| 摘要 | Last week, the California Supreme Court declined to hear Vergara v. California, the case in which nine plaintiffs claimed that numerous California statutes regarding teacher tenure, dismissal and “last in, first out” policies prevent high-poverty and minority students from receiving an education of equal substantive quality to their counterparts. While it is not surprising, given the decisions by the Los Angeles Superior Court and the California Appeals Board, that the California Supreme Court declined to hear Vergara, the educational travesty illuminated by evidence in the initial hearing remains. Although Vergara failed to make any legal impact, the text of the appeal ruling identifies those responsible for fixing a system that has clear moral problems regarding its ability to provide an equal education to all students.
In 2014, the Los Angeles Superior Court issued a decision that rendered numerous statutes in California law null because of their “unconstitutional” nature. The ruling contained strong language, including that the evidence offered “shocks the conscience.” Indeed, the evidence made absolutely clear that students are getting a worse education because of the burdensome and costly process of dismissing tenured teachers. Moreover, while California’s tenure policy stipulates that teachers receive tenure in two years, in practice this means that administrators must decide whether to grant tenure to a teacher after only 16 months of the teacher’s start date. Finally, “last in, first out” policies mean that teachers with seniority are retained regardless of whether they perform better or worse than their less-experienced counterparts. The court decided that these policies taken together affect all students, but high-poverty and minority students in a disproportionate manner.
The California Appeals Court reversed this ruling in spring 2016. While the court did not disagree with the evidence offered, the fact that the evidence “shocks the conscience” or the notion that the policies contained in California law need to be fixed, it made clear that it could not rule on these issues but only on the claim brought by the plaintiffs. In this case, the plaintiffs claimed that the statutes themselves prevented high-poverty and minority students from receiving an education equal to their peers. The court disagreed, stating that the plaintiffs “did not show that the statutes inevitably cause a certain group of students to receive an education inferior to the education received by other students.” Indeed, “administrators – not the statutes – ultimately determine where teachers within a district are assigned to teach.” Because the plaintiffs challenged the text of the statutes themselves – not the way they are implemented in school districts – the court could not agree.
The legal finding may be correct, but it is not just. Indeed, the injustice of keeping incompetent teachers in the classroom or removing them at a high cost of time and money to the district continues apace. While the California Assembly changed part of the state education code in 2015 to streamline teacher dismissal practices and quicken the process for teachers accused of “egregious misconduct,” the operational standard for teachers to remain in the classroom is still whether or not a teacher has the character to improve, learn and become better at teaching – not whether students are learning.
But the problems with education in California don’t have to do solely with teachers. Indeed, the appeals ruling names administrators as a group whose decisions are particularly important. “[I]t is administrative decisions … and not the challenged statutes, that determine where teachers are assigned throughout the district.” This means that administrators must be responsible for the placement of each teacher. Now that the veil has been pulled back on the dismal situation in California for the public to see, administrators should take the appeals ruling as a mandate to do what is right in terms of retaining and dismissing teachers who do not help students – and to identify publicly the specific bureaucratic red tape responsible for preventing them from doing so.
The California Supreme Court’s decision not to hear Vergara means that administrators are subject to the same policies for how to dismiss teachers. Without a policy change, this process will continue to be overly burdensome. In practice, the lesson of Vergara is that there are not consequences for bad actions. Not only is that not encouraging for California’s education system – it’s also the opposite of what adults wish to teach kids about justice. |
