NEWS RELEASE September 16, 2015
Contacts: For CFT: Fred Glass, (510) 579-3343
For CTA: Frank Wells, (562) 708-5425
For Information on the Civil Rights Groups Brief:
Jennifer Bezoza or Candice Francis, (415) 543-9697, ext. 232
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Civil Rights Groups, Researchers, Legal Scholars, and Top Educators
Urge Reversal of Deeply Flawed Vergara Ruling
Amicus “Friend of the Court” Briefs Filed Today Spotlight Harm to Students and Failings of Decision
LOS ANGELES — Some of the nation’s top legal scholars, education policy experts, civil rights advocates, award-winning teachers, school board members and administrators filed five amici curiae, or “friend of the court,” briefs with the California Court of Appeal today. The filings shine a spotlight on the numerous and major flaws that would harm students in last year’s decision striking down important due process rights for California educators, as well as other laws governing hiring and layoffs of state educators. The briefs strongly criticize the Vergara ruling on both legal and policy grounds, urging that the decision be reversed.
Prominent civil rights organizations including the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, Equal Justice Society, Education Law Center, Southern Poverty Law Center, and Advancing Justice-LA filed powerful briefs. These organizations argued that a lack of adequate funding, and certainly not the challenged statutes, is the primary cause of educational inequity, and that in order to close the achievement gap, disadvantaged schools and students must have the support and resources they need to succeed. Arguing that money and race influence competition for qualified teachers and the ability of districts to enact proven reforms like smaller class sizes, the organizations urged the Court to reverse the “…plaintiffs’ attempt to lay blame at the feet of the tenure system for disparities that are the product of other factors, including chronically inadequate funding for education.”
Some of California’s most-honored teachers—including 2012 National Teacher of the Year Rebecca Mieliwocki, and 2014 California Teacher of the Year and national nominee Timothy Smith—wrote of the importance of due process and how these laws ensure they are able to teach without fear of discriminatory, politically-motivated, or baseless termination, and how the laws support the risk-taking often necessary to be an outstanding teacher. They also stressed how striking down the challenged statutes would likely worsen teacher turnover in already disadvantaged school districts. The educators were joined in their brief by the American Association of University Professors, the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, and the Korematsu Center for Law & Equality.
More than ninety top national education researchers and scholars, including Diane Ravitch, Richard Ingersoll and Eva Baker, took the decision to task for failing to establish any causal link between the challenged statutes and any alleged problems the suit purports to address. These experts argued that current laws play a key role in the recruitment and retention of quality teachers, in a job market where teaching is unfortunately often becoming less and less attractive as a career option for university students. The researchers were also highly critical of the plaintiffs’ proposal to rely on standardized test scores and the “value-added method (VAM)” of interpreting those scores as the major criteria for teacher layoffs due to budget cuts. “VAM scores have been shown to be unstable and to fluctuate dramatically from year to year, so that a teacher could appear very ineffective one year and then very effective the next,” they wrote. “The trial court ultimately failed to consider the possibility that relying solely on VAMs as a way to administer reductions-in-force could drive teachers away from the profession and exacerbate the teacher shortage.”
Past and present school board members, as well as school administrators, filed a brief that argued making teaching a more attractive profession is in the best interest of students. Vergara would make teaching a less desirable profession and would exacerbate a growing teacher scarcity, especially in light of the fact that it is just one among many ongoing orchestrated attacks on educators. Among supporters of the appeal were Kevin Beiser, board member of the San Diego Unified School District; Joan Buchanan, former state lawmaker and trustee of the San Ramon Valley Unified School District; and Steve Zimmer, board president of the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Perhaps most devastating to the decision was the brief by some of the top legal scholars in the country, among them Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Catherine Fisk of UC Irvine Law School, Charles Ogletree of Harvard Law School, and Pam Karlan of Stanford Law School. These experts said there was simply no basis in the law for finding the challenged statutes unconstitutional or that any causal link had been demonstrated between the statutes and a diminished education for any student. They argued that striking down the statutes could in fact make things worse for students. They wrote, “In this case, the trial court substituted its judgment about desirable education policy and the best way to improve education for students without regard to the harms its policy choice might cause and without regard to the evidence or the law about the cause of educational inequities and the likelihood that the court’s injunction would redress it. The trial court exceeded its role in our constitutional system and its ruling must be reversed.”
Attorney General Kamala Harris, representing the State of California as defendant; and the intervening parties, California Teachers Association and California Federation of Teachers, had filed separate appeal briefs earlier this summer. The amici curiae briefs filed today, as well as a complete list of signatories, can be seen here.
Thrilled to see the Southern Poverty Law Center has signed on. When they have called for money, I was always sure to mention the disappearance of our public schools. So thankful they are joining the movement. Will continue to donate to them.
I’m with you. I visited Montgomery and expected to see more civil rights history from the state. Most of what they have is from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Morris Dees was/is a great organizer for good. I first joined SPLC at its inception in 1978 and have often used World of Difference to teach both professional mediators and public school students.
However, if the same judge who made the outrageous and biased ruling originally, and based his ruling on the admittedly contrived statistical testimony of two experts, hears this case again, it will be an exercise in futility. If the case continues from the Appeals Court to SCOTUS, it is also a worry with the FIXED FIVE who will surely rule in favor of the billionaires…not public education.
Here’s a story for some of these folks.
The shortage is real. The need for good teachers is real. Our school systems, in their current state, are hurting our kids – especially city schools. Last year, many of our urban students didn’t have a certified teacher the entire year for their mathematics course. What happened to these kids? They didn’t earn credit and have to take the course again this year. Thankfully they have a teacher this year. Also, I quit teaching last year and my position at the school I worked at is still not filled, even though school has started. I had students emailing me asking for materials. My position isn’t the only one still not filled.
These positions would be filled if teaching were a respectable profession and if the pay was competitive.
And of course I don’t mean all public schools. There are still many great ones.
This is failure by design so Eli can swoop in and privatize.
Sad. I hope to see some good changes soon, for the sake of our kids.
I hate to be such a traditionalist, but didn’t we already try this with public schools and it ended up a giant mess where people got and kept teaching jobs based on political connections and nepotism and God knows what else?
Wasn’t the whole point of introducing “due process” into these decisions so we’d have some orderly, consistent, predictable rules where everyone was treated the same and that was to reduce the influence of bias- subjective decisions based on something other than merit? I mean, a few come to mind- there’s race and gender and age and also just not being very politically connected or having unpopular opinions or political views. Those come into hiring and firing. That’s happened.
They might want to watch the ‘ol baby/bathwater with this one.
This could be a case of giving reformers enough rope so that they hang themselves.
Judge Treu used the WRONG standard of review- he used “strict scrutiny” review when he should’ve used “rational basis” review! for the laws at issue! Which teacher gets assigned to which classrooms is an assignment issue completed unrelated in any way shape or form to educational inequity or the statutes at issue, as so many have eloquently described in the briefs. I was outraged when I read the ruling…a clear abuse by this judge..it must be reversed..and further this Judge does not seem fit to serve. A judge must always use the appropriate standard of review for judging constitutionality of statutes and never allow personal beliefs to interfere with the law!! This ruling really upset me. So happy to see others speak up against this ruling..it was simply wrong in so many ways!! Every law in the book would get struck down if a judge didn’t like it for political reasons and used strict scrutiny review every time..it is an extremely hard review to overcome and must only be used when a clear relationship exists between the law under review and discrimination..not some tenuous speculation…discriminatory intent or discriminatory impact…none here…more experienced teachers can be assigned to low income schools…and most importantly and usually not mentioned is that integration not segregation is the law of the land..and must be a priority…too many folks are just accepting the horrible increase in segregation…it must STOP NOW!! Integrate integrate integrate…follow Brown v BD of ED ruling NOW!! Segregation is wrong morally, ethically and legally!! Let’s fight segregation at every juncture!!
Thank you Kathy, for clarifying this case and the hugely flawed Treu decision. Fortunately our Governor also saw this abuse, and he and CTA sent it back on appeal. But it is not only about due process and segregation, it is about destroying teachers unions, and eventually all unions in the US.
Judge Treu is both a far-right ideologue—the type that hates anything with the words “public” or “union”, and any organization that is overwhelmingly female—and astonishingly obtuse.
I look forward to this absolutely awful decision of his being tossed out by the very next court that reviews it—and I expect that those judges will try not to laugh out loud when picking apart the idiotic and politically biased “logic” of this guy named “Treu”.
The name is very ironic/funny.
“Treu: German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): nickname for a trustworthy person, from late Middle High German triuwe ‘loyal’, German treu.”
VERY happy indeed to hear about the forces lining up against this absolutely abysmal ruling.
Why was this one lower court judge, acting clearly from a politically motivated and ideologically driven agenda, allowed to have such power and influence to disrupt and disturb the functioning of our public schools?
I hope, and expect, that this egregious and biased decision is overturned on appeal, similar to the very big victory achieved by opponents of charter “schools” when the Washington Supreme Court voted 6 to 3 that charters are unconstitutional.
It’s clear that this pushback against charters is resonating loudly among charter opponents and supporters alike, albeit for very different reasons.
I think it will be seen as “The Ruling Heard ‘Round The Nation” and the beginning of the end of the awful era of privatization!
Billionaires Broad and Welch (and their sheltered Students Matter) shopped for a long time not only for the nurtured plaintiffs, but also for the venue in which to file the lawsuit. They chose central Ca., a red area of this blue state, because it meant they could get a Right leaning judge, and not a sharp one at that. And it followed as the night, the day, it worked in their favor.
Whoa. It is sure time.
I wrote about the civil-rights of teachers a decade ago, and it was re-posted in 2011, so it is about time.
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
Lenny Isenberg wrote about it and had this to say, in2014
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/06/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
“Contrary to what was asserted in 2010 with the Reed vs. State of California case, and now with the Vergara vs. State of California case, cutting the budget by attacking tenured teachers at the top of the salary scale is the real motive of both the plaintiffs and the defendants in these put up cases that are anything but adversarial as actually required by law. The well-being of students and their constitutional right to an education has nothing to do with why teacher tenure and seniority are under attack. Corporate interests have gotten behind these two cases with collusive lawsuits against the State of California and the Los Angeles Unified School District as defendants, when these defendants actually share the plaintiffs desire to destroy a professional and fairly compensated teaching force solely for the motive of profit to more and more hedge fund run charters and the further dumbing down of our future electorate, so the average citizen will not have enough of an education to meaningfully comprehend just how badly they are being screwed.
“If “teacher quality and effectiveness” as well as having the best education for students in “high-poverty and high-minority” areas that have not done well in the past was really the issue, insuring an environment of reasonable discipline, while finally eliminating destabilizing social promotion would have been implemented long ago. Most poor and minority students enter LAUSD behind and are never brought up to grade-level in a timely manner, which becomes more impossible as years go by. Inner-city predominantly poor and minority filled schools- LAUSD is 90% Latino and Black- are not just bad for the students, they are toxic for any serious teacher not willing to go along with the complete lack of rigor mindlessly enforced by entrenched LAUSD administration. No secondary single-subject credentialed teacher- whatever their level of seniority- can be expected to teach humiliated students that LAUSD administration continues to put in classes years beyond their objective ability. Clearly this is the recipe for the disaster that LAUSD continues to be, which has nothing to do with teacher seniority.
“The reason that schools like Liechty, Gompers, and Markham Middle Schools, mentioned in the Reed case, were so adversely impacted when it came to loss of predominantly novice teaching staff, was because any teacher with enough seniority wouldn’t be caught dead in a school where there was no support for excellence in education that the plaintiffs in the aforementioned cases supposedly so desperately claim they want in their lawsuit. Any teacher who insists on excellence and has the teaching skill to do it has been systematically targeted over the last 5 years, brought up on fabricated charges, and removed or forced into early retirement.
“Both Reed and Vergara purposefully ignore the context in which seniority-based reductions take place. No mention is made of excellent teachers being completely undermined in a system that values Average Daily Attendance (ADA) payments from the State more than whether the students are actually learning something of value in a timely manner. The fact that 55% of Roosevelt High School students have quit school before ever reaching the 12th grade and that only 30% of the graduating class has the A-G requirements necessary to get them into the University of California schools says it all, but is conveniently ignored in Vergara.
“What is the financial and pedagogic cost of 50% of new teachers quitting LAUSD within their first 5 years of teaching? Why are they quitting? What’s the cost of having to constantly replace that level of attrition to a cash strapped public education system? If the students were really the concern in Reed and Vergara, wouldn’t some of those behind the financing of Reed and Vergara have found more fertile ground in trying to find out why so many initially dedicated teachers leave the profession like they are abandoning a sinking ship. But, alas, one would have to look at those running LAUSD into the ground, instead of scapegoating teachers, while their inept union United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) sits by and does nothing.
“And finally, none of this scam would be possible without the complete complicity of the mainstream and public media, who are owned by some of the same players trying to privatize public education with charters. Supposed charitable trusts like Eli Broad, Bill Gates, and the Waltons control subsidized NPR to the point where NPR will report nothing to contradict what Professor Diane Ravitch calls “the dominant narrative of bad teachers and great charters. What is ultimately at stake is allowing 40% of the state supplied public school budget to go for “charter administration costs,” while allowing the further dumbing down of our future citizens. Check out the following very typical stenographic “news” report of Elex Michaelson of KABC that merely parrots Broad Academy party line”
I’ve been waiting for this. Good.
7 years into the Obama Administration and only after Congressional Democrats were absolutely sure there was no chance of passage, Democrats introduce their first pro-labor bill of the last decade:
“The bill, called the Workplace Action for a Growing Economy (WAGE) Act, would do so by amending the National Labor Relations Act, the bedrock Great Depression-era law that set the boundaries for collective bargaining. The Democratic proposal would triple the amount of back pay that workers are owed when their employers fire them for what’s known as protected concerted activity. It would also give workers the right to pursue damages in federal court, just like those who’ve been discriminated against over their race or gender.”
It must be that time in the cycle when they remember they need labor union donations and rank and file support in elections. I certainly hope no actual, working labor union member is fooled by this. I doubt they will be.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/democrats-labor-civil-rights_55f98fb7e4b0e333e54c14ae
For me, seeing LAUSD Board Pres Steve Zimmer listed on the appeal side was the most inspiring part of this post. Thank you for your work on this pivotal case, Dr. Ravitch!