Jesse Rothstein, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley, tested for the defense in the Vergara trial.

In this article in the New York Times, Rothstein contends that the elimination of tenure–the goal of the multi-millionaire (or billionaire) behind the lawsuit–might make it more difficult to recruit teachers for schools that enroll poor and minority children.

Judge Rof Treu compared his ruling to earlier cases about desegregation and funding, trying to portray himself as a champion of “civil rights.” But, Rothstein writes:

“…there is a difference between recognizing students’ rights to integrated, adequately funded schools and Judge Treu’s conclusion that teacher employment protections are unconstitutional.

“The issue is balance. Few would suggest that too much integration or too much funding hurts disadvantaged students. By contrast, decisions about firing teachers are inherently about trade-offs: It is important to dismiss ineffective teachers, but also to attract and retain effective teachers….In fact, eliminating tenure will do little to address the real barriers to effective teaching in impoverished schools, and may even make them worse.”

In his own research, he found that “…firing bad teachers actually makes it harder to recruit new good ones, since new teachers don’t know which type they will be. That risk must be offset with higher salaries — but that in turn could force increases in class size that themselves harm student achievement.”

He concludes:

“The lack of effective teachers in impoverished schools contributes to [the achievement] gap, but tenure isn’t the cause. Teaching in those schools is a hard job, and many teachers prefer (slightly) easier jobs in less troubled settings. That leads to high turnover and difficulty in filling positions. Left with a dwindling pool of teachers, principals are unlikely to dismiss them, whether they have tenure or not…..Attacking tenure as a protection racket for ineffective teachers makes for good headlines. But it does little to close the achievement gap, and risks compounding the problem.”