Students file lawsuit challenging teacher tenure

In the Vergara v. California case, a group of California students are battling to get particular tenure laws that can overprotect teachers repealed, therefore making it harder for new, and possibly better suited, teachers to land such positions. If inadequate teachers are kept, students may not be able to receive their deserved education, which may also discourage students from pursuing a career in education. However, this is not to say protective measures should be removed, as the tenure system provides important guarantees and due process protections for competent teachers. Instead, there should be a change in the system so that proficient and capable teachers remain while unqualified teachers are removed without undue delays.
“It is really important to have a good teacher who wants to be there and understands what is going on in the classroom,” math teacher Michelle Slattery said. “At younger ages it is even more important since many middle school teachers come from an elementary background and they do not necessarily know the background behind the subject that they are teaching. Having a teacher with a good core base and a passion for teaching is essential for education.”
The Vergara v. California lawsuit was first brought to court by StudentMatters, an education advocacy nonprofit organization. According to its website, StudentMatters is trying to strike down three laws that it believes are the reasons that keep underperforming teachers in schools. The first law, the Permanent Employment Statute, makes it mandatory for administrators to approve or deny permanent employment to teachers by mid-March of their second year. The second law, the Dismissal Statute, makes dismissing a single ineffective teacher a complicated, expensive process, filled with years of performance reviews, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of legal fees, all without certainty that the teacher will be dismissed. StudentMatters argued that this law cheats underprivileged schools, because school districts will just move ineffective teachers to schools with a high number of low-income students, because firing these teachers can be too exhausting. The third law, Last-In, First-Out (LIFO) Statute, forces districts to decide their layoffs by seniority, rather than competency.
The original court case was decided on June 10, 2014, with the court ruling in favor of the StudentMatters. The judge ruled that the two-year period to offer tenure protection is too short, but the case was appealed by the State of California and the California Teachers Association and is being brought to the Court of Appeals.
“I think it is unfair how these [bad] teachers stay in the school system and do not give us a good education, and we do not get any new teachers,” sophomore Joey Tsang said. “As students, we prefer fresh new teachers with a passion for teaching opposed to teachers who are just waiting for retirement.”
On the other hand, the tenure system came as a critical piece of protection for teachers to keep them free from dismissal based on unfair reasons, such as political ones. The National Education Association stated that this system has repeatedly given a safeguard for teachers during times when political agendas could have endangered teacher employment, such as during World War I or the Civil Rights Movement. A tenure system is critical for the protection of competent and effective teachers.
“Tenure protects older teachers from being let go during economic uncertainty. Without it, many districts would fire older teachers when money is short in favor of young, cheaper labor,” Palos Verdes Faculty Association bargaining chair Tim Coleman said. “Tenure does not prevent a teacher from being fired if the need arises, but it does give teachers a modicum of protection from wrongful termination.”
Thus, the problem is not the existence of the tenure system but parts of the protection laws that keep underqualified, incompetent teachers in schools.
“I had no idea that this case was happening, but I am happy to see that students are taking a stand to get bad teachers out of the teaching system,” senior Deana Chae said. “I hope that by the time that I become a teacher, I will get the same opportunity as older teachers to show how willing I am to educate the next generation of students, instead of being laid off because I am new.”