A court ruling that could have a lasting impact on teacher tenure continues to reverberate inside and outside classrooms throughout the nation.
A lawsuit brought by nine Latino students last year against the state, Vergara vs. the State of California, was decided by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu on June 10, who essentially invalided due process statutes for teachers in California that had been a part of state education codes for decades.
“The number of grossly ineffective teachers has a direct, real, appreciable, and negative impact on a significant number of California students,” Treu wrote. “The evidence is compelling, indeed it shocks the conscience…ineffective teachers disproportionately impact low income and minority students and that getting rid of bad teachers is nearly impossible.”
The legal action, which was supported by charter advocates from across the nation as well as Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and groups that oppose teachers unions, ostensibly asserted that the laws governing due process protected senior, “less effective” educators and pushed out “highly effective, but less senior teachers.”
African American and Latino students were disproportionally hurt by these protections, the plaintiffs asserted.
Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy, who testified for the plaintiffs, said he would begin to implement the ruling immediately.
Treu stayed his ruling pending appeal, which means his ruling is not in force yet.
David Welch, a Silicon Valley billionaire entrepreneur who was the driving force behind the lawsuit, could not be reached for comment but called the lawsuit “a defining moment for California” in an op ed column in the “San Jose Mercury News.”
“The ruling has given California an incredible opportunity to redesign how we attract and retain great teachers–to re-think our approach to better serve the educational needs of every child. We must take thoughtful, holistic action and base new programs and policies on facts, common sense, and the real needs of the teachers and students the system serves,” Welch wrote. “California already has strong laws protecting all employees, in both the private and the public sectors, against discrimination and harassment in the workplace,” Welch continued. “So instead of making minor tweaks to the current tenure and dismissal laws, let’s provide all teachers simple and objective due process from day one, then create a robust professional career ladder to attract and retain the best educators.”
Culver City President of Federation of Teachers David Mielke could not be reached for comment on Vergara v. California.
Teacher- led organizations naturally took a different point of view on the judge’s ruling.
“When you eliminate important protections for teacher activists and others who speak out for students, you turn schools into teacher turnover factories,” United Teachers Los Angeles President-Elect Alex Caputo-Pearl said.
The California Teachers Assn blasted the ruling, singling Welch out for specific criticism.
“We are deeply disappointed, but not surprised by this decision. Like the lawsuit itself, [the June 10] ruling is deeply flawed. This lawsuit has nothing to do with what’s best for kids, but was manufactured by a Silicon Valley millionaire and a corporate PR firm to undermine the teaching profession and push their agenda on our schools,” California Teachers Association President Dean E. Vogel said. “We plan to appeal this decision on behalf of students and educators, while teachers continue to provide all students a quality public education every day.”
The association said it plans to appeal Treu’s ruling.