Firing Bad Teachers: A Superintendent and a Teacher's Union Official Debate
Can due process for educators coexist with the ability to terminate abusive or unqualified individuals?
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Dr. John E. Deasy, Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, supports the California lawsuit against the state's tenure, layoff and termination rules. He believes that the current system has a disparate impact on the quality of education offered to poor students and minorities, and is therefore unconstitutional.
Randi Weingarten is the president of the American Federation of Teachers (a separate entity from the California Teacher's Association, which represents Golden State teachers). Her organization opposed the lawsuit. "While teachers led their classrooms, a judge in a Los Angeles courtroom said that for students to win, teachers have to lose," the AFT stated after the plaintiffs won the case, which is being appealed. "Vergara v. California was a blow to public education everywhere, but especially demoralizing to hundreds of thousands of teachers who dedicate their lives to lifting up California's students...Our opponents have spent months—and millions—vilifying California teachers to push a political agenda. We're fighting back—in the media, on the ground, in the legislature and in the courts."
These two shared a stage in Aspen this weekend, where they debated the lawsuit, teacher tenure, accountability, and related issues. The video of the entire panel is here:
Notice both of them believe that it is currently too hard to fire bad teachers in California–and that teachers should have some sort of due process rights. They differ mostly in whether this lawsuit was the right way to fix the problem. Weingarten notes that she has helped to pass laws that reform teacher tenure in several states. She argues that California should pass those same reforms, and that the lawsuit has helped to create a "polarized climate" where such a reform is impossible.
I understand Weingarten's position. But as a Californian, I found that claim hard to take.
The California Teacher's Association is perhaps the most powerful lobbying group in my home state. If they wanted to push the reforms that Weingarten favors through the legislature, they could do it this year. They could have done it last year. And they could have done it ten years ago, when I was a local newspaper reporter who knew perfectly well that it was all but impossible to fire bad teachers.
What do I mean when I say all but impossible? If you're from another state, you might be surprised to learn that I'm scarcely exaggerating. This may be the most jaw-dropping case:
A teacher charged with 23 counts of lewd conductin his classroom
Firing Bad Teachers: A Superintendent and a Teacher's Union Official Debate - Conor Friedersdorf - The Atlantic: