Teachers Fight Over Loss Of Tenure, New Contracts (NC)

There are 95,000 public school teachers in North Carolina, give or take. So how many, given their only chance to comment publicly on the end of tenure, would make their way to downtown Raleigh to voice their displeasure? Hundreds? Thousands, maybe?

Try four.

But maybe the low attendance wasn’t so much a reflection on teachers’ anger – it might just speak more to their sense of duty. The public hearing, after all, was scheduled on a Wednesday afternoon at 1 PM. Hardly convenient for a teacher.

Deb Green was able to make it, only because she teaches part-time in Guilford County. She says the plan to replace tenure with a system that awards the top 25 percent of teachers with 4-year contracts and relegates the rest to 1- or 2-year contracts is not conducive to cooperation: