K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Teacher keeps $90K job after being late 111 times. “I have a bad habit of eating breakfast in the morning, and I lost track of time.”

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The decision is one of dozens issued this year by arbitrators under the state’s Teacher Effectiveness and Accountability for the Children of New Jersey, or TeachNJ.

The tenure reform law, signed by Gov. Chris Christie in 2012, is supposed to make it easier to remove bad educators from the classrooms, although most of the arbitration decisions this year have returned teachers to their jobs, favoring job suspensions rather than terminations.

In Anderson’s case, the arbitrator said the district failed to provide the teacher with due process by providing him with a formal notice of inefficiency or by giving him 90 days to correct his failings.

While Anderson was unable to “plausibly” explain his lateness and — in the arbitrator’s words — relied on “micro-quibbles of a few unpersuasive explanations” while arguing “even when he is late he nevertheless delivers a superb educational experience to his grateful students,” the arbitrator felt that “progressive discipline” was fairer than termination.

It’s like the teacher’s unions don’t really care about the kids’ welfare at all.