New York has some of the worst schools in the country, so naturally, the unions’ (and the politicians’) priority is to make sure that teachers who can’t teach have their tenure assured, so they can keep collecting paychecks.

Governor Kathy Hochul just signed a bill repealing proposed quality standards. The Albany Times–Union news story on the bill bluntly stated it “returns tenured teachers to their previous nearly untouchable state.”

Tenured teachers who score poorly on their evaluations will no longer face possible termination.

Teachers union president, Melinda Person, thanked Hochul for repealing a “punitive, test-focused model” of teacher evaluations. The measurements that graded teachers on test scores, student growth scores, and other success markers have all been repealed.

Person explained that the new evaluation standards are all “about restoring the daily joy of teaching and learning, and it is about evaluating our educators like the professionals they are.”  In other words, results don’t matter, just have taxpayers send more money every year to enhance the “joy of teaching and learning.”

Is it any wonder that over a dozen states have passed universal school choice plans that march in entirely the opposite direction of New York? We are truly becoming a nation of two public school systems – one where parents have a real say in the education of their children and another where the teacher union monopoly is further entrenching itself.