What’s Wrong with the Recent Court Decision for Teachers
BlueRobot / Foter / Creative Commons Attribution
By Jim Miller and Kelly Mayhew
Last week’s decision in the Vergara v. the State of California lawsuit that undermined tenure and seniority rights was a profound slap in the face to teachers who have committed their careers to improving the lives of our children. It was yet another significant victory for those who are seeking to impose corporate education reforms by pitting teachers against children in a cynical, destructive, and utterly counterproductive fashion.
As tenured professors in the community college system, union members, and parents of a child in California’s public school system, we have a unique perspective on this matter. Although the “Vergara” decision has no effect on our jobs at San Diego City College, it does affect the professional lives of the educators who teach our son and it will do them, and him, more harm than good.
We have had our kid happily ensconced at a tremendous place–McKinley Elementary School in North Park. This is a traditional neighborhood school that has a staff of devoted, loving, highly skilled professionals, many of whom have dedicated most of their careers to this place.
Our son is terribly sad at the end of every spring when he has to move on to the next grade level and leave his teacher behind. We couldn’t ask for a better school for him. We don’t want to make it easier to fire his teachers, we want to thank them for the fine work that they do. It has helped our son grow and prosper.
Pitting our child against his teachers, as the “Vergara” lawsuit seeks to do, is a fool’s errand. It destroys any sense of community in our schools and heaps scorn on the very people we all want to trust with our children’s futures. The interests of teachers and students are not diametrically What’s Wrong with the Recent Court Decision for Teachers: