“Before there was tenure, anyone could throw a teacher out a window so their Uncle Charlie could get a job.”

Now, now. Not quite. But let’s back up a bit.

Steve Wollmer, NJEA spokesman, is waxing hyperbolic about Candidate Chris Daggett’s just-released education proposals which are, in fact, much in line with the current wisdom on how to improve American education. At a Statehouse news conference yesterday, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daggett said,

It is time for a change – a change that focuses on accountability and performance – and that reexamines fundamental assumptions about such institutions as high school graduation tests, tenure, and the public education monopoly.

Daggett is proposing that newly hired teachers in New Jersey be offered 5-year performance-based contracts with opportunities for merit pay, instead of the current system of lifetime job entitlement. Current teachers would be grandfathered under the “old” tenure system. As far as Uncle Charlie goes, the DOE issed new regulations on nepotism just this past year. Here’s NJSBA’s explanation:

The definition of “relative” includes an even broader list: spouse, civil union partner, domestic partner, or the parent, child, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, grandparent, grandchild, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, stepparent, stepchild, stepbrother, stepsister, half-brother or half-sister, of the individual or of the individual’s spouse, civil union partner or domestic partner, whether the relative is related to the individual or the individual’s spouse, civil union partner or domestic partner, by blood, marriage or adoption. It doesn’t specify that they live in the board member’s household.

Sorry, Charlie.

Actually, over the last ten years only 47 New Jersey teachers were terminated under tenure charges. Any school board member will tell you that a district that attempts dismissal for cause is in for massive legal costs, years of litigation, and almost certainly the return of the teacher to the classroom, or at least to the district’s payroll.

Daggett, who holds a doctorate in education from University of Massachusetts, may just give Christie and Corzine a run for their money, at least on education issues. He also seems willing to take on the abuse of the Special Review Assessment whereby failing students are awarded high school diplomas through the pretense of assessment. The Star-Ledger reports,

Daggett also recommended eliminating the Special Review Assessment, an alternative test that allows students to receive a diploma even if they fail the High School Proficiency Assessment.
He said the state’s graduation rate would plummet from first in the nation to 24th if the test was eliminated.
“The SRA is the lie that underlies our education system — the lie that educators use to tell parents that they have provided a quality education to our children,” Daggett said.

NJEA has directed their ire squarely at Christie. Now they’ll have to do double duty and make it less an anti-Christie campaign than a pro-Corzine one. Is Daggett a reform candidate without the baggage of the GOP and Christie’s history? Can he wedge himself in here?