Charter-mania, high-stakes testing and teacher-bashing: Can Rhee’s approach be stopped?
As a new lawsuit seeks to radically transform teaching conditions, an expert warns of our nation's education shift
Final briefs are due next week in Vergara v. California, an under-the-radar billionaire-backed lawsuit that could transform teaching conditions in the largest state. Citing the constitutional rights of its public school student plaintiffs, the suit seeks to overturn state laws that schedule tenure consideration after two years of teaching, dictate the use of seniority when budget cuts force layoffs, and impose due process rules on teachers’ terminations. It very well may succeed; the president of one of the statewide unions fighting the suit warned L.A. Weekly that Judge Rolf Treu’s more aggressive questioning of his side “unfortunately … may be quite telling about where he’s going.” And it could inspire copycat efforts across the United States.
“It’s certainly not going to improve education,” said Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond, who co-directed the National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future, directed President Obama’s 2008/2009 education transition team, and last month testified for the Vergara defense. In a Monday interview, Darling-Hammond disputed Students First’s claim to the mantle of Brown v. Board; argued for “another War on Poverty” to transform “apartheid schools”; and said Obama has offered “a continuation” of the George W. Bush approach to “high-stakes testing without investing.” A condensed version of our conversation follows.
Angelia Dickens, the general counsel for Michelle Rhee’s group Students First, wrote that “The Vergara case is a logical extension from Brown” v. Board of Education, because it would help “move our country towards educational equity.” Why do you disagree?
I can’t understand why anyone would agree. To me, it’s completely unrelated to the agenda from Brown, which was about getting equal access to educational opportunities for students — you know, initially through desegregation, but the heritage of Brown is also a large number of school finance reform lawsuits that have been trying to advocate for equitable resource distribution between districts and schools. And Vergara has nothing to do with that …
Even if you got rid of teachers’ due process rights for evaluation, you would do nothing to