the new teacher contract has effectively eliminated 'tenure' protection for teachers by its radical revision of evaluation procedures
if a principal wants to get rid of ANY teacher, regardless of 'time served,' he merely uses the highly subjective 'criteria' enumerated in the contract to serve notice on the hapless, 'underperforming' teacher
the whole point of tenure, of course, is to protect teachers from arbitrary dismissal, based upon adminstrative whim
the new contract throws the process almost completely over to the administration, with a useless 'appeal' process to which 'underperforming' miscreants must pursue when they've received an unsatisfactory evaluation, followed by their failure to rehabilitate their methods under admin supervision. it's already happening, and several EXCELLENT teachers in our building are being subjected to this process, as they disagree with the principal's doctrinaire, high-stakes-testing-as-be-all-endall measure of student progress
the union was ineffective in getting much of what they wanted in the bargaining process WRT the evaluation process, and this is the wave of the future
as Tama, I believe, said, it looks to be the sad future of corporate/privatized education in the future
vouchers for ALL!! (including medicare)