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For the city's public school teachers, getting tenure was as given as the September to June school year, but now that is not so. Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced plans in September to scale back the number of teachers given tenure.

"We just passed them through and our kids were stuck with the bad teachers," said the mayor at a Wednesday press conference.

Getting tenure is now undoubtedly harder to get, at least as quickly as it was before. For the first time, thousands of teachers were found unqualified this and they will get a second look after new training.

Last year, 89 percent of teachers were given permanent job safety, 8 percent had it delayed a year and 3 percent were denied.

This year, only 58 percent were given the green light, while 39 percent face another review next year. Three percent were again denied.

"Teachers are saying, some of them, 'thank you,' because as the mayor indicated, teachers were passed along and they didn't have an idea of their performance level," said Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott.

It won't be known until next year whether the probability of teacher tenure is the same as it was before, with the only change being how long it took.

The city Department of Education is reassessing more than a third of the group and not firing them. Yet even more teachers were denied tenure outright last year than under this year's more rigorous system -- 3.3 percent in 2010, compared with 2.9 percent now.

Tenure is a crucial distinction, as once it is given it can only be taken away through a cumbersome process that the city charges is heavily tilted in teachers' favor.

Officials in the United Federation of Teachers say their members should not be faulted for their subpar evaluations. Teachers may have moved schools, making their full record incomplete. In other cases, the UFT claims principals did not observe enough.

UFT Secretary Michael Mendel said in a statement, "We have serious questions about how the DOE reached these conclusions and concerns that they failed to base these decisions on pedagogy or job performance."

Bloomberg has a simple response -- "They can call it anything they want. This is what we're doing."

The mayor has made strengthening tenure a national crusade, but only in the waning days of his own tenure. When asked why he did not change the rules previously, he said everything could not be changed overnight, and at least the city is doing it now.