As tenure bill falters, Jane Cunningham compares results to Jim Crow laws

Continuing to show that there is no level to which she will not stoop during her Senate farewell tour, Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, reacted with typical grace after a Senate committee elected not to go along with her latest effort to eliminate teacher tenure:

Instead of eliminating job protection for teachers, senators voted 17-15 to set up a task force to study teacher salaries and effectiveness.

After the vote, the bill's sponsor, Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, shelved the gutted measure.
"What I saw today is nothing new," Cunningham said in an interview. "It's business as usual. It's always putting government personnel above kids. It's not putting kids at the back of the bus; it's putting them under the bus and running over them."

The back of the bus reference was a typical cheap shot by Mrs. Cunningham, a one-term public board of education member (she was defeated in her re-election bid) who has targeted public schools and public school teachers ever since her arrival in the legislature.

The defeat of her tenure bill had nothing to do with placing government personnel above kids. It has everything to do with stopping self-serving legislators from putting cheaper, less experienced, and usually less effective teachers in the classroom, while the legislators are doing their best to dismantle teacher unions.

So, embittered by the fact that the redistricting commission has eliminated her position (it seems the only person Mrs. Cunningham thinks deserves tenure is Mrs. Cunningham) and her pet teacher tenure bill has been derailed, Mrs. Cunningham will take her ball and go home.

Good riddance!