Steven Greenhut on Kids Triumphing Over Teachers Unions

Education reformers
and their teachers union foes seemed equally stunned on
Tuesday by Los
Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu’s
ruling that found California’s teacher tenure system—which
makes it nearly impossible for public schools to fire teachers—to
be an affront to the equal protection clause in the state
constitution.

This may be just the first step in a long legal process that
pits a group of poor kids and reformers against the state, the
powerful California Teachers Association, and its allies in the
legislature, but this was big national news—and the latest volley
in an ongoing debate about education reform, writes Steven
Greenhut.

If the ruling is upheld, the legislature will need to defy the
CTA and revisit teacher dismissal laws. But real change needs to
come from the grassroots, argues Greenhut with the public demanding
that the state start putting the education of kids above the job
security demanded by the unions representing those kids’
teachers.

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