Vergara Decision Is Latest Attempt to Blame Teachers and Weaken Public Education
Judge Rolf M. Treu, who decided the Vergara case, declared that he was shocked -- shocked! -- to learn from Professor Raj Chetty and Professor Thomas Kane of Harvard about the enormous harm that one "grossly ineffective" teacher can do to a child's lifetime earnings or to their academic gains.
How did he define "grossly ineffective" teacher? He didn't. How did these dreadful teachers get tenure? Clearly, some grossly incompetent principal must have granted it to them. What was the basis -- factual or theoretical -- that the students would have had high scores if their teachers did not have the right to due process? He didn't say.
The theory behind the case -- as I see it -- is that low test scores are caused by bad teachers. Get rid of the bad teachers, replace them with average teachers, and all students will get high test scores. You might call it the judicial version of No Child Left Behind -- that is, pull the right policy levers -- say, testing and accountability, or eliminate tenure -- and every single child in America will be proficient by 2014. Congress should hang its collective head in shame for having passed that ridiculous law, yet it still sits on the books as the scorned, ineffective, toxic law of the land.
Judge Treu was also regurgitating the unproven claims behind Race to the Top, specifically that using test scores to evaluate teachers will make it possible to weed out "bad teachers," recruit and reward top teachers, and test scores will rise to the top. Given this theory, a concept like tenure (due process) slows down the effort to fire those "grossly ineffective" teachers and delays the day when every student is proficient.
Relying on Chetty and Kane, Judge Treu is quite certain that the theory of universal proficiency is correct. Thus, in his thinking, it becomes a matter of urgency -- a civil rights issue -- to eliminate tenure and any other legal protection for teachers, leaving principals free to fire them promptly, without delay or hindrance.
Set aside for the moment that this decision lacks any evidentiary basis. Another judge might have heard the same parade of witnesses and reached a different conclusion.
Bear in mind that the case will be appealed to a higher court, and will continue to be appealed until there is no higher court.
It is not unreasonable to believe that the California Teachers Association might negotiate a different tenure process with the legislature, perhaps a requirement of three years probationary status instead of two.
The one thing that does seem certain is that, contrary to the victory claims of hedge fund managers and right-wing editorial writers, no student will gain anything as a result of this decision. Millions more dollars will be spent to litigate the issues in Vergara Decision Is Latest Attempt to Blame Teachers and Weaken Public Education | Diane Ravitch: