A New York judge heard oral arguments Tuesday in Wright v. New York, a potentially landmark case that pits parents against teachers unions in an attempt to have the state’s teacher tenure laws declared unconstitutional.
Tuesday’s oral arguments included a debate over a motion to dismiss the case, with defendant lawyers representing the city of New York, New York State and New York State United Teachers.
Tenure laws protect teachers by prohibiting termination, typically after a certain number of years on the job. Parents say they rob children of their right to a basic education under the New York state constitution by protecting bad teachers. An attorney with the teachers union argued that the parents’ real intention is to weaken labor laws, WNYC’s Beth Fertig reported.
“When fundamentally, 90 percent of the teachers in the state of being given effective or highly effective ratings, and only 30 percent, 33 percent of the students are reading or doing math at grade level, that tells the whole story,” plaintiff attorney Jay Lefkowitz said in court.
In Tuesday’s arguments, the defendants argued that a recent change in tenure laws made the suit unnecessary. In April, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law awarding tenure after four years instead of three. The law also made it easier for school districts to fire bad teachers.
The plaintiffs argue that the legislative changes were not adequate to fix the problem.
The parents backing the case cite several statistics to argue that the tenure laws are an obstacle to a basic education. For example, “Teachers in New York City are more likely to die on the job than be replaced because of poor performance,” according to the Partnership for Educational Justice, which is backing the case. Also, only about 30 percent of students in New York are proficient in math and reading.
The Partnership for Educational Justice was founded by Campbell Brown, a former CNN host who also founded the education news website The 74.