John Deasy, superintendent of the Los Angeles public schools, testified that it was outrageously expensive and time-consuming to fire a tenured teachers, but also acknowledged that good administrators don’t grant due process rights to ineffective teachers. Further, he took pride in the number of teachers to whom he denied tenure as well as the number he removed.

Categories Los Angeles, Teacher Tenure

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James Clark says:

February 3, 2014 at 1:30 am

Isn’t due process part of defining who ineffective, and who is not…? Isn’t that like saying if your principal doesn’t like you then you are ineffective…? Maybe they have a check box that says “Failure to be obsequious in the presence of an administrator,” on the LASD evaluation forms…

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- Robert D. Shepherd says:
  
  February 3, 2014 at 4:02 am
  
  Maybe they have a check box that says “Failure to be obsequious in the presence of an administrator,” on the LASD evaluation forms.
  
  Yes, that’s what it will all come down to if tenure is abolished.
  
  Reply
  - Duane Swacker says:
    
    February 3, 2014 at 6:14 am
    
    Robert,
    
    Friendly reminder. We do not have tenure! We have due process rights that are rigged in favor of administration. No tenure. We need to change the discourse/vocabulary usage on this one.
  - Jack says:
    
    February 3, 2014 at 9:09 am
    
    Here are some other good articles on Vergara:
    
    First, by David Cohen:
    
    Education Policy via Litigation
    
    or this one — “Eight Problems with the Vergara Lawsuit” :
    
    Eight Problems with the Vergara Lawsuit
    
    or another, longer article by Thompson:
    
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-thompson/why-a-nice-philanthropist_b_4598322.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications
    
    or this from Gary Ravani
    
    http://edsource.org/today/2014/declaring-war-on-teachers-rights-wont-improve-childrens-access-to-a-sound-education/56538#.Uu8aXvY7h2L
    
    And this from Bruce Baker which, while it doesn’t address Vergara by name, attacks the arguments behind Vergara:
    
    http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2013/10/09/notes-on-the-seniority-smokescreen/
    
    Here’s another good one from Lorraine Richards, one of our fellow union sisters in Montebello Teachers’ Association:
    
    http://www.sgvtribune.com/opinion/20140124/lawsuit-wrongly-targets-teachers-guest-commentary
    
    “Yet none of the statutes identified in Vergara are depriving students of anything, nor are they violating anyone’s constitutional rights. Years of chronic underfunding, devastating cuts and skyrocketing class sizes may very well be, but fortunately current increases to school funding are starting to turn things around.
    
    “But this lawsuit isn’t concerned with school funding, resources, class sizes, training or anything else actually proven to improve the quality of our schools. Instead it’s cynically attempting to use the state constitution as a weapon to strip away rights, rather than to protect them.
    
    “Stripping away rights and attacking teachers and labor is really what this is all about. The forces behind Vergara are some of the same corporate education ‘reformers’ who have spent the last decade blaming teachers, attacking unions and undermining public schools instead of addressing actual problems facing California students. Supporters of ‘Students Matter,’ the organization behind Vergara, are a Who’s Who of privatized charter and anti-union advocates, represented by a high wattage public relations firm tied to Wal-Mart.”
  - Robert D. Shepherd says:
    
    February 3, 2014 at 1:02 pm
    
    Yes, Duane. All too true. Instead of attempting to abolish this pathetic eunuch’s shadow of tenure, we should be created real tenure tracks on top of the ordinary due process that we have now.
    
    That’s what we would be doing if we really respected teachers and teaching.
Jack says:

February 3, 2014 at 1:57 am

In this lawsuit, the plaintiff’s are only nominally “parents”… the real plaintiffs are billionaires and money-motivated privatizers who are out to destroy our nation’s teachers.

This lawsuit has nothing, NOTHING, NUH-THING to do with providing children with high quality education, or high-quality teachers… that’s just the facade, and the puppet-masters pulling the string know this… they are trying to play the public and court system to advance their ignoble ends.

That’s not hyperbole. This is EXACTLY what is going on.

THESE PEOPLE WANT TO DESTROY THE TEACHING PROFESSION AND THE SYSTEM OF TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS—schools that are transparent to the “public”, that educate all the “public”, and that are accountable to the public via democratically-elected school boards.

Regarding the destruction of our profession, I first heard words to that effect two-and-a-half years ago at UTLA’s LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE (August 2011) in a speech delivered by Warren Fletcher, my current union president:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYWCpQgMWWQ

(go to 06:30)
———————————————-

WARREN FLETCHER, UTLA PRESIDENT:

“Well, I’ve been through a lot. In the past our reactions to each successive wave of bad educational ideas would have been what you might expect: ‘We’re professionals. We’ll do what’s best for the kids despite these bad policies. We’ll just get through this.’ That’s what professionals do!

“But the challenges we face today in Los Angeles are different. THE GOAL of the phony ‘reform’ movement IS NOT TO CHANGE YOUR JOB; IT’S TO ELIMINATE YOUR JOB.

“THEIR GOAL IS NOT TO CHANGE THE TEACHING PROFESSION; IT’S TO ABOLISH TEACHING AS A PROFESSION.

“Teachers are college educated professionals. You are not easily taken in. You see what the current school board majority is trying to do to your profession and to your students. I know that every one of you is ready to stand up and take this fight to the District, ready to take back our schools.

“You are not alone. Your union stands with you.

“We are public school teachers and we are proud of it!”

– – – – – – – –

Indeed, one of the goals of the “reformers”—a goal that goes hand-in-hand with overall privatization—is change teaching from…

————————————-

CATEGORY A … a profession with requires exacting education, extensive expertise, a demanding training period before actual practice… much like that of doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. … a career job that last decades…

and convert it to …

CATEGORY B… nothing more than a low-level service job that requires the most minimal education, almost no expertise, and little if any training period (just gimmicks from godawful books written by “experts” like Doug Lemov) … like fast food, retail sales at a store, janitorial, etc. … not a career job… and with no job protections, or due process for firing… a few years and out you go, to then be replaced by a next round of similarly poorly-compensated, short term workers…

—————————————–

CATEGORY B need only be paid a pittance and can be abused and over-worked with impunity, while CATEGORY A requires considerably more compensation. If the money-motivated privatizers are going to make a decent profit while taking over all or much of what is now public education, the the work force has to be the latter.

I remember talking to a TFA Corps Member at a school site, telling her that doctors, lawyers, and engineers need exacting education, extensive expertise, a demanding training period before actual practice… and so should teachers.

Her reply, “Yeah, but those are different from teaching; those are REAL professions.”

THUD! Sound of my jaw hitting the floor. (That’s part of what they’re taught during their five weeks of training… oy vey!!)

The other agenda is that corporations—including those not engaged in raping and pillaging of public educatin—and rich folk will have their taxes drastically cut as a result of all this. Those corporations will have higher profits, higher price for their stock, and happy stock-holders as a result. THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED IN CHILE… thanks to decades of the dictatorship there, and no democratic process to stop privatization.

That’s why the so-called “corporate reform” privatizers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars vilifying the current teachers and their unions—documentaries, movies, op-eds, foundations, etc. Those unions are getting in their way of their rampage towards profits. The privatizers desperately need to destroy the public’s faith and confidence in teachers, and pass so-called “right-to-work” laws that will destroy unions. They want to do to education what they did to the housing industry, and to Wall Street… education is the next realm to conquer, rape, and pillage. These are the same folks.

However, you’ll notice that in the schools that these well-heeled folks send their own kids, you have teachers with multiple degrees, decades of experience… schools that include full-time dedicated libraries / librarians, arts teachers/ program, music teachers / programs..

Unlike the McSchools they want for the kids of the middle and working classes, these schools have small class sizes, and no (or very little) time spent in a cubicle with on-line or digital teachers. 100% (or close to it) of their kids’ instructional time is spend with live teachers of CATEGORY A above, and because of the small class sizes—12-to-1, 10-to-1, that attention is often 1-on-1… again, totally unlike the McSchools they want for everyone else’s kids… those of the middle and lower-income communities.

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Jack says:

February 3, 2014 at 1:58 am

There’s one argument that the defendents’ lawyers can use.

The Vergara lawyers’ first and star witness—-LAUSD Superintedent John Deasy—made the incredible claim that there is no causal relationship between a child’s impoverished circumstances and that same child’s academic achievement. Presented with a Mount Everest of studies, statistics, and in depth analysis of the specific factors and mechanisms that support the claim that yes, Virginia, poverty does negatively impact a child’s academic outcomes.

“When Finberg asked Deasy if he agreed that other factors, such as family wealth and poverty, influence the success or failure of a student, Deasy said, ‘I believe the statistics correlate, but I don’t believe in causality (of poverty). ‘ ”

Deasy: Poverty Has No Causal Role in Low Performance

In essence, Deasy is laying 100% of the blame for any child from poverty not achieving on a par with their wealthier peers ON THE TEACHERS.

If only those lazy, LIFO unionized teachers at traditional public schools in poor communities would just stop holding back, step it up and bring their A-Game, those kids from homeless situations, foster care, etc. would be achieving on a level with the kids from Beverly Hills and Brentwood. Hence, we need to obliterate any and all job protections or due process rights currently held by those teachers in California.

Okay, John… that’s interesting… Again, ‘overty has no “causal relationship”, you say… ?

Well, John, what comprises “poverty”…? Would you agree that the two main factors are… wait for it, now… “Food and Shelter”… is that right?

Well, John, you recently spearheaded a billion dollar plan—a plan that was just put into effect out here in Los Angeles—known as “Breakfast in the Classroom”—which is exactly as its name indicates… the first 20-30 minutes of every day, the kids eat a breakfast paid for by this billion dollar plan.

On multiple occasions, John, you and other LAUSD district officials have touted the plan along the lines of … “It’s absolutely necessary for a all children, rich and poor, to be well and properly fed if that same child is to achieve academically.. blah-blah-blah… and ‘Breakfast in the Classroom’ is doing just that.. blah-blah-blah… ”

Whoa, whoa… hold it here. If the conditions of poverty—including one of its two primary conditions… “Food” of “Food and Shelter”—has no causal effect on a child’s ability to learn… why do you go around blathering about how the billion dollars spent on “Breakfast in the Classroom” that puts food in the mouths of impoverished students will…. IMPROVE ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF THOSE SAME CHILDREN????!!!!!

According to your “no causal factor” thinking, wouldn’t that billion dollars blown on Breakfast in the Classroom be just a big waste of money?

He’s off the stand, so maybe the lawyers fighting the “corporate reform” privatizers can put such questions to some of the other witnesses.

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- Charlotte Vrooman says:
  
  February 3, 2014 at 12:51 pm
  
  Breakfast in the Classroom is funded by the Walmart Foundation. The district actually receives millions of dollars to administrate the program. The district expects the breakfast to be distributed, consumed, and cleaned up in 10-15 minutes. Meanwhile the teacher is supposed to be instructing. Try that with a class of 5- and 6-year-olds and only one adult in the room. Oh yes, no student talking, and one small wipe to clean up the syrup for the pancakes off the desks. All this with an unannounced visit from the principal to see and evaluate how it’s going.
  
  Reply
Woof Thomsen says:

February 3, 2014 at 2:32 am

C’mon Jack…the breakfast in class made a good photo op when his contract
was being considered for renewal.

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Robert D. Shepherd says:

February 3, 2014 at 3:50 am

The oligarchy will not rest until its members can make whatever decisions they wish to make about the lives of others on their absolute and sole authority.

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Robert D. Shepherd says:

February 3, 2014 at 3:51 am

Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Remove tenure and what you have left is absolute power.

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Robert D. Shepherd says:

February 3, 2014 at 4:00 am

Remove tenure and an administrator can fire you

because he doesn’t like that you’ve been teaching evolution or had students read a piece that suggested that the Earth is more than 6,000 years old;

because some fundamentalist parent complained about your teaching “that pagan nature worshipper” Ralph Waldo Emerson or “that homosexual” Walt Whitman;

because you disagreed with him in a staff meeting, in front of others, about what sort of questions to ask during guided reading, and his feelings were hurt;

because you insist on teaching The Grapes of Wrath, which he thinks of as some sort of Communist Manifesto;

because you insist on teaching Adam Smith, and the administrator is a Socialist who thinks of Adam Smith as the grandfather of Capitalism;

because you voted for a candidate that the administrator didn’t like;

because you posted on Diane Ravitch’s blog;

because students like you more than they like your department chairperson, and your department chairperson is piqued;

because the administrator wants to give your job to his mistress. . . .

That’s the sort of thing that happens, all the time, when teachers are denied due process.

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Ron Lapekas says:

February 3, 2014 at 5:44 am

LAUSD’s practice is to allege that every act is “immoral” in order to trigger Cal. Ed. Code section 44939 and to invoke an exception to UTLA representation. 44939 provides for summary suspension, which the Board interprets as suspension without pay and benefits. Prior to taking this vicious step, LAUSD offers teachers a “choice”: Resign and LAUSD will give a “neutral” evaluation; prove your innocence and immediately suffer the consequences of loss of pay and benefits and try to find an attorney who will spend hundreds of hours to defend you.
Significantly, the Office of Administrative Hearings has denied 6 motions challenging the imposition of suspension without pay and without a fair hearing before a reasonably impartial person. Indeed, the OAH excuses the lack of a hearing by ruling that the “Skelly hearing” is the hearing at the OAH. The OAH sees no irony in holding that the PRE-discipline hearing required by Skelly v. State Personnel Board is taking place AFTER discipline has been imposed.
LAUSD also violates Ed Code sections 44934 and 44939 in every case I have reviewed going back as far as 2004 by NEVER submitting a statement of charges to the Board that complies with an unusually direct and unambiguous legislative command: “upon written charges duly signed and verified by the person making them ….” It has only been within the past several months that LAUSD has even purported to comply by stating that “the undersigned verifies on information and belief….” Any first semester law student knows that such a statement lacks both elements of a verified declaration: it is not made under penalty of perjury and it does not allege personal knowledge.
I have used the analogy of an innocent defendant offered the choice of life without parole or take the chance of the death penalty. Unfortunately, juries make mistakes — as do administrators, arbitrators, judges, and panels. In Illinois, 17 people on death row have been found to be factually innocent of the crime for which they are facing the death penalty and released after years of imprisonment.
The only clients I represent are teachers I believe to be factually innocent of any charge sufficient to sustain a dismissal. I am currently challenging the constitutionality of LAUSD’s use of 44939 to summarily suspend pay AND BENEFITS without a hearing.
By the way … I have “unretired”, travel from my home in Tennessee to California to make appearances, and have spent more than $60,000 of my own money anticipating that my clients will prevail in a civil rights action. However, the union refuses to pay any part of the cost of pursuing these cases that will benefit every UTLA member because it will pay legal expenses to only one firm. So much for “union solidarity”.

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Chiara Duggan says:

February 3, 2014 at 6:41 am

Does anyone still buy that ed reform is about education? Talk about “mission drift”. At this point “the adults” have left “the kids” so far behind they’ll never get back.

It’s amusing to watch, because that’s the ed reform rap on public school teachers, right? That all you care about is pensions and pay scales?

StudentsFirst had an op ed in the Toledo Blade yesterday. You know what was missing from it? Students.

Someone should tell the wanna-be MBA’s who are running this thing that their laser-like focus on middle class worker union-busting seems to have distracted them from their customer service mission.

How are kids in public schools doing under ed reform leadership? The public schools they were handed, unearned, when they walked in the door? How’s that going? Not looking good for public schools in this state, although we’re absolutely inundated with anti-pension and anti-collective bargaining lobbyists. Didn’t we have enough paid anti-union lobbyists without inventing a whole new edu-sector in that line of work?

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  February 3, 2014 at 8:44 am
  
  Chiara,
  
  I like that you keep pursuing the “How are kids in public schools doing under ed reform leadership?” aspect of all these educational malpractices. It’s an important point. Thanks for reminding us!!
  
  Reply
wgersen says:

February 3, 2014 at 6:54 am

It is unfortunate that Mr. Deasy “took pride” in non-renewing teachers who were not on continuing contract. But Deasy’s ability to non-renew teachers that his administrators see as deficient is evidence that NO change is needed to the CA “tenure” laws. Assertive and thoughtful non-renewal practices will eventually eliminate mediocrity in a school district and reinforce the values administrators and school boards seek in their district.

As one who led school districts for 29 years, I cannot under-emphasize the importance of administrators and school boards having some means of judging a novice teacher’s ability in the classroom before determining if they are worthy of receiving a continuing contract. There is a substantial difference between student teaching and assuming full responsibility for a classroom and some teachers cannot make the leap. Good teachers possess qualities that cannot be determined in screening interviews and recommendation forms, and in the best school districts those qualities are NOT obsequiousness or compliance. When a teacher is nominated for continuing contract, they are in effect receiving a 30 year contract. Administrators who nominate mediocre teachers for continuing employment are doing a dis-service to the profession. They are telling parents, other teachers in the school, and their community that their public schools are accepting mediocrity.

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Chiara Duggan says:

February 3, 2014 at 6:58 am

Where’s Arne Duncan on this? Let me guess. He wishes we would just focus on “great schools” and stop with all this extraneous, distracting talk about the concerted, well-funded, organized effort within the ed reform “movement” he is leading to gut employee rights and lower middle class wages.

Has Duncan ever publicly defied any of the big movers and shakers in the ed reform/anti-labor movement? He’s always telling us how courageous he is. Here’s his opportunity to stand up to people who have actual power; the funders of this lawsuit. He’s real brave when he’s shaking his finger at teachers, parents and students. Let’s see if he can stand up to a billionaire and the billionaire’s politically-connected DC lawyer.

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- Linda says:
  
  February 3, 2014 at 7:20 am
  
  Actually this is one of those situations when Dumbkin says it’s a local issue and we don’t get involved.
  
  Reply
Chiara Duggan says:

February 3, 2014 at 7:16 am

This is about executives at federal contractors but I think it’s also applicable to privatized schools:

“Applying a maximum-wage limit to government contractors not only would result in smaller taxpayer subsidies for the top 1 percent but would also lead to more efficient and effective pricing and services from companies truly interested in serving the public instead of soaking the taxpayer. Companies that put service above executive compensation would also pay employees much better.”

How about this? Are ed reformers on board? They’re hugely concerned about lowering wages and gutting protections for public sector employees. How about setting a cap on the salary of the execs at K12? They’re a government contractor. What are the execs at Rocketship making? They’re a government contractor. Let’s cap that. Maybe they can then pay their employees more than 15 dollars an hour.

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GST says:

February 3, 2014 at 10:01 am

Interesting that one of Vergara’s attorneys is Ted Olson, famous for convincing the Supreme Court to overrule California’s Prop 8 which banned same-sex marriage. He argued vigorously then that it is wrong to deny equal protection and due process, and thereby demean for no good reason, to any group of responsible and productive members of the community. Yet today he argues for demeaning a whole class of professionals and denying them due process for no good reason. Money talks, I guess.

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susannunes says:

February 3, 2014 at 12:07 pm

It’s not “outrageously expensive” to “fire” teachers unless you include resignations in lieu of dismissals in the mix with the severance packages. Almost ALL teachers targeted by administrators, usually not justified, take the resignations thinking it is better than going through the free–to teachers–hearings and having the “dismissals” upheld, which hearing officers almost always do (they don’t have to follow the law because it is nearly impossible to appeal the awards). It doesn’t matter, however, since job applications invariably ask if you ever resigned in lieu of dismissal or were forced to resign, and other school districts can merely call the previous school districts HR department and find out if the teacher is eligible for rehire.

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- susannunes says:
  
  February 3, 2014 at 12:09 pm
  
  It’s only “time-consuming” because of the scheduling with the arbitrators. My “time-consuming” hearing, a total farce in Nevada, was only about three hours, and the district had NO case at all against me after my last principal totally screwed up. They just threw every piece of garbage hoping something would stick, but I am certain the arbitrator and the district had already arranged the outcome in order to protect two lousy administrators.
  
  Reply
Duane Swacker says:

February 3, 2014 at 3:33 pm

“Deasy testifies on both sides of tenure (sic) lawsuit”

Does that mean that he is testifying out of both sides of his mout?

At the same time?

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decollins1969 says:

February 4, 2014 at 8:43 am

I’ve met Deasy, when he was at Gates Foundation, about a month before he took the LAUSD job in 2011. He was a duplicitous douche then, and apparently is one now. He’s carved a path of destruction from Prince George’s County Public Schools (Maryland) to Gates to LA, all really in the name of Deasy and dollars.

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- Charlotte Vrooman says:
  
  February 4, 2014 at 1:13 pm
  
  You mean you met him face-to-face and survived the “death ray” stare?
  
  Reply
  - decollins1969 says:
    
    February 4, 2014 at 3:45 pm
    
    I never saw his stares as “death ray,” but more like a technocrat presenting himself as an open-minded eccentric (kinda like what Bill Gates has been doing publicly for years).
willis737 says:

February 4, 2014 at 7:17 pm

The wisdom in good leadership is that your hiring practices directly affect the quality of teacher you select. Sounds like Deasy doesn’t know how to select. Having to “non renew” too many teachers shows leadership deficit. How about his taking the hit for that. True leaders take none of the credit and all of the blame. But wait, that was in the good old days, right?

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- Charlotte Vrooman says:
  
  February 4, 2014 at 8:02 pm
  
  The district had hundreds of qualified teachers who had been laid off during the budget crisis whom they could have called back, but they chose to hire inexperienced and TFA teachers instead. Penny wise and pound foolish.
  
  Reply