California students file suit to nix tenure law

[alp227]

Source: AP

Nine California public school students are suing the state over its laws on teacher tenure, seniority and other protections that the plaintiffs say keep bad educators in classrooms.

The case that goes to trial Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court is the latest battle in a growing nationwide challenge to union-backed protections for teachers in an effort to hold them more accountable for their work. The nonjury trial is expected to wrap up in March.

"The system is dysfunctional and arbitrary due to these outdated laws that handcuff school administrators," said Theodore J. Boutrous, the lead attorney on the case sponsored by an educational reform group.

States across the nation have weakened teaching job protections, including generations-old tenure, to give administrators more flexibility to fire bad teachers.

Read more: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/california-students-file-suit-nix-tenure-law

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Al Jazeera America also has a feature about this trial.

The Modern School blog calls Students Matter, the group behind this lawsuit, " right-wing astroturf" and also explains:

The suit cynically claims to be fighting for the rights of low income students under the equal protection provisions of the California Constitution. It argues that the current law protects ineffective teachers and “creates arbitrary and unjustifiable inequality among students,” according to Thoughts on Public Education. In short, the suit is saying that tenure, seniority and due process violate the state’s constitution, a claim that would be laughable if there wasn’t a powerful national movement behind it.

While it is true that low income schools tend to have higher percentages of younger teachers, it is not because of seniority, tenure and due process. Rather, these are the toughest schools to teach at and require teachers to work much harder than at more affluent schools, but for the same pay. In districts like LAUSD, where student test score data are used to evaluate teachers and where teachers’ Value Added (VAM) scores are publicly posted, there is a significant disincentive to teach at these schools.

If millionaires like Eli Broad and Bill Gates couldn't find ways to make a buck off public education, these lawsuits wouldn't even exist.

[bluestateguy]

1. Getting rid of tenure is a mistake

Yes, maybe a few bad teachers will be forced out, but far more good teachers will lose their jobs.

Administrators, with their newfound power to wantonly fire teachers will use that power to abuse and threaten teachers who don't skip to their tune. Teachers who simply have a personality conflict with an administrator could be sacked. Or a teacher could be pressured into being fired because the parents and students don't like him: maybe he grades to hard, or gave an F to the star football player. Or a Red community could band together to demand the firing of a liberal teacher who dared to teach evolution in science class or comprehensive sex ed. Public school administrators are not known for having strong spines and could easily succumb to such pressure to fire such teachers.

Or even a liberal community could demand that a conservative teacher be fired. It can work the other way too. Tenure protects conservative teachers too.

Tenure is needed to insulate educators from political pressure or bullshit personality conflicts entering into personnel decisions.

[glinda]

2. Totally true. The students either have a beef, don't understand the consequences or

are being misguided for political reasons. Very very very stupid move on their part.

[PuppyBismark]

3. The Students are not suing, rich conservatives are once again duping people

Give me a break! The plaintiffs in this case are bought and paid for by those looking to disrupt the teachers' union.

[leftyohiolib]

4. that's what i thought sounds like another coordinated alec attack

let's get rid of tenure so that teachers can be forced to teach creationism

[okaawhatever]

20. I looked up the attorney. He was hired and mentored by Ted Olson, one of the founding members

of the Federalist Society. He was in the Reagan admin where he helped defend Reagan during the Iran-Contra investigation, was solicitor general for George W Bush admin, counseled Bush in Bush v Gore (along with John Roberts) and was considered as a potential scotus nominee by Bush. He was found to have lied to Congress during hearings to determine why Reagan held back an EPA report from the public.

Olson was a founding member of the Federalist Society.[12] He has served on the board of directors of American Spectator magazine.[13] Olson was a prominent critic of Bill Clinton's presidency, and he helped prepare the attorneys of Paula Jones prior to their Supreme Court appearance.[3] Olson served Giuliani's 2008 presidential campaign as judicial committee chairman.[12] In 2012 he participated in Paul Ryan's preparation for the Vice Presidential debate, portraying Joe Biden.[14] He is one of the outspoken advocates for gay marriage in the Republican party.

The guy handling the case is Ted Boutrous. He worked with Ted Olson defending Bush officials during the Valarie Plame afffair. One of his other major clients is Wal-Mart. A quote about him:
"I talk to Ted Boutrous more than I talk to any outside lawyer in the world, and there's not even a close second," says Tom Mars, Wal-Mart's top in-house counsel.

In the last 20 years, Boutrous has carved out a practice focusing on limiting punitive damages for corporations and defending 1st Amendment rights for media companies. He has represented Ford Motor Co., DaimlerChrysler, the Wall Street Journal and Time Inc. as well as big media coalitions of which the Los Angeles Times has been a member.

Okay, so let's see if we ever find out who is paying for this. The article cites an "education reform group." Curiouser and curiouser.

Okay, just found more info. Students Matter is the non-profit basically created for this lawsuit. They must somehow share connections with The Foundation for Excellencein Education. Some of the info I found on the Core of Education website, Core of Education is likely affiliated with Common Core
http://www.coreofeducation.com/2013/10/29/former-u-s-solicitor-general-ted-olson-talks-ed-reform/

The money behind students matter is David F Welch a Silicon Valley business man. Here's a rather pathetic story he wrote for the SacBee. the mission statement of Students Matter is to fund "impact legislation" to improve the educational opportunities for students. Riiggghhhttt.....has nothing to do with breaking unions or advancing the Federalist Society ideals your attorneys hold so dear.

http://www.sacbee.com/2013/11/10/5887827/viewpoints-we-must-stop-pushing.html

[msanthrope]

10. How disgusting. Do you have proof that these students are ignorant? Or do

you assume they are because of their socio-economic status???

[msanthrope]

11. Tenure is an important property right, which falls to the civil rights of students. i

I've written extensively on this...

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/msanthrope

[lutefisk]

5. The Right Wing machine is on the move...

Look at how quickly they crushed the unions and teacher rights in Wisconsin. They have everything lined up, from the POTUS on down the line, so this manufactured lawsuit is a real threat.

[warrant46]

24. UNION BUSTING

Jay Gould, John D Rockefeller and J. P. Morgan would be proud of their off spring.

"I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half," Jay Gould

[SoapBox]

6. Laws have "handcuffed" Administrators?

Hell...I would to see any number of these so-called Administrators handcuffed!

[on point]

7. Obviously not history students. Tenure protects teachers & students

It is place to shield students and teachers from political manipulation or bad interference from religious nuts who want to insert nonsense like creationism. Find out why tenure exists before being a shill for the right wing

[msanthrope]

9. Actually, what distinguishes these students from the Plaintiffs in 'Brown'?

[bluestateguy]

12. Brown's cause was just, the cause here is frivilous and stupid

Hope that answers your question!

[msanthrope]

15. And of course, you get to decide if the minority students are just??? nt

[Igel]

14. Or Lau.

Or any other lawsuit that alleges that a Constitutional right to a free and appropriate public education is being denied.

In this case it's all self-defense. This Welch guy may be an entrepreneur, but few die-hard (R) are on the board of the NRDC. Most groups take funding from where they can get it.

What makes him right-wing is his assertion that you should fire underperforming teachers instead of investing in them. Period.

Both sides share the opinion that it's all the teachers' responsibility. Unions insult teachers fairly often, but how varies from day to day: "Give us better conditions, pay, benefits, and we'll do a better job and attract better teachers to the field." Meaning that either teachers are holding back until they get better pay or benefits or that really, the teachers we have are inferior.

"'Conditions" is a separate matter.


Significantly, both groups, for various reasons, miss that non-school factors account for over half of a student's learning and academic success. And that in schools, the teacher himself/herself accounts for about half of the schools' contribution. In other words, teacher = 25%, give or take a couple of %.

Those crappy teachers in one school become good teachers in another school.

[msanthrope]

23. You should fire chronically underperforming teachers. Three or more years

of bad evaluations should get you reevaluated.

[msanthrope]

8. Teachers have no property interest in a civil rights violation. I've written extensively

on this:


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/msanthrope

[JDPriestly]

18. Tenure is what attracts good people to teaching.

The pay is only competitive if you are offered the opportunity to make up for the low pay scale with a promise of stable employment.

Become an accountant. Get an MA. Become a lawyer or a doctor or a veterinarian, and the pay is likely to be much better than that of a teacher. So it's the stable employment that attracts good people to teaching. Low pay but also low risk. Most teachers get advanced degrees. But they settle for little money because they are idealistic and are likely to keep their jobs.

It makes economic sense for the state to promise tenure to teachers.

Remember the proposition in 2005 that Schwarzengger wanted in order to make it harder to get tenure? The people of California turned it down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_74_%282005%29

Is the court going to overturn the will of the people of California?

[msanthrope]

22. So Prop 8 never should have been overturned? Is that your argument? That

civil rights should fall to a property right because it is the will of the people?

I won't argue that tenure is an important property right. It is. But it is not as important as the EP rights of students.

Teachers have no property interest in the deprivation of civil rights.

[JDPriestly]

25. Could you explain, please, how tenure deprives someone of a civil right.

Even if a teacher has tenure, he or she can be fired for cause. Please explain.

Tenure just gives a teacher a right to be heard. Any employer can sue an employee for wrongful termination -- breach of contract, discrimination, etc.

Tenured teachers have a contractual right to not be fired without cause. I'm not sure how it is in grades 1-12, but the process to which a tenured faculty member at state universities is entitled for job performance reviews and hiring and firing is codified.

In addition to the likely difficulty attracting good people to teaching if they cannot be assured some opportunity for job security is the need to protect academic freedom in the public schools. This is not as great a problem in grades 1-12, but it is a very big problem in colleges and universities.

And I would say that it is also a big problem in fields like science, language and literature and especially social studies even in the earlier grades. Get a bigoted or anti-science school board somewhere and you will find highly qualified teachers being fired simply for teaching good science or challenging students to think about the meaning of history and government.

So a very good argument can be made that teachers' tenure actually protects the civil rights of students in that it allows more intellectual freedom for the teacher in the classroom.

Personally, I think the biggest problem in our schools is in the homes from which children come.

And our country does nothing to correct the intellectual and social damage that is done to many children in their first years of life by parents who do not know how to prepare their children for life, much less for the classroom. This could be easily changed. The government disseminates health information. Why can't it disseminate information about good parenting?

The best way to improve American education is to go to Austria, Germany and France (maybe other countries too), study their free, public kindergartens for children ages 3-6 and implement a kindergarten system that is free for all children and resembles those European models. Then start children in first grade at the age of 7 (rather than 6) and test them to be sure they are ready to begin school at that age.

My own children went to European kindergarten and elementary school because we lived there. The education was excellent.

And, by the way, in the area in which we lived, the first grade teacher stayed with the same class throughout grade school. That also provided more continuity. The grade school teachers emphasized rote learning (too much in my opinion) and schools were very orderly. Bad behavior was not tolerated by the community or the parents. The schooldays were short. My children came home shortly after noon, ate lunch at home and did homework starting from the first week of school. Most of the parents sat with their children as their children did homework. I did not need to because my children paid attention in school and understood their lessons. Parents made sure their children paid attention and worked hard. That is not the case in many homes in the US. And then those parents in America who have not trained their children to behave blame their children's teachers. But American teachers are far better trained in many respects than the teachers my children had in Europe. (I thought the kindergarten teachers were excellent, but the grade school teachers were not as well trained as ours.) I think it is poor parenting when parents blame the teacher for their child's problems. Instead, parents need to take responsibility for their children's education.

Again, it's the blame the other guy syndrome. No. Take responsibility for the education of your children. My children are bi-lingual. When they started high school, we required them to do extra work to learn English vocabulary and grammar because their English was not as good as that of other children in the school. They caught up. But a lot of American parents would rather watch TV in the evenings than check their children's homework or assign extra work. That is not always the case, but it is often the case with children who are having trouble in school.

Parents need to take more responsibility for their children.

[msanthrope]

26. Simple. I documented how.budget-related firings were applied unequally,

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/msanthrope/1

Why shouldn't firings be spread equally, though the district?

[reddread]

13. definitely right wing labor busting

tenure doesnt protect a wrong doer.
wrong doers protect wrong doing.

[RufusTFirefly]

16. Great idea. Let's make even more lives suck.

[JDPriestly]

17. Schwarzenegger tried to get rid of teacher tenure and Californians voted for it.

Proposition 74 (2005) was a ballot proposition in the 2005 California special election that intended to extend probationary periods for the state's public school teachers from two years to five before attaining tenure. It failed at the polls, with 55% of voters rejecting it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_74_%282005%29

So Republicans like to use propositions to get what they want in a state in which they are in the minority. But on teacher tenure, the people spoke. 2005 is not that long ago.

Tenure is what attracts capable people to a profession that does not offer competitive pay considering the education and the investment in time and money that education requires. An accounting degree can be obtained in the same time as an MA in education, and a good accountant can make much more money than a good teacher.

[LeftyMom]

19. They're half right and entirely wrong.

I grew up up the street from the worst elementary school in a very good school district. The teachers there fell into two categories, young idealists who left as soon as they could transfer to greener pastures and lifers who were slightly more engaged than a potted plant (including at least one notorious day drinker.) If, in a down budget year, that school had to let go some of those young idealists the school would not have improved, to say the least. But the real solution would have been to better distribute teachers throughout the district, rather than letting the most experienced teachers sort themselves to the easiest schools and making the newest teachers endure the worst postings as if they were some sort of rookie hazing ritual.

Getting rid of last hired first fired doesn't fix shit, because the underlying problem is that the schools where the most experience is needed are full of newly minted teachers burnishing their resumes to apply to a "nice" (read: whitest, richest kids) posting in some new suburb out in a former cornfield. Assign workers to job sites within their districts based on need rather than blatantly racist and classist requests. Break up or combine districts as needed to fix those whose borders are meant to separate students by race or class. There are huge underlying systemic problems that lead to poor and minority schools getting shitty teachers, and they're looking at the wrong ones.

[Downwinder]

21. Perhaps my experience was different from the norm.

The only bad teachers I had were new hires and they didn't last long.