1. In another attach on teachers, the Republican leaders passed legislation ending teacher tenure, which affects job security; tenure protects teachers’ due process rights if they are dismissed. Several school boards passed resolutions opposing the new law, which was to go into effect in 2018, and the Guilford County School board considered not following the law, feeling that to follow the law would violate the state and U.S. constitution. The issue is whether tenure rights are property rights for teachers. The North Carolina Association of Educators filed suit against the law, and the judge ruled that the legislation violated the state constitution. Thus, this unconstitutional piece of legislation would not go into effect. Senate leader Phil Berger promised that the ruling would be appealed; he did not want teachers to retain their tenure rights. The ruling was appealed to the North Carolina Supreme Court, and the court ruled that teachers who had tenure when the law was passed in 2013 could retain their their tenure rights. The ruling, however, allowed the state to deny tenure to teachers who did not already have it in the 2013-14 school year.
  2. The Republican leaders passed legislation requiring school administrators to select 25% of their best teachers with at least three years of experience and offer them a 4 year contract and a salary increase of $500 per year. The selected teachers would be required to give up their tenure rights immediately. Several questions were raised by concerned teachers. What happens to the other 75%? Will relationships among teachers become strained? How will the 25% be selected? If they are selected on the basis of test scores, teachers would be reluctant to teach in schools where test scores are traditionally low. The effect of this law would be to divide teachers and erode teacher morale. Fortunately, this law became unenforceable because of the ruling in the tenure case.

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