test score data to inform instruction -- but not their students’ performance on standardized tests; therefore be it

        Resolved, that   the UFT demands that Chancellor Klein cease and desist in his disinformation campaign against teacher tenure and embrace the letter and spirit of the tenure law – which simply grants teachers due process right of a fair hearing before they can be fired or disciplined; and be it further

        Resolved, that the union engage in an information campaign to educate the public and dispel the myths about tenure, and that its Action Committee mobilize members to contest Chancellor Klein’s dishonest campaign until he ends his efforts to mislead the public on this and other issues, and starts to fight for kids instead of fighting against teachers.

Passed at the April 16, 2008 UFT Delegate Assembly