A court case filed by nine kids may set in motion sweeping educational reform in California and nationwide.
Under scrutiny in Vergara vs. California were five controversial statutes pertaining to teacher tenure, dismissal, and layoff policies. The statutes were deemed unconstitutional on Tuesday in a decision by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu, a Republican appointee.
While the nine grade-school to high-school-aged plaintiffs went to school in different cities in California, all encountered inept teachers who “let classrooms get out of control, came to school unprepared and in some cases told them they’d never make anything of themselves,” USA Today reports.
The case was brought by Students Matter, a non-profit organization founded by Silicon Valley entrepreneur David Welch that uses litigation to enact education reform. The organization’s all-star legal team included Theodore J. Boutrous, who recently helped overturn California’s gay-marriage ban.
The case struck down three crucial California policies: the Permanent Employment Statute, which forces administrators to make tenure decisions after having employed teachers for less than two years; the Dismissal Statute, which makes firing teachers a protracted, roadblock-laden process that costs thousands of dollars and ensures that an average of only 2.2 teachers out of 275,000 statewide are fired for unsatisfactory performance each year; and the “Last In, First Out” Layoff Statute, which forces districts to make layoff decisions based solely on teachers’ seniority, not on their aptitude in the classroom.
In his 16 page decision, which he began by invoking Brown v. Board of Ed, Treu concluded that the challenged statutes undermine students’ state constitutional right to a quality education and “disproportionately affect poor and/or minority students.” He also said that the effect of bad teachers on students “shocks the conscience,” citing a study from economist Raj Chetty which indicates that “a single year in a classroom with a grossly ineffective teacher costs students $1.4 million in lifetime earnings per classroom.”
Not surprisingly, California’s teachers unions have vowed to appeal the case.
Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, the largest teachers union in the U.S., described the case as “yet another attempt by millionaires and corporate special interests to undermine the teaching profession,” reports USA Today.
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, by contrast, characterized Treu’s decision as “a mandate” to enact much-needed education reform.
“The students who brought this lawsuit are, unfortunately, just nine out of millions of young people in America who are disadvantaged by laws, practices and systems that fail to identify and support our best teachers and match them with our neediest students,” he stated.
