A stunning decision by a California judge tossing the state’s teacher-tenure protection laws Tuesday sent parents here scrambling to overturn New York’s laws as well.
“The California ruling sets a precedent. We want to file the same lawsuit here in New York,” declared Mona Davids of the NYC Parents Union, vowing to line up students and guardians as plaintiffs.
“For too long, children have been condemned to schools with low-performing teachers protected by the teachers union.”
In his groundbreaking ruling, which the union has vowed to appeal, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf Treau sided with plaintiffs who claimed that tenure laws were protecting poor teachers at the expense of students.
“The evidence is compelling . . . There is no dispute that there are significant numbers of grossly ineffective teachers currently active in California classrooms,” the judge said.
LA Schools Superintendent John Deasy testified that it can take more than two years on average — and sometimes as long as 10 — to fire an incompetent tenured teacher.
New York City principals have long made such complaints.
Jenny Sedlis, of StudentsFirstNY, which advocates stricter teacher accountability, said the judge “declared unconstitutional many of the same policies — automatic tenure, LIFO [last-in first-out seniority], and outdated protections of ineffective teachers — that are hurting low-income and minority students across our state.”
The decision caused a nationwide political earthquake and provoked a favorable response from the Obama administration.
“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,” said US Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
“Today’s court decision is a mandate to fix these problems,” he added.
Teachers have long argued that tenure protects them from unjust firings.
“This is a sad day for public education,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, who previously headed the city’s teachers union.
“No one should tolerate bad teachers in the classroom. [Treau] is right on that. But in focusing on these teachers who make up a fraction of the work force, he strips the hundreds of thousands of teachers who are doing a good job of any right to a voice.”