The “same kind of evidence” used to strike down California’s teacher-protection statutes could be used to obliterate New York’s tenure laws, a top lawyer said Wednesday.
Experts noted that New York state declares unequivocally that students are entitled to a basic, sound education.
Poor teachers with tenure who stand in the way of that education could fall by the wayside, the experts said.
“I think the same kind of evidence would come into play if there were a legal challenge,” said Jay Lefkowitz, a leading litigator at Kirkland & Ellis and an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School.
“The decision tells us there is a clear link between competent teachers and educational success.”
Ted Boutrous, lead attorney for the plaintiff in Vergara vs. California, said there was a “strong chance” that there will be a lawsuit in New York.
“I think this will reverberate across the nation including New York and I think it’s a good thing for fixing the fundamental problems in our public-school systems,” he said.
New Teacher Project Vice President Dan Weisberg said the much-criticized Last-In First-Out practice — laying off new teachers before more senior educators — is “clearly vulnerable” to a legal challenge.
“You could take what the judge said about LIFO and say exactly the same thing about how the rationale behind it is unfathomable,” he said.
But Brooklyn College professor David Bloomfield said any tenure lawsuit “would be a long haul” because of new evaluation laws that make it easier to dump poorly performing teachers after two years.
United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said: “What shocks the conscience is the way the judge misread the evidence and the law, and sided with a Silicon Valley millionaire [backing the plaintiffs] who never taught a day in his life.”
And Mayor de Blasio weighed in, saying, “Retention [of teachers] has a lot to do with whether you have job security and a job future, where you can better yourself,” he said. “Tenure is a part of that.”