Teacher unions have been under more scrutiny lately, especially the tenure laws that force districts to retain incompetent instructors (see here from the L.A. Times on teachers paid not to teach, and here from the St. Petersburg Times called “It’s Hard to Fire Teachers, Even if They’re Bad.”) A little closer to home, the Star-Ledger writes today about a case in Monmouth County in the Manalapan-Englishtown Regional School District. A seventh-grade English teacher was accused by the principal of the school of being incompetent and drinking on the job. In lieu of the district pursuing tenure charges, she agreed to retire on disability payments after a doctor said she had “organic brain syndrome, a condition marked by confusion, agitation and lapses in judgment and memory.” So she retired and the district dropped the case.

Ten years later, the teacher said she was recovered and ready to teach. The district declined her offer, she filed suit in 2002, and now both the Education Commissioner and the State Supreme Court have ordered Manalapan-Englishtown to reinstate her; Lucille Davy gets to decide whether she gets her back-pay.

The Ledger says that the case was “followed closely” by the NJEA, which filed a friend of the court brief.

Who gets to buy the celebratory first round?

Seriously, it’s this sort of nonsense that makes NJEA look ridiculously out of touch with reality.