California students file suit to nix tenure law [View all]

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"The system is dysfunctional and arbitrary due to these outdated laws that handcuff school administrators," said Theodore J. Boutrous, the lead attorney on the case sponsored by an educational reform group.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