Ohio's legislature agreed this week to a $50.5 billion biennial state budget and Governor Strickland is expected to sign the bill by week's end.???? When it comes to education policy, there is a lot to dislike about this bill, from the adoption of an "evidence-based" model of school funding to the mucking up of the state's academic content standards with so-called 21st Century skills.???? But when it comes to teacher tenure and retention policies, the Buckeye State's leaders got something right.
The bill moves teacher tenure decisions from the third year of teaching to the seventh.???? According to the National Council on Teacher Quality's TR3 database, when this bill becomes law Ohio will have the longest time before tenure of any tenure-granting state. ????The budget also raises the bar for dismissing teachers to bring it in-line with that of other public employees. Currently, tenured teachers can only be let go for "gross immorality or inefficiency," a hard thing to prove that results in either costly, drawn-out litigation or teachers remaining in the classroom who just shouldn't be there. The budget bill will allow districts to fire teachers for "just cause," the same as their fellow unionized public employees.
As I said before, these changes alone aren't going to rid Ohio's classrooms of bad teachers, but they are smart and fair improvements that should enhance educator quality in Ohio.
