And now there are two.
Two lawsuits, that is. Each challenges New York’s teacher-tenure laws as a violation of the right to a “sound education” guaranteed in our state’s Constitution.
Seven New York families, including five from the city, filed the latest class-action suit in Albany. The families are backed by former TV reporter Campbell Brown’s Partnership for Educational Justice.
Their case likely will be merged with a lawsuit filed July 3 on Staten Island by another reform group, the New York City Parents Union.
Ever since a California judge ruled that his state’s job protections for teachers have come at the expense of children, reformers have been looking to bring this argument to New York.
And that’s set off the teachers unions, which say the lawsuits are anti-teacher — and have attacked Education Secretary Arne Duncan for speaking favorably about the California decision.
We’re with Duncan on this one. Good teachers should be recognized and rewarded.
But we have to rethink tenure to reward “the craft of teaching” so that public schools become enterprises of learning, not a jobs program for bad teachers.