Value Competition

Innovation and Preservation

Tony Judt's conclusion in the current New York Review on what is worth preserving in social democracy:

"The left, to be quite blunt about it, has something to conserve. It is the right that has inherited the ambitious modernist urge to destroy and innovate in the name of a universal project. Social democrats, characteristically modest in style and ambition, need to speak more assertively of past gains. The rise of the social service state, the century-long construction of a public sector whose goods and services illustrate and promote our collective identity and common purposes, the institution of welfare as a matter of right and its provision as a social duty: these were no mean accomplishments."

Correctly understood, both the modern left and the modern right are parties of innovation and parties of preservation.  Judt is quite right in identifying the modernist ambitions of the contemporary pro-market right on economics; I take it he would acknowledge that on culture it is the left that typically continues to uphold the banner of innovation and liberation and the right that typically plays the role of urging caution in revising long established cultural practices.

I suspect Judt's Europe-centered perspective makes it easier for him than it is for America-centered observers to see the largely preservationist, conservative nature of the project of the economic left. 

The Debunking of Liberalism and Conservatism--Sources

Who in law, political science, or elsewhere is now doing high-level work that contends that modern liberalism and conservatism do not embody a consistent adherence to a coherent set of principles?  One answer is the cls work of the 1970s and 1980s--Unger's Knowledge and Politics is one locus classicus--that focused on the contradictions of liberalism as an overarching system, as opposed to an ideology competing with conservatism.  But that work, though it continues (see Schlag, below), is neither being pursued with the vigor it once was nor is it focused on conservatism as well as liberalism.   Another answer is work that suggests ideology is detemined by genetics, group interest, or some other factor; what is not much in evidence, though, is work that combines such assertions of other causes with attention to the putative principles of liberalism and conservatism. 

Some relevant sources:

J.M. Balkin, Ideological Drift, Conn. L. Rev. 1993--change in left-right valence of legal principles over time;

J.M. Balkin, Deconstruction's Legal Career, Cardozo L. Rev. 2005;

Pierre Schlag, The Empty Circles of Liberal Justification, Mich. L. Rev. 1997

Duncan Kennedy, Review of P. Schlag, The Enchantment of Reason, U. Miami l. Rev. 2003;

Peter Berkowitz, edited Hoover volumes, Varieties of Progressivism and Varieties of Conservatism;

Conserving, Peter Berkowitz--review of Allitt on tensions within conservatism;

Constitutional Conservatism, Berkowitz, Policy Review--reacting to 2008 election; 

European and US Left, Berkowitz;

Justice Breyer's Mandarin Liberty, 73 U. Chi. L. Rev. 759, Ken Kersch;

Adam Benforado and Jon Hanson, Emory L. Rev. 2008--situationism associated with academia, etc., dispositionism with other sectors--situationism and liberalism, dispositionism and conservatism.

Hanson cites--See Jack Block & Jeanne H. Block, Nursery School Personality and Political Orientation Two Decades Later, 40 J. Res. Personality 734 (2006). Young children, who in adulthood came to identify themselves as conservative, were viewed by their nursery school teachers as uncomfortable with uncertainty, rigid, fearful, inhibited, easily offended and quick to feel victimized, and over-controlled. Id. at 740-41. As the authors readily concede, "The study is too limited by itself to admit of extensive efforts at rationalization of the dynamics between personality and political persuasion[;]" the findings, however, do suggest the potential operation of personality predispositions "dynamically interplaying with ... experiential factors such as parenting chronicities and the larger cultural surround" in forming later ideological identity. Id. at 747.

from Hanson--Neurocognitive research may eventually shed some light on this difficult causation question, as illustrated by a recent experiment by David Amodio and his collaborators, including Jost. David M. Amodio, John T. Jost, Sarah L. Master & Cindy M. Yee, Neurocognitive Correlates of Liberalism and Conservatism, 10 Nature Neuroscience 1246 (2007). The experiment, though small in scale, revealed that during a simple task, the brain activity related to processing conflicts was markedly different for liberals and conservatives. Id. at 1247. Subjects completed a survey (modeled on one earlier developed by Jost) evaluating their political attitudes. Id. Subjects then completed a simple Go/No-Go task on a computer. Id. The frequency of the Go stimulus that appeared on the computer screen created a habitual response in the subject. Id. When subjects were presented with a No-Go stimulus they were supposed to withhold a response. Id. at 1246-47. In the latter cases, the brain activity of the subjects, recorded for each stimulus, showed that conflict-related neural activity was significantly higher in liberal subjects. Id. at 1247. Liberal subjects also showed greater accuracy in withholding responses when appropriate. Id. Overall, the experiment suggests, but only vaguely, that liberals and conservatives have different cognitive styles when faced with a conflicting or ambiguous situation. Id.. Liberals are more likely to adjust their response to the conflict whereas conservatives are more likely to maintain a fixed response. Id.

John Alford and John Hibbing--political ideology and genetics--twin studies--also APSR article with same authors

Based partly on the above search, my sense is that from the 1950s to the present there has been a livelier debate within modern American conservatism over the internal consistency of conservatism than there has been within modern American liberalism over the internal consistency of liberalism.  That raises an interesting issue over whether liberalism is indeed more internally consistent than conservatism, which seems implausible if the two ideologies have a yin-yang, A-~A relationship.  Alternatively, a lesser level of concern about inconsistency within the liberal camp could be the result of the existence of a significant class of people (professors, government employees, employed professionals) for whom modern liberal ideology reflects group interests well, while the greater level of concern within the conservative camp reflects the lack of a comparably significant class for whom a fusion of cultural traditionalism and economic libertarianism reflects group interests.

 

Neuroscience and Ideology--Sources

Jost, Amodio, and Phelps on ideology and psychology;

Blank on the policy implications of neuroscience;

Lieberman review essay on neuroscience and political cognition;

Cunningham faculty profile--reference to 2005 paper

Review Essay on Ideology--Sources

Teixeira and Abramowitz on the decline of the white working class and the rise of a mass upper middle class;

2008 exit poll data broken down by education, income, etc.; 

2007 census data on educational attainment;

Bartels criticizing Frank: 

OpenLeft post by John Emerson with sources;

OpenLeft tables on 2008 election;

Teixeira and Abramowitz edited volume on demography and ideology.

Political Ideology and Business Ethics

What follows is an outline for a potential review article on political ideology in relation to business ethics; the idea is to submit in response to a recent BEQ call:

Intro--The key normative issues that a review of research on political ideology can illuminate: a) How should we treat liberalism and conservatism in business ethics?   Should they be unmentionables or should they be surfaced?  If so, for what purposes?  Debunking?  Explanation of how a given ethical argument passes muster under both liberal and conservative perspectives?  Something different?;  b) Is there a core difference between political ideologies and ethical theories such as utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics that are mainstays of business ethics?  If so, what is it?  How about the connection between political ideologies and individualism and communitarianism? 

Part I--Emprical and theoretical research re liberalism and conservatism.  Haidt, Jost, Lakoff, Bartels, Gelman, Fiorina, McCarty, etc.

Part II--Proposals for relating the research described in Part I to business ethics.  A reframed Haidt moral foundations questionnaire.

Part III--The surfacing of political ideology in legal scholarship in the 1970s and 1980s--critical legal studies.  The reaction to critical legal studies.  Developments in the legal academy after the 1980s; the rise of law and economics leading to a calculation-culture dichotomy in legal scholarship that was not previously present.

Part IV--The possible lessons of recent legal academic history for business ethics.  The normative questions posed in the intro, revisited.  Discussion and conclusions.

Predictions on the Reframed Questionnaire

What follows are my hypotheses/guesses as to how the answers on the reframed questionnaire are likely to be different from or similar to those on the original questionnaire:

 

H1--Ideology: In the original framings, liberals are somewhat higher in rating Harm and Fairness as important and conservatives are much higher in rating Purity, Authority, and Loyalty as important.  In the revised framings, the prediction is that conservatives will be comparable or higher in rating Harm and Fairness as important and liberals will be comparable or higher in rating Purity, Authority, and Loyalty as important. 

 

H2--Education: My assumption is that on the original framings, highly educated respondents respond more or less as liberals do and less educated respondents respond more or less as conservatives do.  In the revised framings, the prediction is that in a correlation or regression analysis the more educated will continue to value Harm and Fairness more and Purity, Authority, and Loyalty less than those with less education, though by a lesser degree. 

 

H3--National origin: On the original framings, those from wealthier nations respond more or less as liberals do (though less strongly so) and less educated respondents respond more or less as conservatives do.  In the revised framings, the prediction is that in a correlation or regression analysis those from wealthier nations will continue to value Harm and Fairness more and Purity, Authority, and Loyalty less than those from less wealthy nations, though by a lesser degree.

 

H4--Ethnicity: My tentative guess is that on the original framings, whites and Asians respond more or less as liberals do and blacks and Latinos respond more or less as conservatives do (if ideology is controlled for).  In the revised framings, the prediction is that in a regression analysis whites and Asians will continue to value Harm and Fairness more and Purity, Authority, and Loyalty less than blacks and Latinos. 

 

 

 

 

Reframed Questionnaire

What follows is an altered version of the questionnaire on moral foundations that appears on yourmorals.org, a site run by Jon Haidt and others.  I believe it would be very interesting to see if and how the responses to the reframed questionnaire differ from those on the original, which is also shown below.   Each question on the orginal and reframed questionnaire relates to one of five dimensions identified by Haidt; the relevant dimension is identified in the text below, though not in the actual questionnaire.

 

Reframed Moral Foundations Questionnaire—Reframed version first [original question in brackets]

Part 1. When you decide whether something is right or wrong, to what extent are the following considerations relevant to your thinking? Please answer according to this scale:

  [1] = Not At All Relevant (This consideration has nothing to do with my judgments of right and wrong)
    [2] = Not Very Relevant
   [3] = Slightly Relevant
  [4] = Somewhat Relevant
    [5] = Very Relevant
    [6] = Extremely Relevant (This is one of the most important factors when I judge right and wrong)

1.   Whether or not someone was denied his or her freedom.

[Whether or not someone was denied his or her rights.]

Fairness

2.   Whether or not someone did something to betray his or her co-workers.

[Whether or not someone did something to betray his or her group.]

Loyalty

3.    Whether or not someone suffered.

  [Whether or not someone suffered emotionally.]

Harm

4.   Whether or not someone honored the tradition that money is the root of all evil.

[Whether or not someone conformed to the traditions of society.]

Authority

5.   Whether or not someone threw a multimillion dollar birthday party for himself.

[Whether or not someone did something disgusting.]

Purity

6.   Whether or not someone showed a lack of loyalty to his or her employees.

      [Whether or not someone showed a lack of loyalty.]

Loyalty

7.   Whether or not someone violated the purity and sanctity of the natural environment.

[Whether or not someone violated standards of purity and decency.]

Purity

8.   Whether or not someone showed a lack of respect for scientific authority.

[Whether or not someone showed a lack of respect for authority.]

Authority

9.  Whether or not an action caused job insecurity.

[Whether or not an action caused chaos or disorder.]

Authority

10.  Whether or not someone's action showed love for his or her cause.

  [Whether or not someone's action showed love for his or her country.]

Loyalty

11.  Whether or not someone was good at math.

[same]

Irrelevant--control

12.  Whether or not someone cared for someone.

  [Whether or not someone cared for someone weak or vulnerable.]

Harm

13.  Whether or not someone was cruel for no reason.

   [Whether or not someone was cruel.]

Harm

14.   Whether or not someone acted in a way that an Earth Spirit (Gaia) would approve of.

   [Whether or not someone acted in a way that God would approve of.]

Purity

15.  Whether or not someone acted unfairly.

   [same]

Fairness

16.  Whether or not some people were treated differently than others in the same situation.

  [Whether or not some people were treated differently than others.]

Fairness

Part 2. Please read the following sentences and indicate your agreement or disagreement. Please answer according to this scale:
  [1] = Strongly Disagree
    [2] = Moderately Disagree
   [3] = Slightly Disagree
  [4] = Slightly Agree
    [5] = Moderately Agree
    [6] = Strongly Agree

16.   I think it's morally wrong when people get something they don’t deserve.

   [I think it's morally wrong that rich children inherit a lot of money while poor children inherit nothing.]

Fairness

17.   It can never be right to murder a human being.

   [It can never be right to kill a human being.]

Harm

18.   It is more important to be respectful of all people in society than to express oneself.

   [It is more important to be a team player than to express oneself.]

Authority

19.  Respect for science is something all children need to learn.

  [Respect for authority is something all children need to learn.]

Authority

20.  The purity of the natural environment is an important and valuable virtue.

  [Chastity is an important and valuable virtue.]

Purity

21.  Science has proven that the concept of race is a myth.

  [Men and women each have different roles to play in society.]

Authority

22.  I am proud of the history of my political side.

  [I am proud of my country's history.]

Loyalty

23.  Charity for the truly needy is the most crucial virtue.

  [Compassion for those who are suffering is the most crucial virtue.]

Harm

24.  If I were a teacher and disagreed with my state’s rules that I teach evolution, I would obey anyway because that is my duty.

  [If I were a soldier and disagreed with my commanding officer's orders, I would obey anyway because that is my duty.]

Loyalty

25.  I would call some acts wrong on the grounds that they are contrary to the sacredness of nature.

  [I would call some acts wrong on the grounds that they are unnatural.]

Purity

26.  One of the worst things a person could do is hurt a defenseless animal for no reason.

  [One of the worst things a person could do is hurt a defenseless animal.]

Harm

27.  When the government makes laws, the number one principle should be ensuring that everyone gets what they deserve.]

  [When the government makes laws, the number one principle should be ensuring that everyone is treated fairly.]

Fairness

28.  Freedom is the most important requirement for a society.

  [Justice is the most important requirement for a society.]

Fairness

29.  People should not make more than a certain amount, even if no one is harmed.

  [People should not do things that are disgusting, even if no one is harmed.]

Purity

30.  It is better to do good than to do bad.

  [same]

Harm

31.  People should be loyal to their co-workers, even when they have done something wrong.

  [People should be loyal to their family members, even when they have done something wrong.]

Loyalty

Administrative Tenure

This blog is about the analysis of values, including left and right values, and is not intended to be a forum for the expression of my own or other people's left and right values.  Accordingly, I'm a bit reluctant to include the following post, which consists of my testimony in Trenton last Thursday against tenure for principals, assistant superintendents, and other public school administrators.  The post does hook into the one I did a little while ago on how both parties have supporters (unions for the the Democrats, religious exclusivists for the Republicans) who are useful for the party and arguably the polity in enhancing voice for lower status people, but are also detrimental in policy terms.  Also, this post and my general interest in the administrative tenure issue could be regarded as an outgrowth or application of the value competition program--of course, the causality might actually run the other way, with my experiences with the school board, the Community Coalition on Race, etc. driving the program.

Since I find the left-of-center case for job security for bosses much more elusive than the left-of-center case for security for lower-ranking, lower-status workers, I think the administrative tenure issue is one on which liberals and Democrats as well as conservatives and Republicans may see a need for reform.  I'll be working with other South Orange-Maplewood school board members to push this issue forward--it'll be interesting to see what if any success we have. 

Why New Jersey Should End Administrative Tenure

[remarks prepared for General Assembly Education Committee hearing 12-3-09]

Wayne Eastman

South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education

430 Meeker Street

South Orange, NJ 07079    

weastman@business.rutgers.edu 

(973) 353-1001     

Good afternoon.  I’m Wayne Eastman, a member of the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education, elected in 2006 and re-elected in 2009.  My background, briefly: I’m a professor in the Supply Chain Management and Marketing Sciences Department at Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick who was formerly a practicing lawyer in New York and New Jersey and who teaches business law and business ethics.  As acting director in 2007 of the Prudential Business Ethics Center at Rutgers, I organized a Rutgers Ethics Initiative on ethics in New Jersey government that led to a report covering pay-to-play, dual office-holding, and other matters.   Today I am speaking on behalf of the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education in one respect, in that we have agreed as a body that administrative tenure as it now exists in New Jersey public schools should not be continued, and have established a Lobbying Committee to advance that position and other positions we hold collectively.  On the specifics of what I’m saying, though, I note that the words and arguments I’m using are my own rather than a collective position of the Board.

I want to begin by expressing my appreciation to Assemblyman Cryan.  I and three other members of the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education—our President, Mark Gleason, the chair of our Lobbying Committee, Rowland Bennett, and another member of that committee, Beth Daugherty, along with our lawyer, Jessica deKoninck--had an excellent meeting back in mid-October in which the four of us on the Board expressed our opposition to administrative tenure.  The Asemblyman expressed strong interest in the topic and told us he would hold a hearing in the form of a round-table discussion in the lame-duck session.   A few weeks later, though, the Governor’s race turned out rather differently from what Assemblyman Cryan said he expected.  I would not have blamed the Assemblyman or anyone else if he had regarded his October statement to us as having an implicit contingency clause that his favored candidate for Governor win, given the understandable depth of his commitment to that candidate.  But Assemblyman Cryan went ahead with this hearing, and for that I strongly thank him.  I also want to express optimism about what I think this hearing can lead to.  Much as some issues--such as teacher tenure—are difficult or impossible to get a consensus on across partisan and ideological lines as of December 2009, I believe that the issue of ending administrative tenure while at the same time providing reasonable protection for current and new educational administrators is one that a Democratic legislature and a Republican governor can come together on right now.  The people of New Jersey need to see that their newly-elected leaders can work together to advance accountability and effectiveness in public education.  There is no better issue for that than administrative tenure, and I regard Assemblyman Cryan’s decision to proceed with this hearing as a highly hopeful sign that we can move forward together on this issue in New Jersey soon. 

Now, on to the substance of my remarks.  I have three main points to make.  First, based on my on-the-ground experience as a school board member for four years, I believe that administrative tenure is not a minor or abstract issue.  Rather, I believe it is a very serious obstacle to accountability and effectiveness in public education.  Second, administrative tenure is fundamentally contrary to the logic of having administrators be accountable to a school district’s top manager, the school superintendent. Finally, the tide of reform in the states and nationally is running against administrative tenure.  In the remainder of my written statement I will expand on these three points.  In the last part, I will then respond to three concerns about the abolition of administrative tenure and explain how abolition can be done in a way that is fair to current and new administrators.  At the end, I include a few links that may be helpful. 

I.  Administrative Tenure Is a Big Problem

Based on my experience on the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education, administrative tenure is a central obstacle to a superintendent running a school district sensibly, not a minor or peripheral issue.  What I’m going to say in this section is somewhat cryptic, given that both our able board attorney and my own background as a lawyer counsel me to avoid unnecessary references to pending or potential litigation or to individuals.   In making these remarks, I also want to stress that I regard my district’s administrators, past and present, as a highly skilled and dedicated group.

Now, the blunt part of what I have to say.  Many hours of board discussion and many thousands of dollars have been wasted in our district because of administrative tenure and litigation it spawned.  Without administrative tenure, it is possible that litigation would have occurred anyway, given that government employees have—and in my view should have—due process rights.  But without administrative tenure, any such litigation would have merely been a nuisance suit, rather than the significant drain on time and money that we have actually experienced.

In my experience, the requirement that a superintendent and a board make a decision within a limited number of years—frequently less than three because of shorter clocks for administrators with certain kinds of previous experience--on whether someone should have what amounts to a lifetime job as a high-level manager like a principal or assistant superintendent is a terrible one.  Even when nothing goes dramatically wrong, tenure plays a central, deforming role in high-level personnel decisions. I have found myself supporting tenure for principals where I thought that there was very limited evidence on progress in student achievement and building a strong school culture.  Even in cases where I thought there was good evidence of progress, I have never felt confident in what amounts to tying the hands of future superintendents.  The problem goes beyond the length of the tenure clock.  What the superintendent and the board know about a candidate is necessarily time-bound.  To ask a superintendent and a board to proscribe the judgment of all future superintendents and boards by granting tenure to an administrator is to ask them to engage in a fool’s mission.

On the other side of the ledger, I have also found myself troubled by my support for denying administrative tenure.  Absent tenure for administrators, superintendents and boards would be more willing to renew third year candidates who should not be given tenure, but who might prove to be very good if renewed for a year or another contractual period of time.  I’m not claiming that the main reason to end administrative tenure is to avoid firing administrators—but I do believe that some firings of third year administrators that now occur can and should be avoided by ending administrative tenure.

II.  Imagine if Christie (or Corzine) Couldn’t Change His Cabinet…

    As a result of an earlier reform, superintendents in New Jersey no longer gain tenure.  But all other administrators do, including the principals responsible for buildings and the central administrators who work closely with the superintendent.  Let me speak bluntly again.  For important administrators like assistant superintendents and principals not to be accountable to the superintendent they report to is absurd, judging not only by the standards of the business world but also by the standards that apply at the top of our state and federal government.  Anyone who proposed that the top staff who implement the vision of a CEO or the cabinet of a Governor or a President should have iron-clad job security would be considered completely out of bounds—but that is in fact the system we have in New Jersey public education. 

    At this point, I want to address the comparison between K-12 education in New Jersey and higher education, the sector in which I work at Rutgers.  There are major parallels between the two sectors.  As one who has tenure myself as a professor and whose wife is a tenured English teacher in a New Jersey high school, I feel those parallels keenly, all the more so because I am also an educational administrator myself as vice chair of my department.  Unlike my faculty position, my administrative position has no job security.  I have a one-year contract and otherwise serve at the pleasure of my chair and my Dean, as do other faculty and non-faculty administrators at Rutgers, who likewise are covered by contracts of differing lengths.  In other words, higher education in New Jersey already has the situation that should apply as well to K-12 education.

I see significant arguments for as well as against the faculty tenure that I and my wife have.  But I see no good reason for administrators whose job is to be accountable to a chair or a Dean or a superintendent to have tenure that makes it next to impossible for that chair or Dean or superintendent to remove them.  Whatever the ultimate merits of teacher or professor tenure, there is a serious case for it that there simply is not for educational administrators, who need to be accountable to the superintendent or dean who hires and evaluates them.

III.  The Trend is Against Administrative Tenure

Administrative tenure as it exists in New Jersey has been a minority position for a long time.  A 1983 survey by the National Association of Secondary School Principals found that only seventeen states had full-scale principal tenure, with the remainder having lesser protection or no principal tenure at all.  Since then, there has been a definite trend toward eliminating administrative tenure.  The best information I have been able to locate on the current situation comes from a document from the National Conference of State Legislatures, the relevant parts of which I have included in the sources section at the end of this statement, and which suggests that New Jersey is one of a small number of states with full-scale administrative tenure.  We may even have the dubious distinction of being the state with the most iron-clad system of administrative tenure, given that New York, which the NCSL document highlights as being similar to New Jersey, has a more limited mandate than we do, in that it does not include assistant superintendents and has been limited further in New York City. 

We should eliminate administrative tenure because it is the right thing to do, not just because we’re worried that Arne Duncan’s next speech or the latest federal regulations for Race to the Top eligibility will include administrative tenure here along with laws in California and New York prohibiting the use of student performance data in teacher tenure decisions as examples of reactionary, unjustifiable state laws.  But that concern about being out of step is another good reason for us to move away from administrative tenure in New Jersey.

IV.  But What About…?

    There are a number of concerns that can be raised about the elimination of administrative tenure.  In this section, I give responses to what I believe are the three biggest legitimate concerns and suggest ways in which the elimination of tenure can be accomplished in a way that is fair to current and new administrators.

Q. Isn’t it unfair to take away tenure from administrators who have already gained it?

A. Given the equity issue raised by the question, it makes sense for the elimination of tenure to be prospective rather than retroactive, which is to my knowledge the path followed in states that have eliminated tenure for administrators.  (Also, I would recommend that a provision be added to the legislation to make it clear that is is lawful for districts to offer a package in which a current administrator can voluntarily agree to forgo his or her tenure rights.  Further, it would be reasonable to include a provision stating that nothing in the legislation shall be construed to deny the right of an administrator under state public employment law and the state and federal constitutions as interpreted by the courts to due process in connection with a termination of employment.)

Q.    Isn’t it unduly harsh to fire an administrator who is not up to par as an administrator but was a perfectly good teacher before becoming an administrator?

A. Opinions on this may differ, since one can reasonably say that a teacher who chooses to become an administrator should simply accept the additional risk, just as a teacher does in giving up tenure when moving from one district to another.  In the interest of reaching agreement on legislation and given my own Rutgers experience, I personally believe it would be fine to have an teacher turned administrator retain tenure that he or she possesses in a given district as a teacher.

Q.    Aren’t the problems with corruption and politicization in some New Jersey school districts a good reason to retain administrative tenure?

A.   The overall answer to the question is no.  The reality that some school districts in New Jersey have past and present difficulties with corruption, poor personnel management, and failure to focus on student learning is not a good reason to hold back progress in the large majority of districts that are run professionally.  Instead, a better approach would be to recognize that problems exist in certain districts and to deal with that specific issue.  One reasonable way to do that would be a provision that requires school districts below a certain administratively determined level of performance on the state’s QSAC accountability monitoring to have their terminations of administrators with more than three years experience reviewed by the State Department of Education. 

V.  Conclusion

    The fact that the elected school board of South Orange and Maplewood, two of the deepest blue suburbs in New Jersey, supports the elimination of administrative tenure as we do is significant.  On some issues, my towns aren’t a bellwether.  But on the issue of administrative tenure, we are a very important indicator.  If we are against it, what part of New Jersey is for it?  Republican suburbs or rural areas in Morris County, Sussex County, Monmouth County, and Ocean County?  I think not.  I believe school boards and voters in those solidly Republican areas are with us in rock-ribbed Democratic South Orange-Maplewood in supporting change.  To the extent there are special issues in certain school districts, especially in our cities, they can be dealt with through enhanced state monitoring for these districts, as I’ve suggested.  Across party lines, let’s move forward in New Jersey to join the strong national majority of states and the strong national trend by eliminating administrative tenure and enhancing accountability in our schools.

VI.  Some sources:

1.   The National Association of Secondary School Principals (2000) and (1983): Although their material has some tilt toward the pro-tenure position (for instance, it repeats the frequently made but misleading claim that tenure simply guarantees a hearing and due process, which ignores the reality, clear in my experience as a board member, that it is in fact extremely difficult to remove a subpar tenured public school employee in New Jersey), it also includes an acknowledgement that many principals favor ending principal tenure, and has useful information on trends and the law:

http://www.principals.org/s_nassp/bin.asp?CID=680&DID=50140&DOC=FILE.PDF (2000)

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED238149&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED238149 (1983)

2.  Education Week: The title of this 1998 article--“Tenured Principals: An Endangered Species”--indicates its theme:

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1998/03/04/25tenure.h17.html

3.  KPMG Peat Marwick report for North Carolina General Assembly: This 1992 report to the legislature advocates elimination of administrative tenure in North Carolina and notes various ways in which administrators without tenure can be protected from unfair discharge:

http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/GPAC/issue/e/GPACEDU071.pdf

4.  National Conference of State Legislatures document: This undated document, which appears to be a draft, contains information on state tenure laws, which is reproduced below:

 

 

 

7700 East First Place, Denver, Colorado, 80230, 303-364-7700

 

 

PRINCIPAL TENURE

 

 

States that grant tenure to principals:

New Jersey

NJSA 18A: 28-5

http://lis.njleg.state.nj.us/cgi-bin/om_isapi.dll?clientID=478476&Depth=2&depth=2&expandheadings=on&headingswithhits=on&hitsperheading=on&infobase=statutes.nfo&record={7D76}&softpage=Doc_Frame_PG42

 

New York

Education Law § 3012 (1) (b) Tenure: certain school districts.

http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menugetf.cgi?COMMONQUERY=LAWS

 

Utah

Utah Code Title 53A, Chapter 8, Utah Orderly School Termination Procedures Act

http://le.utah.gov/~code/TITLE53A/53A08.htm

Tenure for school employees is provided by school district policies or an agreement with an employee association. The Utah Orderly School Termination Act specifies procedures for the termination of tenured employees who have worked a minimum of three years for their employer. Termination Act procedures apply to licensed principals. In Utah, a principal can be hired without having an administrative license, but the person is an at-will employee.

 

States with some protection for principals:

Hawaii - Principals are union employees and enjoy all of the civil service privileges due to their bargaining unit. 

 

Nebraska - Principals are under the same continuing contracts as teachers. Under the group of statutes that are labeled "Tenure" in the codified statutes, teachers and administrators (other than superintendents) are protected from termination after their first 3 years in a district by continuing contracts and may generally only be removed for just cause as defined in the statutes or as part of a reduction in force.

 

Nevada - The Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) do not use the term "tenure" with regard to teacher and administrator employment.  Instead the terms "probationary" and "postprobationary" are used.  These are defined in NRS 391.311.  The following sections provide for employment of teachers and administrators. 

• NRS 391.3197 provides that a probationary employee is someone in his or her first 2 years of employment with the school district.  Receiving notice of employment for the third year entitles the individual to be a postprobationary employee. 
• NRS 391.3196 provides that postprobationary employees have an expectation of reemployment. 
• NRS 391.3197 provides that an administrator who has completed his or her probationary period and is promoted to the position of principal must serve an additional probationary year as a principal.  After that, he or she is a postprobationary employee in the position of principal.
• NRS 391.110 provides for the employment of superintendents.  An initial contract term may not exceed four years.  The term of any subsequent employment may be for any length of time. 
• NRS 391.312  lists grounds for suspension, demotion, dismissal and refusal to reemploy teachers and administrators.

http://www.leg.state.nv.us/NRS/NRS-391.html#NRS391Sec311

 

North Dakota - Principals are under continuing contracts, which includes due process.

http://www.legis.nd.gov/cencode/t151c15.pdf

 

West Virginia - Does not refer to it as "tenure", principals are awarded a  "continuing contract" under West Virginia Code §18A-2-2 after their  first three years of employment.  If you look at that code section,  although this statute refers to "teachers", §18A-1-1 says that   "professional educator" is synonymous with "teacher" and includes  "principals".  The statutes are not clear on the rights of probationary verses continuing contract employees. However, a legislative staff member, after looking at several grievance decisions and supreme  court cases, says that it appears that continuing contract employees are given more rights in terms of the reasons for which they can be dismissed, use  of seniority when a reduction in force occurs, and being placed on a  preferred recall list.  A probationary employee simply can be let go by not renewing his or her contract. 

 

Mutual Respect

If Haidt is right about the greater ethical complexity of conservatives, that forms a reasonable basis for liberals to think better of conservatives than they might otherwise.  It does not form a reasonable basis for conservatives to think better of liberals, though.  By contrast, an approach that makes both sides more skeptical about their own as well as the other's consistent adherence to an ethical framework or ethical principles cuts both ways.  Combined with a utilitarian case that a value-based opposition is necessary, such an undermining approach strikes me as having more potential for reducing undue moralism on both sides than the claim that conservatism features greater ethical diversity.

Two Kinds of Multi-Racial Alliance

One prominent kind of multi-racial alliance sees itself as advocating for racial inclusion and equity and sees its opposition as a group or groups who are indifferent to or hostile to those values.  Another, less prominent kind of multi-racial alliance sees itself as working for values that cross racial lines and sees another side within the firm or community as also working for different values that also cross racial lines.  Both types of alliance can succeed.  The morally-charged single alliance approach has advantages when the objective is the dismantling of a political system of racial exclusion, such as legally segregated schools in the 1950s American South.  The second, two alliance approach has advantages in building a long-term politics in firms and communities that is not polarized along racial lines.  Compared to a racially polarized politics in which members of racial minorities have only the alternative of supporting their side or sitting out, the integration of different races into both sides gives members of racial minorities the power to support either side.   Having that power is beneficial both to racial minorities and to the community or firm as a whole.