BY REBECCA SHEEHAN

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Now that schools are back in session after Christmas break, Governor Chris Christie’s administration is making it more difficult for New Jersey’s 80-plus charter school teachers to acquire and keep tenure.

According to NJspotlight.com, an online news service providing insight and information on issues critical to New Jersey, this month a proposal was posted on the New Jersey Register, suggesting that new teachers at charter schools would receive tenure protections after five years.  That would be one more year than the current standard of four years for district teachers.

In the six-page proposal, the administration maintained that the new measures sought to strike a balance that would most benefit students. “The stipulation that streamlined tenure be withdrawn as a condition of a charter school’s probation is important to the ability of the Department to implement probationary terms designed to forestall closure of a school due to nonrenewal or revocation of a charter,” the proposal reads.

The proposal also document that all charter school teachers could lose tenure protections if the school failed to meet certain performance standards and was at risk of closing its doors. According to the administration, the majority of the rules would only apply to teachers hired after June 30, 2013.

"We believe the streamlined tenure regulations for charter school teachers strike a balance between providing flexibility for
charter school leaders to make decisions about their staffing needs, while simultaneously providing job security for effective educators," said state Department of Education’s chief spokeswoman Barbara Morgan in a NJspotlight.com article.

Since becoming governor, Christie has always wanted to change tenure requirements at charter schools. Three years ago he took the first steps calling for the elimination of tenure altogether. NJspotlight.com reports that since that first step the Christie administration has backed off. However in the fall they pushed to lessen the certification rules for charter schools – this proposal is currently pending before the State Board of Education.

“This makes them [charter school teachers] second-class citizens, providing them with fewer rights and protections,” said Steve Baker, a New Jersey Education Association spokesman.