California Appeals Court Reverses Decision to Overturn Teacher Tenure Rules – The New York Times

By | April 15, 2016

Judges rule that the state’s job protections for teachers do not deprive poor and minority students of a quality education, or violate their civil rights.

Source: California Appeals Court Reverses Decision to Overturn Teacher Tenure Rules – The New York Times

LOS ANGELES — A California appeals court ruled on Thursday that the state’s job protections for teachers do not deprive poor and minority students of a quality education or violate their civil rights — reversing a landmark lower court decision that had overturned the state’s teacher tenure rules.

The decision put a roadblock — at least temporarily — in front of a national movement, financed by several philanthropists and businesspeople, to challenge entrenched protections for teachers, championed by their unions.

Two years ago, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge struck down five California statutes connected with the awarding of tenure, as well as rules that govern the use of seniority to determine layoffs during budget crises. Ruling in a case brought by a group of nine high school students — four of whom have since graduated — the judge, Rolf Treu, said the statutes violated the students’ rights to an equal education under the California Constitution because they allowed poorly performing teachers to remain indefinitely in classrooms.

In reversing the trial court’s decision, a panel of three appeals judges wrote that if ineffective teachers are in place, the statutes themselves were not to blame because it was school and district administrators who “determine where teachers within a district are assigned to teach.” The laws themselves, the judges wrote, do not instruct districts in where to place teachers.

“The court’s job is merely to determine whether the statutes are constitutional,” the panel wrote, “not if they are ‘a good idea.’”

Teachers unions immediately welcomed the ruling.

“I consider this a victory for teachers and a victory for students,” said Eric C. Heins, the president of the California Teachers Association. “What these statutes have done is, one, they bring stability to the system, and for many students they bring stability to their schools and to the teachers in their schools. For many kids, the school environment is the only stable environment that many of them have.”

Tom Torlakson, the state superintendent of public instruction in California, said the appeals court decision would allow districts to recruit and train teachers at a time of shortages in the state.

“All of our students deserve great teachers,” Mr. Torlakson said in a statement. “Teachers are not the problem in our schools — they are the answer to helping students succeed on the pathway to 21st century college and careers.”

The plaintiffs in the case, known as Vergara v. California, said they would appeal to the state Supreme Court.

“The Court of Appeal’s decision mistakenly blames local school districts for the egregious constitutional violations students are suffering each and every day,” Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., the lead counsel for the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “But the mountain of evidence we put on at trial proved — beyond any reasonable dispute — that the irrational, arbitrary and abominable laws at issue in this case shackle school districts and impose severe and irreparable harm on students.”

The decision came just a day after another group of parents served notice to defendants in a lawsuit challenging Minnesota’s job protections for teachers. A similar lawsuit is also pending in New York.

The plaintiffs in Minnesota and New York vowed to press on, with backing from the Partnership for Educational Justice, a New York-based group that receives financing from the foundations of Eli Broad, a Los Angeles billionaire, and the Walton family, founders of Walmart.

Katharine Strunk, an associate professor of education at the University of Southern California, said that while the ruling may be considered a victory for teachers’ unions, the case had sparked a national conversation over teacher hiring and firing.

“The judges are saying things are not right in California, that there are drawbacks to the current system, but this is not something for the courts to decide,” Ms. Strunk said. “I don’t think anyone believes that these laws are the best we can do.”

After the trial court judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs two years ago, Arne Duncan, former United States secretary of education, applauded the decision, saying he hoped it would prompt policy makers to change tenure statutes. On Thursday, John B. King Jr., Mr. Duncan’s successor, was not immediately available for comment.

The plaintiffs argued that because the state allows districts to grant tenure after just two years, and because districts often spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to remove teachers they consider low-performing, tenure rules can lock in ineffective educators for life.

All too often, the plaintiffs argued, the worst teachers are placed in schools with high concentrations of low-income and minority students.

In its ruling, the appeals court said that “the challenged statutes do not in any way instruct administrators regarding which teachers to assign to which schools.”

The judges acknowledged that principals got rid of “highly ineffective teachers” by transferring them to other schools, including schools with many poor students.

“This phenomenon is extremely troubling and should not be allowed to occur,” they wrote, “but it does not inevitably flow from the challenged statutes.”