A California state appellate court has overturned a lower court ruling in Vergara v. California. While the lower court had ruled teacher tenure unconstitutional, the appellate court now says the plaintiffs did not prove tenure has anything to do with the fact some students receive an education inferior to the education received by other students. It’s not the tenure law that results in unequal treatment for students, the appellate court ruled, but rather school administrators’ assignment of teachers to the classroom.
The following statements from education experts at The Heartland Institute – a free-market think tank – may be used for attribution. For more comments, refer to the contact information below. To book a Heartland guest on your program, please contact New Media Specialist Donald Kendal at [email protected] and 312/377-4000.
“The California Appeals Court has ruled in favor of clout, corruption, and cronyism of public education unions and administrators. The students lose again.”
Bruno Behrend
Senior Fellow, Education
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
“This ruling shocks the conscience as the court twists basic logic to protect adults and the system at the expense of children and their futures. Administrators can only assign the teachers they have on staff. Due to tenure laws and the lengthy processes to fire a bad teacher, far too many bad teachers must be assigned to classrooms regardless of the damage it does to a student’s education. The worst teachers are typically concentrated in urban areas with minority populations affecting them negatively at a much greater rate.”
Lennie Jarratt
Project Manager, Education
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
“One of Ben Franklin’s most famous aphorisms is that in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes. Franklin wrote this 74 years before the establishment of the California Teachers Association, so we cannot fault him for not including ‘consequence-proof lifetime employment for California teachers’ at the end of his pithy phrase.
“Only 19 of 300,000 California teachers were fired for poor performance over the course of a decade. Only 2.2 California teachers are fired for poor performance each year. Meanwhile, fewer than three out 10 California students test proficient on the National Assessment of Education Progress. Now, the California Court of Appeals is claiming the state’s absurd teacher protections have nothing to do with its dismal record of educating its students. Prima facie, if you retain your incompetent teachers, your students are going to be given an inadequate education. Here’s hoping the California Supreme Court grants review of Vergara and comes to the correct conclusion: The Golden State’s onerous teacher protection laws are doing irreparable damage to California children.”
Tim Benson
Policy Analyst
The Heartland Institute
[email protected]
312/377-4000
The Heartland Institute is a 32-year-old national nonprofit organization headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems. For more information, visit our Web site or call 312/377-4000.
Bruno Behrend, J.D., is a senior fellow for education policy at The Heartland Institute.
Lennie Jarratt is the former director of the Center for Education Opportunities at The Heartland Institute
Tim Benson joined The Heartland Institute in September 2015 as a policy analyst in the Government Relations Department.
