Those ‘Dear Old Golden Rule Days’ may be retiring.
On June 10, 2014, the California Superior Court struck down that state’s teacher tenure, dismissal and furlough laws as in violation of the California Constitution. Vergara v State of California. Geography lessons well learned, good students all know that California is a long way from Pennsylvania, and what happens in California’s state court stays in California.
But, the day of reckoning may loom. Pennsylvania has laws and Constitutional provisions that are close to carbon copies of California’s so that California’s may be a test case for Pennsylvania.
Furthermore, the California Court’s first citation in support of its decision is Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas, which students everywhere know applies everywhere. What Brown held, teaches the California Superior Court, “was that unconstitutional laws and policies would not be permitted to compromise a student’s fundamental right to equality of the educational experience” And that, kids, applies to East as well as to West Coasters.
The California case was brought by nine public school students who challenged five California statutes that they claimed violated the equal protection clause of the California Constitution. The students said that these laws, similar to Pennsylvania’s teacher tenure laws, result in “grossly ineffective teachers obtaining and retaining permanent employment, and that these teachers are disproportionately situated in schools serving predominantly low-income and minority students.” Thus, the students’ equal protection claims asserted that the challenged statutes “violate their fundamental rights to equality of education by adversely affecting the quality of the education they are afforded by the state.” Thus, Superior Court considered that it was “asked to directly assess how the Challenged Statutes affect the educational experience. It must decide whether the Challenged Statutes cause the potential and/or unreasonable exposure of grossly ineffective teachers to all California students in general and to minority and/or low income students in particular, in violation of the equal protection clause of the California Constitution.”
The correct answer? The Court found that the students met their burden of proof on all issues presented.
So far, anyway: the case is likely to be appealed.
In the meantime, here in Pennsylvania, the case is likely to be plagiarized by folks looking for support and a template for the cause to be brought here and is likely to be heard in Harrisburg’s Halls by legislators pushing for educational reform for reading and writing and ‘rithmetic, taught to the tune of our own hickory stick. In Pennsylvania, however, that Hickory Stick may have all the lash of a wet noodle on the perceived evils of teacher tenure. Grievance arbitration of teacher dismissals and the federal umbrella of public employee rights are a much more formidable redoubt for inept pedagogues than any tenure protection yet invented.
Write that on your slate!
CAVEAT EMPTOR. The Freundian Slip is a publication of the KingSpry Education Law Practice Group. It is intended to inform the reader about interesting, important or entertaining developments in our practice area. It is not intended as legal advice and reading The Slip does not make you our client, although we would be happy to have you as our client if the need arises. (c) COPYRIGHT John E. Freund, III, Esquire. 2014.
