GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Mayor Bloomberg escalated his critique of teacher tenure on his weekly radio show this morning, calling tenure outdated and questioning whether it should even exist.

Bloomberg was discussing the latest tenure data, which were released Wednesday and showed an all-time high number of teachers whose probation were extended rather than receiving tenure. He said he’d continue to comply with the laws that required him to award tenure, but wouldn’t like it.

“The state law has tenure, whether you like it or not. We have to work with that,” Bloomberg said. ”It may have been necessary in the McCarthy era or maybe even today at the university level. But in public education you’re not writing papers about things that are very controversial, which was the idea of tenure: to protect your ability to do that.”

Bloomberg launched the last school year with a pledge to overhaul the way tenure is granted, and he previously has criticized tenure as being too “automatic.” But he has never called for an outright end to tenure; indeed, in a 2009 speech at the Center for American Progress, he declared, “let me be clear: We are not proposing an end to tenure.” (more…)