Colorado is one of the first states to try and bring sanity to the stringent union rules regarding tenure, which make it virtually impossible to fire a teacher after just a few years of work. So far, thanks especially to a young state senator named Michael Johnston (who has worked as both a teacher and principal), it's looking good that Colorado will make it somewhat more difficult for teachers to earn tenure in the first place and even, once they have been granted tenure, will make it possible for them to lose it. The new rules won't take effect for a few years, which means many children will still lose valuable educational time, but at least commonsense changes are on the way.
It's not popular to pursue any reform that goes after the sad reality that some teachers simply shouldn't be teaching (some shouldn't even be around children), and it's often political suicide for an elected official, especially a Democrat, to take on the teachers unions, but in Colorado, Johnston led an unstoppable force that left the teachers union standing alone in the cold. In today's economic environment, when so many hard-working skilled people have lost jobs and job security, it's hard for the unions to continue to argue that tenure makes sense, when the results of our schools show that far too many teachers are not making the grade.