California Public School Students Suing Against Teacher Tenure

An interesting lawsuit went to non-jury trial in
a Los Angeles court room yesterday; nine public school students,
with the support of an educational non-profit called “Students Matter,” are suing the
state of California over teacher tenure laws and other protections,
which they argue prevent school administrators from removing
dysfunctional teachers from the system. To skeptics of the
eternally optimistic apologists of the government school system,
the argument seems pretty open and shut. Tenure and the other
public employee protections (which public unions call “due process”
as if their jobs were rights and not privileges) make it difficult
to remove teachers even in some of the most egregious cases. In
2012, LA Weekly
reported the city’s school district had 300 teachers in the
“rubber rooms,” where teachers go after they’ve been removed from
the classroom but before they’ve had their “due process.” According
to LA Weekly, the average teacher spends 127 days hanging out in
the rubber room, collecting full salary and benefits while
“allegations” against them are investigated. It’s a system that’s
pretty recognizably rigged in favor of the teacher and not the
student, whose education can be severely handicapped by just one
lousy teacher in one school year.

Nevertheless, the teachers union in California argues that
teacher protections benefit students.
Via Fox News Latino:

The California Teachers Association and the California
Federation of Teachers intervened and asked the court to throw out
the lawsuit filed against the state, including the Department of
Education, Gov. Jerry Brown and Superintendent of Public Education
Tom Torlakson.

“It is deceptive and dishonest to pretend that teacher due process
rights are unfair to students,” said California Federation of
Teachers President Josh Pechthalt, the parent of a ninth-grade
student in the Los Angeles Unified School District. “Students need
a stable, experienced teaching workforce. They won’t have one if
this lawsuit succeeds in gutting basic teacher
rights.”

So, teachers have more job security even though when they fail
to do their jobs they risk the life-long income earning potentials
of their students because that job security creates a stable
workforce for them. It’s a bizarre assertion that a labor
organization meant to protect the financial interests of teachers
as employees could somehow also protect the educational interests
of students. Talk about decepitve. The judge rejected the union’s
motion to dismiss the case.

Over the weekend, the California Department of Education
released a statement insisting there was “nothing in the law” that
prevents districts “from removing teachers from the classroom when
necessary.” The students who have brought the matter to court, and
their parents, disagree. That those who profit off the educational
bureaucracy don’t is no surprise.