The two recently-filed New York lawsuits claiming that teacher tenure laws violate children's constitutional right to a "sound basic education" are finally dragging the long-obscure Section 3020-a of the state's Education Law into the spotlight. This attention is badly overdue because for decades ʹ 3020-a has impeded efforts to ensure a minimum competence level among New York's teachers. Section 3020-a is a 3,000-word section of New York's Education Law, entitled "Disciplinary Procedures and Penalties," which mandates that tenured teachers can be dismissed only after just cause has been established through statutorily-prescribed administrative hearings. Teachers are evaluated in their schools under the Annual Professional Performance Review, the state's high-profile new evaluation system. But decisions on whether poorly-performing teachers stay or go are still made according to the decades-old ʹ 3020-a law. This report presents analysis of the official decisions filed at the conclusion of ʹ 3020-a hearings for New York City teachers from July 1, 1997 through June 30, 2007. It aims to shed light on the role and function of ʹ 3020-a, to further public awareness of the law's impact on New York's schools, and to promote wider debate around how to fix it. The report presents Key findings, and concludes that while teachers are legally entitled to due process to protect them from unfair dismissal and unjustifiable accusations of inadequate performance, the current system goes far beyond that, prioritizing the rehabilitation of ineffective teachers over ensuring adequate teaching for children. Fixing the broken ʹ 3020-a system is not "the" solution to fixing the schools, but it is a problem that urgently needs to be addressed. The report includes two appendices: (I) Obtaining ʹ 3020-a Decisions and (II) Convictions & Penalties for ʹ 3020-a Cases (July 1 1997-June 30, 2007).

Featuring the same practical guidelines for ridding schools of incompetent teachers as the 1984 edition, this new edition incorporates substantially revised material on three topics: criteria and information sources for evaluating teaching effectiveness, remediation procedures, and grounds for dismissal. The book presents an eight-step systematic, organizational approach to resolving several interrelated problems: (1) the legal barriers to dismissing tenured teachers for classroom incompetence; (2) the technical problems of evaluating teacher effectiveness; and (3) the human obstacles, chiefly supervisors' unwillingness to discharge teacher evaluation, remediation, and dismissal responsibilities. The eight steps are: (1) establishing teaching excellence as a high district priority; (2) adopting and publishing reasonable teacher evaluation criteria; (3) adopting sound procedures for determining whether teachers satisfy these criteria; (4) providing unsatisfactory teachers with remediation and a reasonable time to improve; (5) ensuring that appraisers have the requisite competencies; (6) providing appraisers with necessary resources; (7) holding appraisers accountable for evaluating and dealing with incompetent teachers; and (8) providing incompetent teachers with a fair hearing prior to making the dismissal decision. The final chapter recommends strategies for creating environmental conditions conducive to success. A commitment to ongoing leadership is essential. An appendix contains the District Evaluation Practices Inventory, designed to be used in conjunction with this handbook. (143 references) (MLH)