House Calls: Michigan State Representative Jeff Irwin Talks About Tenure Reform

Representative Jeff Irwin, a Democrat, served for a decade as a Washtenaw County Commissioner. In January 2011, he began his first term in the Michigan House of Representatives. In his regular column, House Calls, A2Politico will pose a single question to Representative Irwin and he will answer it. The questions will focus on his work in Lansing and, of course, his efforts to bring the “progressive agenda” to state government that he told voters in Ann Arbor he intended to work on during his time in office.

A2Politico Says: You voted against the recently passed teacher tenure reform bill. You told AnnArbor.com that the bill, “opens the door to good educators being fired for reasons other than their effectiveness. You also said the new bills, “mean the most experienced…teachers will be fired.”

This explanation ignores the fact that all employees who are wrongfully discharged have the right to seek redress in the courts. It also ignores the fact that experience (length of service) doesn’t equal excellence. You also told AnnArbor.com the new bills are “removing even the most basic protections of due process for our [educators], making them potential victims of political motivations and personal grudges.”

Due process is guaranteed by our federal laws, not tenure, and federal law covers everyone who teaches in the United States, naturally. Can you tell A2Politico readers why you voted against teacher tenure reform when no academic research has yet shown that tenure guarantees student success, teacher excellence, or effectiveness?

Representative Jeff Irwin Says: I voted against the Republican efforts to change tenure.  I did so because their changes don’t address the problems with student performance.  Instead, the bills focus on taking teachers out of determining the metrics for effectiveness and eliminating any meaningful protections for effective teachers.  Further, I opposed the bills because they rely on a new designation of “highly effective” teachers without bothering to define the term.

For starters, I believe that teachers should be involved in improving schools and in determining the basis for evaluation.  These bills would make those topics illegal subjects of bargaining.  This is simply bad policy and bad labor management.  Effective organizations engage their employees.  The best managers know that working with employees to determine and measure success is the most effective way to lead those same employees towards the shared vision.  In other words, these bills fly in the face of the best practices for running an organization.

Also, these bills change the standard for any claim of unlawful firing.  The current standard is that for a tenured teacher, the school district has to have “just cause” to fire that employee.  Under the Republican bills, a firing would only be unlawful if the employee can prove that their firing was “arbitrary and capricious.”  That is very difficult to prove.  Of course, this only shuts down avenues for redress under the tenure law. A teacher could always bring an action in federal court and try to prove an unlawful employment action under federal protections.  If the claim is a civil rights claim, that might be a reasonable avenue.

Finally, the bills repeatedly referenced “highly effective” teachers and set legal standards based on that terminology.  However, the evaluation measurements that will be used to determine who qualifies for the “highly effective” designation have not been determined.  Apparently, those standards will be set later.  I don’t think it’s appropriate to make changes based on vague and undetermined standards.

So, does tenure guarantee student success or effective teachers?  Of course not and neither do the changes that the Republicans have proposed.

What I believe is that better student performance is our goal and that high-quality teachers are the most significant input that we the people control in this enterprise.  Lowering teacher compensation, cutting them out of the process of defining success, and removing protections against unjust firings are the wrong strategies to accomplish our shared goal: better performing students.  I would rather debate tenure reforms that shorten the hearing process and that engage educators and experts in a genuine effort to measure success in our schools.

A2P Notes: For more about education from A2Politico, click through to:

The Politics of Education: 2010 MEAP Scores Reveal Significant Achievement Gaps Between Elementary Schools in A2

The Politics of Education: Michigan Dept. of Ed Study Finds Less Than Half of AAPS Graduates College Ready