Colorado’s new law: student performance now a factor in teacher tenure

"We opposed the bill," said Deborah Fallin, spokesperson for the Colorado Education Association, the only organization in the state to actively oppose the measure.

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 "We signed on to the part about teachers being evaluated on student performance," Fallin said. "But we objected to the way the bill was rushed through the legislature with too many holes in it. It's flawed legislation and we succeeded in slowing down its implementation."

The new law changes the way teachers are evaluated. Formerly, a new teacher underwent a three-year probationary period and was evaluated each year. If the teacher received three years of satisfactory evaluations, he or she as put on non-probationary status, which in many states is called tenure. This meant that a teacher with tenure could not be arbitrarily let go from the job, but only removed for reasons proven by the district.

Under the new law, when a non-tenured teacher undergoes yearly review, 50 percent of that evaluation must be based on the teacher's effectiveness, which in turn is based on student performance. Using multiple assessment tools, including standardized test results, a teacher will be judged to have been effective or not. A non-tenured teacher can be let go for failing the evaluation with any reason being given.

 The law also applies to tenured teachers. If, after many years in the district, a tenured teacher fails their yearly evaluation - half based on student performance - for two years running, that teacher  will be returned to probationary status. In other words, the teacher will lose tenure and have to regain it, with the school district empowered, for that three-year period, to decline to renew that teacher's contract without giving a reason.

Colorado is the only state in the nation with so comprehensive a law. Earlier this year, the Florida legislature passed a law similar to Colorado's, but Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed it. Louisiana is currently experimenting in certain districts with grading teachers on student performances. Every state has some form of teacher tenure wioth the exception of Wisconsin.

Walsh from the National Council on Teacher Quality thinks the new law will boost Colorado's chances fro federal funds for education in the next round of the Obama Administration's Race for the Top initiative.

"This is just the sort of thing the administration is looking for," she said.

Fallin disagreed. "We may get federal money from ace to the Top, but it won't be because of this law."

Fallin said one of the flaws in the law is that the onus falls entirely upon the teachers.

"When students fail standardized tests, they are not held the least accountable," she said. "Their poor performance does not even factor into their report card grade. But the teacher's has their whole career riding on these test results."

"You have to ask who benefits from tenure," Walsh said. "if tenure is there only to protect an ineffective teachers, then the student is going to suffer for it. Tenure has come to ioften mean just that. Teachers are fired because of drug use or drunkenness or some other bad behavior. But they are almost never fired because they are ineffective teachers. That's what needs to change and Colorado is a pioneer for taking this step."

When asked why the CEA did not take or threaten any job actions to protect the the former system, Fallin explained that "Colorado is not a union state."

"There is no bargaining law in Colorado," she said. "No law allows any job action. A teachers' strike is not a part of the mindset here."

The new law is being phased in and will be fully in effect in 2015.