Newark Tenure-Hearing Scorecard: Superintendent Anderson 0, Teachers 10

By John Mooney
Thus far, the state has failed in its attempts to dismiss teachers who have been deemed ‘ineffective’ or ‘partially effective’

Among New Jersey’s first legal tests of its new tenure law, state arbitrators continue to give a thumbs-down to Newark superintendent Cami Anderson’s efforts to rid the district of those she sees as ineffective teachers.

The reason for this rejection, and surely a lesson for other districts to come: The arbitrators say her administration did not follow the proper procedures in trying to oust the teachers.

With the most recent of 10 rulings so far coming in this week, the arbitrators have rejected every tenure charge filed against Newark teachers for what is technically called “inefficiency” in their performance last year and the year before.

In each case, the teachers were reinstated, virtually all with back pay.

Another six cases are pending, according to the district, but their odds are long given that not one case filed to arbitrators has been successful to date. (The district did succeed in two cases that went as far as the state commissioner, when teachers did not file responses.)

For the bulk of the cases to date, the state-appointed arbitrators continue to find that Anderson sought to use evaluations against the teachers that took place before the new tenure law was enacted.

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