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As if struggling schools require a further disincentive for teachers to work in them . . . It doesn’t quite make sense that the schools and teachers in most need of strong leadership and support are being pressured the most.

So, the Bloomberg administration has continually claimed that under their tenure the principal was the most important piece of their plan. The Principal was the CEO of their school. Now we see that the single most important decision that the CEO has regarding their staff is made by someone sitting at Tweed. Principals should have the right to hire any release anyone they rate as ineffective, except if that decision conflicts with the immediate poltical agenda of mayor Bloomberg. New Yorkers should not believe a single word from the mayors mouth or mouth pieces.

This is an outrage.  The person recommending tenure should the person who actually observed the teacher and wrote the observation.  This shows that the higher ups at Tweed have no faith in the observations and recommendations made by the very principals they hired.  This makes no sense on any level.  The system is very broken and corrupt at the very core.

 Well, at least the new teachers still have the opportunity to earn tenure.  Down here in Florida, tenure is gone for anyone not already having earned it.  And, two years of evaluations that are less than effective, can result on loss of tenure.  That also puts a lot of 

“power” in the hands of an administrator who may not like a teacher.

My biggest fear is that that this tenure crackdown is happening in hard to staff schools. They are creating more disincentives to work in the neediest schools

As a veteran teacher in Florida, I would tell preservice teachers to RUN, not walk away from teaching.  Do NOT consider teaching ANYWHERE in the United States.   Only teach if it is a springboard for the rest of your career. 

Corrupt tenure decisions. It was ever thus. Consider my tenure drama: I got five straight U observations in the second term of my third probationary year in 2004 at the Cobble Hill School of American Studies. Principal Lennel George checked the “Unsatisfactory” box on eleven of the fifteen “comments” on my Annual Professional Performance Review and Report on Probationary Service of Pedagogical Employee. George recommended my discontinuance and denied completion of my probation. My career was dead. Only the signature of Region 8 Superintendent Marcia Lyles was missing. But it never came. Lyles humiliated George by ordering him to reverse his decision and she granted me tenure.
Whence this unprecedented reversal of fortune? The strange explanation came three years later in a June 26, 2007 letter to Chancellor Klein by Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon:
 
Lyles determined that there was not enough documentation in Nobile’s file to support George’s end of the year unsatisfactory rating of Nobile.
 
As if. Here is the real story: the five second term U obs were retaliation for my blowing the whistle on Regents tampering at Cobble Hill and George’s assiduous cover-up. OSI Director Theresa Europe warned Lyles at the time that George’s discontinuance  “would look like a straight case of retaliation.” So Lyles did the right thing. But why swear falsely to SCI with the b.s. about insufficient documentation? Because the politics had shifted by 2007. Although Lyles removed George in 2005 based on OSI’s substantiation of my allegations, he was acquitted of cover-up by arbitrator Barbara C. Deinhardt in 2006. The acquittal made no sense at all because Deinhardt ruled that that George actually did cover up when he rejected my warning about the Regents tampering:  “…George may well have assumed that this was just one more in this series of complaints by Nobile and brushed it off in his preoccupation with other matte[r]s.”  Other matters?  My allegation was the professional equivalent of a bomb threat. What other matters could be more important than a criminal complaint?  
 
 
Why did Lyles lie to SCI about the reason she reversed George’s retaliatory discontinuance? Because the truth was inconvenient after George’s 3020-aacquittal and SCI’s slanted review of OSI’s report. Europe, on the other hand, stood by me. Undaunted by the arbitrator’s absurd decision, she swore to OSI that I was right and that George was a crook: “Europe believed that the DOE had proven the case against George, she disagreed with the decision rendered in the George proceeding which dismissed all charges against George, and she blamed the finding on the hearing officer’s dislike of Nobile.”
 
Nevertheless, Klein tossed Europe under the bus, fired her from OSI, and embraced SCI’s corrupt review of OSI’s honest report on the Cobble Hill case.

Snore. You don’t ever quit.

Terrible, just terrible. What are they doing?

The DOE keeps making teaching very difficult, rating teachers u who do not deserve it, closing schools, making teachers scapegoats. What happened with keeping a supportive environment to keep the teachers happy so they are more productive? They do the opposite, make teachers’ lives impossible so they create an angry workforce. The Union is supportive of this negative environment.

Students at low-performing schools know that virtually any bad outcome will be blamed on the teachers. 

If a student does not complete an assignment on time the teacher must give the student more time; if a student fails a test the teacher must allow the student to take the test again; if  students fail a course, the teacher is invited to chat with a member of the administration to “discuss” how the teacher can improve.

Passing grades are now meaningless in low-performing schools.  The Regents Exams are the only true indicators of academic achievement that exist in these schools and I invite any interested party to compare students’ course grades with their Regents scores (e.g., 80% of students pass the course but only 25% pass the corresponding Regents exam.)

I am sure that the great difference in these scores will then be blamed on the teachers awarding passing grades to students who do not deserve them.

I was up to tenure in 2009 , I did not get. the principal extended  ” probationary ” period. What crime did I commit. I was never observed by the Principal or A.P for the first 3 years. In my forth year, My first time observed was the last school day before X-mas .  I received observation reported 3 months later. A lot of liars of written about me, that never took place.  I had emailed her two days before been observed , my lesson plan. She had pre observation 15 min before the period started. 

One observation enough to deny tenure and superintendent signed this verdict, knowing the fact that she violates the contract.  

Beware of Union,  I was told I would have time to defend myself against principal in the  appeals and review process. The uft representative told me first time I met him, “you are not going to win the case, no one has.  So I told him ” so what is the purpose of you working on my behalf “.   

My dear probationary teachers, if you get denial of tenure ” discontinue of service “. Do not wait for ” appeals and review process final verdict, so that you can file papers on state court ” article 78″

You MUST FILE immediately , expedite court papers. 120 you have after you got june notice. Do not believe union people says, ”  union lawyers and representative  they are not updated latest court cases” , do your homework, be diligent.   Recently Court decision about interpretation of article 78.  Teachers have 120 days after received the first discontinue of service notice .  

 Guess, are you aware of just how many errors your post contains? If I were your principal, I would not give you tenure on that basis alone.

Can you clarify your statement?  You mean YOUNG teachers right?  Because they’re the ones being denied tenure while older educators enjoy protections and substantially higher salaries.

It happened to me.

I truly hope that you get it as well. I was the only teacher in my school to receive tenure. I showed growth on the state test and currently 98% of my students are moving to the next grade which means that majority of the ones from last year have moved up to at least 2′s.

I truly hope that you get it, because they rescinded mine and it hurt. As long as your not in a “failing school” or s school thats slated to be closed than you should be fine Best of luck