As Gov. Dannel P. Malloy works to restructure the tenure system in public schools, the Connecticut Post found in an investigation that hardly any tenured teachers are fired.
Out of 53,000 tenured teachers in public schools, only 40 were fired in the past two years. That's a dismissal rate of less than one tenth a percent, according to the Post.
“Today tenure is too easy to get and too hard to take away,” Malloy said earlier this month at his “State of the State” address. “I propose we do it a different way. I propose we hold every teacher to a standard of excellence.”
Under his proposed $128 million education agenda, 80 percent would go to the worst districts. In order for the schools to get the money, districts would have to “embrace key reforms,” with tenure changes being one of them.
“We cannot and will not fix what’s broken in our schools by scapegoating teachers. But nor can we fix it if we do not have the ability to remove teachers who don’t perform well in the classroom in a timely fashion,” he said. “In this new system, tenure will be a privilege, not a right. It will be earned and retained through effective teaching, not by counting years of service.”
