June 20th, 2008 Hot Button Editorial: Teacher dispute - Text version

Jefferson school chief rejects bias allegations

Shame on Brent McKim and Stephen Neal. They're trying to use the race card to intimidate Dr. Berman into making tenure automatic. Well it's not. It takes four years of satisfactory performance to gain tenure in Jefferson County and these 21 teachers didn't measure up. These 21 teachers didn't measure up.

I support Superintendent Berman as he moves to rid our school system of substandard teachers. Our kids deserve the best we can provide them.

I heard this morning that there were actually 37 that were terminated and that 19 of those were of color.
Again, why is this an issue? We should be concerned about the quality of teaching, and not the skin color.
Not to add any credibility of the complaint, but it is interesting that no one (including the teacher's union) raises an eyebrow when teachers are hired based on color....

I don’t think ANY teacher in JCPS should receive or retain ANY tenure until JCPS can be brought up to some kind of basic standard of what could be called “education”. But Berman is on the right track. There is too much crap in the schools here and it isn’t a white or black issue.