The editorial notes how GOP leadership moved this bill, as well as other education bills out of the Education Committee, and moved them into Jane Cunningham's General Laws Committee and how it pushed one of its own members, Sen. David Pearce, R-Warrensburg, to the curb, as well as his proposal, which was approved last week to form a committee to study teacher pay:
All across the country, the successful model of reform involves collaboration, not confrontation.
Missouri's Republican leadership refuses to follow that model. On Thursday, Ms. Cunningham brought up her tenure proposal again. This time it had been modified to make teachers wait until they've been teaching 10 years to qualify for tenure. This time the Senate shoved Mr. Pearce's study aside and gave first-round approval to Ms. Cunningham's watered-down bill.
There is no evidence, no reputable study showing that such a move would do anything to improve education for a single Missouri child.
Because the tenure bill didn't actually go through the education committee, "it hadn't been vetted," Mr. Pearce noted. How would the bill affect recruiting new teachers or retaining current ones? What would be the effect of having the longest time required in the nation before tenure could be obtained?
These are the questions Mr. Pearce and his colleagues would have asked in a committee hearing.
They didn't get one because Ms. Cunningham and her ilk would rather throw teachers under the bus than talk to them.
All the Missouri Senate did on Thursday was to put "government personnel" in their place.
Mission accomplished.
Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/editorial-rush-to-cut-tenure-wrong-way-to-try-to/article_6f90f81e-36a2-5f6b-95b6-515c61c1a6a8.html#ixzz1rXL96pTW
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