The Education Minnesota teachers union is pleased the state Appeals Court threw out a lawsuit that alleged the state’s teacher tenure laws prevent school districts from getting rid of ineffective teachers. Union President Denise Specht says notoriously anti-union interests were behind the suit. Republican state Senator Carla Nelson from Rochester responds a provision that takes effect the next bargaining cycle at least gives districts the option to negotiate teacher tenure rules. “Of course this was a very minor thing that we passed,” Nelson says. “It wasn’t a total tenure reform, but it does give school districts more power and authority to determine how to keep the best teachers in the classrooms.”
Nelson acknowledges there’s not much additional that can be done in the current political climate: “I’m pretty much a pragmatist and a realist here, and we have a union president who’s the education commissioner and we have a union president that is the House finance chair — former union president — and so I think we need to do things that we think are going to pass.”
Education Minnesota teachers union President Specht says other states’ experience shows “attempts to weaken or repeal these due process protections do not improve teacher quality or student achievement.”