But are the state laws governing teacher tenure, dismissal and layoffs now under attack in a Los Angeles court case the real cause of the inequities?
And a few days before that, the state's powerful teachers unions got a jarring wake-up call when a Los Angeles judge threw out the state laws governing teacher tenure, discipline, and termination, laws which have made it extraordinarily difficult to fire any public school teacher.
More recently, the union was infuriated by a series of City Council hearings focusing on the contracts governing teachers, principals and school custodians.
Also at City Hall yesterday, Councilwoman Eva S. Moskowitz, the chairwoman of the Council Education Committee, held a hearing for teachers and members of the public to speak out on the labor contracts governing teachers, principals and custodians.
Labor unions and elected officials are pressuring the City Council's Education Committee to cancel four days of hearings on union work rules governing teachers, principals and custodians, the committee chairwoman said yesterday.
More problematic for Mr. Miller were a series of hearings held in November by Eva S. Moskowitz, chairwoman of the Council's Education Committee; during them, she criticized the work rules governing teachers, principals and custodians.
A second key policy context is state child care licensing regulations, which govern teachers' pre-hire qualifications, post-hire initial training, and the training to be completed on an annual basis.
As Bush (1983, p.3) eloquently puts it, "The conditions under which a person carries out the first years of teaching have a strong influence on the level of effectiveness which that teacher is able to achieve and sustain over the years; on the attitudes which govern teachers' behavior over even a forty year career; and, indeed, on the decision whether or not to continue in the teaching profession".
These and other arcane work rules were the stated subject of a City Council Education Committee hearing yesterday, the first in a series of proceedings aimed at shedding light on obscure provisions in the union contracts governing custodians, teachers and principals.
CNN, which endlessly promotes itself as having "the best political team," had so many panelists last Tuesday that one of them, Bill Bennett, wondered whether they were in violation of New York laws governing student-teacher ratios.
With the flick of Gov. Pat Quinn's (D) wrist, an Illinois law that changes the rules governing how teachers can be hired and fired became official Monday morning.
