In a much-awaited decision, Governor Jerry Brown has appealed the Vergara decision.
LOS ANGELES (CBS / AP) — Gov. Jerry Brown appealed a court ruling that struck down tenure and other job protections for California’s teachers, setting himself apart from leaders in some other states who have fought to end such protections or at least raise the standards for obtaining them.
Attorney General Kamala Harris filed the appeal late Friday in a Los Angeles County court on behalf of the governor and the state.
The move came a day after Superior Court Judge Rulf Treu finalized his June ruling that found five laws violated the California Constitution by depriving some of the state’s 6.2 million students of a quality education. He’d earlier said the system “shocks the conscience.”
The governor’s one-page notice of appeal said that under the state’s constitution “the important issues presented in this case — if they are to have statewide legal impact — must be reviewed by a higher court, either the Court of Appeal or the Supreme Court of California.”
It says that for reasons that are “unclear and unexplained” actual school districts were dismissed as parties to the lawsuit before trial, meaning the court’s decision “applies only to parties that have no role or duties under the challenged lawsuits.”
It also criticizes Treu for failing to provide details on the legal basis for his reasoning, and simply making his tentative decision final instead of elaborating and expanding on in the ruling that was affirmed Thursday.
Republicans had urged state leaders not to appeal the ruling and criticized his decision to do so Friday.
“A federal court ruled that the State of California is depriving minority children their constitutionally guaranteed right to an equal education and the governor decides to appeal? Unbelievable,” Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, said in a written response.
California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson had asked the attorney general for the appeal earlier Friday because he lacked the legal authority.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We’re not so lucky in Illinois, where Governor Quinn (D) has Paul Vallas as a running mate.
Thank you,Governor Brown.
Democrats must know these ed reform governors are unpopular, but they don’t seem to care. They just double down on the policies and people who contributed to their unpopularity with the public.
Maybe there is so little difference between the two Parties the politicians LITERALLY don’t care. Vallas could work for Quinn or Rauner, and Quinn can go work for whatever set of contractors Rauner sells the state to when he wins.
We need an election cycle where corruption and capture of politicians is the issue. I wish my state had an anti-corruption candidate like Teachout in NY. She’s performing a public service as far as I’m concerned. We need one of her in every state and city.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/restorative-justice-for-3?source=c.em&r_by=11217269
http://credomobilize.com/p/LAUSDaudit
Here are two petitions calling for an external independent audit of LAUSD, and by extension, of Supt. Deasy.
Please sign both and send them on to all your lists, California, and nationwide.
These petitions were both drawn up by mainly educators and supporters of universal public education.
I signed both.
I signed the first one. I’ll look into the second. Thank you, Ellen. You are fierce and always appreciated.
Long, long ago in a primary presidential debate, when Jerry Brown was asked what he would do to improve public education, he answered that he would leave that up to the educators. He added that many of the problems found in schools weren’t actually caused by poor teaching, that the problems belonged to society… poverty, unsafe neighborhoods, poor health care for young children. Those, he said, are problems he would tackle, but the educational issues should be in the hands of educators. Loved him then. Love him now.
Thanks Erin for that. That is the kind of thinking that we need in our leaders in America today. Unfortunately, they are very few and far between. Hmmm, Brown and Teachout for President in 2016?
Maybe the pool of such candidates will grow as public sentiment changes.
I think Diane would especially agree with that. She REALLY believes this reform movement will fall apart.
Diane . . . . . . ?
Yes, Erin, and if we could conjure up more state and federal officials like Brown (who is not perfect. . . . he has not been as good as he could be with unions, but certainly better than others), then we would not have #^*&%!@ like Ryan, Boener, Bloomberg, Deasy, Cuomo, Obama, Perry, Emanual, Rhee, etc. . . . the list is endless of how many leaders do not stand up for the average person and will not address how the entire orientation of our society and higher level government creates, sustains, and grows poverty.
When we look at nations with low rates of poverty or high rates of it with high presences of social safety nets and social contracts, we see its citizens becoming educated very successfully. Maybe the economies there are not so robust, but the high level of education for the vast majority is not an issue the way it is here in the, plutocratic, impoverished United States, where we are now managing to turn off water in housing projects in Detroit.
Poverty is the biggest devil here, not educators. That’s never to say that we should not be teaching differently or without best practices or we should not be permanently questioning how we make our own excellence in teaching and professionalism a prime concern. It’s also not to say that we should not be running our schools with the utmost of efficiency and scrutiny upon the public tax dollar.
But such questioning is not the same thing as using poverty as an excuse to blame those who educate children or the children and their families.
I hope Governor Brown kicks the Governor’s Association in the balls swiftly and hard. Let them fall on the floor, metaphorically choking and coughing up blood. . . It’s the only language can understand.
Cx:
” It’s the only language they can understand. “
Jerry has made his share of mistakes. Haven’t we all? He has shown, however, over his LONG career in public service that his heart is with the People.
California was wise to elect him (again), but he is too old to consider founding a national movement. AND, as is fitting for our very best leaders, he is probably too modest to lead the significant disruption of our ‘status quo’ that will be required in order to re-institute democracy. Nevertheless, we need that charismatic voice. Is it E. Warren? Wendy Davis? Kucinich got shot down, but was that his fault?
Despite my previous paragraph, the change will only come from us. The ‘Leader’ will be our p.r. face (and, that will require skill, so we need to be careful in our selection). Until teachers recognize that their interests are the same as those of the ‘welfare queens’, that won’t happen; and our rulers (those at the very tippy-top of the economic food chain) will continue to devour our society.
I agree that we all have to become leaders, John. But Brown is not too old to add to the pool of leaders. Is Diane too old to do what she is doing? Not at all. Not in the least bit.
It’s a bit ageist to say that Brown is too old, but a charasmatic voice to spoonfeed the very damaged American people will always help . . . . .
Governor Brown has shown his cojones to the country.
I for one am very grateful to the governor and Torlakson as well. Maybe Teachout can do the same in NY state whether or not she becomes governor (keep your fingers crossed) and maybe Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren can join in. We need there to be a faction in this country showing dire opposition to most aspects of the reform movement, and it’s okay for their, among the ruling elites, to be a large, gaping schism, a veritable force of opposition.
There is too much bland, boring vanilla cooperation in the USA in D.C. on this issue. There needs to be an outright war.
No more Mister/Ms./Mrs. Niceguy/Goodgirl syndrom for anyone who si elected any more . . . . . .
“We need there to be a faction in this country showing dire opposition to most aspects of the reform movement”
Teachers need a way to legally opt out of all activities related to this educational malpractice (ESAE/NCLB/RTTT/APPR)
NY Teacher, may I please ask you to consider not putting teachers only in this pool? Administration is just as victimized in an LEA as teachers are.
I think we should start with not including test scores in APPR and protecting tenure, but along with that protection, we need to really educate the PUBLIC what tenure is what it’s not.
Let’s also get anyone in the education profession to partner with parents to lobby our officials to change the paradigm of school financing. Just ask Robert Reich, one of my heros. Most modern inustrialized countries on average have their public school budgets financed 50% to 54% from their fedearl tax dollars. By contrast, the fedearl governemtn here finances up to an average of 14% of a public school’s budget. So much else comes from local property taxes. There is everything egregiously wrong with that contrast.
From now on, pushback cannot be from teachers. It must be from teachers and parents and administrators working together in very intentional and orchestrated ways.
I suspect you may be a union representative in NY state, but try and look throught the lens, if you don’t already, of a broader, more universal effort outside the realm of the teacher.
I agree! I would add Parents and I would add CCSS to the malpractice.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
I’m a lousy typist. . .. Sorry.
It behooves me to take some coursework on typing skills, big time.
What modern industrialized countries are you talking about, that fund public education from mostly federal dollars? And I thought that federal funding/common core is what teachers DON’T want. If you wish Prop 30 in Calif. would go away, forget it. No politician is going to touch it, even for commercial property tax. Do you think that the US should take a more realistic approach to teachers’ pensions like they do in Europe? In the Netherlands they use a ZERO to 4% discount rate on the pension fund investments. Here in the US most STRS funds assume a Bernie Madoff 8% and if the fund managers can’t achieve that with high risk hedge funds and derivatives, then school budget cuts make up the difference.
Bearstearns, don’t be so stern.
Read on:
“As a result of all this, the United States is one of only three, out of 34 advanced nations surveyed by the OECD, whose schools serving higher-income children have more funding per pupil and lower student-teacher ratios than do schools serving poor students (the two others are Turkey and Israel).
Other advanced nations do it differently. Their national governments provide 54 percent of funding, on average, and local taxes account for less than half the portion they do in America. And they target a disproportionate share of national funding to poorer communities.
As Andreas Schleicher, who runs the OECD’s international education assessments, told the New York Times, “the vast majority of OECD countries either invest equally into every student or disproportionately more into disadvantaged students. The U.S. is one of the few countries doing the opposite.”
Go to robertreich.org and read the whole thing, entitled “Back to School and Widening Inequality”. . . . .
And yes, Bear, I want more federal funding from MY tax dollar because I don’t want it going to Syria or Argentina.
More fedearl tax dollar and less federal control over curriculum. There is such thing.
Just ask the FInnish.
Certainly you must have malled some salmon up there in the Finnish streams . . . .
And BTW, if the GOP came out criticizing Brown to death, I find this question to be equally important as a matter of timing:
Where are all the democrat officials throughout the United States speaking out in support of the California senator, governor, and attorney general???? I’m sure some are there doing it, but where are the rest and what’s happening with their press conferences? The higher up you are, the easier it is to get a press conference pulled together with all sorts of journalists. The media is always interested in power players, regardless of the leftist or right-wing point a situation sits upon.
To the Democrats, I say this: Silence among your friends is as deadly as overt aggression from your enemies . . . .
NOW is the time!
There aren’t that many Dem governors, and they’re busy. Gov. Pat Quinn of Ill. is trying to keep his state from going bankrupt, with its 25% funded public pension systems. In Kentucky, which has the worst funded PERS system, they adapted “cash balance” pension plans similar to some European countries In a cash-balance plan, the pension checks are smaller if the fund investments have a bad year. Gov. Cuomo supports charters, and he is well aware of the huge teacher pension liabilties that are being kicked down the road.
Go get a pension, Bear, and stop boring the rest of us here.
Facebook received a $400 million dollar tax refund back in 2012 and Microsoft is hiding some $93 billion offshore to avoid paying about $30 billion in taxes back the the USA.
And that’s the TIP of the tax evasion iceberg.
SInce you think the USA should take a more realistic approach to pensions like Europe, I DON’T hear you at all growling for a single payer healthcare system like Western Europe. Maybe they can tolerate smaller pensions because they know they don’t have to spend as much money on healthcare since it’s funded mostly with public tax dollars FOR ALL, regardless of income.
So if you think pensions are sucking the life out of us any more than your erstax rhetoric, think again.
Get over it.
Get over yourself, Mr. Pension hater.
And get a life.
Cx:
“ersatz rhetoric . . . . “
Bear, NYTRS pensions are well funded, as in between 98% to 101%. Read up before you distort, mislead, confuse, and, well, lie to the readership here.
“It also criticizes Treu for failing to provide details on the legal basis for his reasoning, and simply making his tentative decision final instead of elaborating and expanding on in the ruling that was affirmed Thursday.”
Lazy, lazy.
Perhaps he didn’t provide any details on the legal basis because there was no legal basis…
Well, it’s a marvelous fight for a Moonbeam
A fantabulous fight against a bad dream
Welcome to the Resistance Governor Brown.
I like Jerry Brown, always have and now I like him more.
If Campbell Brown prevails in NY, I am sure Governor Cuomo will follow Governor Brown’s lead.
Seriously? That would almost certainly not happen. Cuomo has repeatedly spouted inaccuracies about what is best for students and has demonstrated complete disregard for the rights of working people and their families. We need Zephyr Teachout to win in NY.
NJ Teacher,
Are you serious? That will never happen with Andy Boy, and if he does it, it will only be for his own self gain.
DON’T trust Andrew Cuomo.
Ben and Robert,
That was a joke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NJ Teacher,
Not LOL. . . . .
😦
But thank you for an attempt at humor. . . I need as much laughter as I can get.
Information please ? We have a huge job as educators in educating the public, all those outside of education – in what these issues are all about. When a parent tells me that she is glad that law passed because it will get rid of the child molesters – well, there is a lot of education that needs to be done with the public! We need a stronger narrative expressed more widely. Democrats – wake up !
Caligirl…I am with you on this…and some of the dedicated muckrakers in California, most of whom comment on this blog site, have been feeding the governor pro-public education and pro-public educators information since he came into office. Along with the lobbying of some teacher/legislators who also are our supporters, his mind has opened more to meet his always clear heart.
In his State of the State address to Californians in Feb. of 2012, he was still naive about iPads, Common Core imposition by Obama/Duncan as blackmail for federal funding, and other expensive and even tainted ways to level the educational playing field. His Prop. 30 initiative was offered to us with a club over our heads on what would be lost should it fail…vital things like school busses were threatened to be taken away.
But Brown’s Jesuit-trained heart was steadfast in directing money to the inner city students. He took plenty of heat for that from parents who are striving to be in the 1% and live in the most upscale areas in our state.
In the aftermath, he seems to be seeing public ed more through the eyes of valid educators, and not of the billionaires and their toadies.
However, it is our job to keep the avalanche of informed mail at his doorstep every day.
And another prime issue in the same political agenda…..
Sandy Banks today, in the LA Times, lauds Deasy with faint praise…but she misses the point that Deasy is NOT a civil rights advocate for inner city students, but he is the main flack for Eli Broad and his for-profit hawks who put the endless “spin” into Deasy’s mealy mouth.
Deasy must go! The public must lean on the LAUSD BoE to fire Deasy and find a real educator for the monumental job of superintendent of the second largest school district in the US….a person who is not tainted by being a graduate of the Broad Academy.
Ellen, you rightly point to Brown’s Jesuit-trained heart as a factor in his enlightened leadership. For “Jesuit education” we should read “not merely pragmatic and career-oriented”. We will not produce any more Jerry Browns if Common Core succeeds and kids just get “college and career” ready. The Jesuit and many other education traditions have a much broader and more enlightened vision of education than David Coleman and the Silicon Valley “geniuses” who want to reengineeer our schools. He knows school should cultivate the soul (which to me is the whole mind, not a immortal entity). Cultivate an ethical sensibility. Cultivate the senses and learn how to use the mind for pleasure (this here is one way to combat drug abuse –those who never learn about intellectual delights are more apt to turn to drugs). Jerry Brown can resist the blandishments of the tech moguls and the Michelle Rhees because he has had teachers who don’t think the businessman necessarily represents the apotheosis of human existence.
Ponderosa, agree about Jerry Brown. He has a great mind and soul. I spent two hours talking–or listening–to him a couple of years ago. If he knew more about Common Core, he would not like it.
Reblogged this on Dolphin and commented:
Republican Bob Huff…is acting all indignant about unequal education for minorities??
Bwahahahahahahaha. *snort*
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé and commented:
California’s governor stands up to confront the billionaire oligarchs who are out to destroy democratic public education by challenging the validity of the Vergara verdict and appealing the case to higher courts.
Yes Bobb Huff as if you would ever send your kids to school with :”minority kids.” You just don’t want teachers to have control in the classroom
Like they said in Texas, a single judge should not make big decisions?
AUSTIN – Commissioner of Education Michael Williams issued the following statement regarding today’s ruling in the school finance case:
“Today’s decision is just a first step on a very familiar path for school finance litigation in Texas. Regardless of the ruling at the district court level, all sides have known this is an issue that will again be resolved by the Texas Supreme Court. Texas is committed to finding solutions to educate every student in every classroom. However, it should be our state leaders making those decisions, not a single judge.
Jerry Brown is not alone in supporting teachers and leaving education to educators. I finally feel like the tide is turning in public education. Campbell Brown, Michelle Rhea and her kind are becoming the McCarthism of education.
Of course this is good news, but I’ve always resented Brown for founding, and being the ongoing patriarch, for two charter schools here in Oakland. For many years now, both of his schools have been draining talented and compliant students — and their involved parents — away from Oakland Unified’s schools. The truth is that he never showed one bit of interest in the traditional public schools in Oakland when he was our mayor from 1999 to 2007. http://perimeterprimate.blogspot.com/2009/10/jerry-browns-two-pet-charter-schools_26.html
I can forgive someone for not seeing through charter school deceptions and dangers in the early days of charters.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/restorative-justice-for-3?source=c.em&r_by=11217269
http://credomobilize.com/p/LAUSDaudit
Here are the two petitions calling for an external independent audit of LAUSD, and by extension, of Supt. Deasy.
Please sign both and sent them on to all your lists, Califronia, and nationwide.
These petitions were both drawn up by mainly educators and supporters of universal public education.
I signed both.
Diane…for hours I have seen the same note here that my comment above is “awaiting moderation.” These two petition sites are not showing up and I cannot figure it out. Please let your tech support know that it is ok to post them.
We really need mass signings. Thanks.
Does anyone know if Credo and MoveOn petitions cannot be scanned and posted on other websites?
I have been trying for hours to get two up on Diane’s blog site (re LAUSD issues), but they do not appear. Both are in favor of an external independent audit for LAUSD and a Grand Jury investigation to gain transparency in how public taxpayer funding is actually being spent.
This is in light of the recent exposes on the wasted Construction Bond money used to buy iPads and install Pearson software, and other high tech items, at over retail costs, and not having long range plans for their use as with the MiSiS failure.
Despite Deasy’s multitude of spins, the real taxpaying public must be afforded a voice.
If Vergara is reversed, it will be an empty victory for teachers and their unions. CalSTRS has $166 billion in unfunded pension liabilities and letting teachers keep their tenure protections will only add to the stress on the insolvent fund. BTW Brown also signed off on legislation requiring school districts to double their contributions to CalSTRS in 4 years. The legislation has a poison pill which states that it is void if any attempt is made to ask taxpayers for more money to fund those contributions. Many schools are wondering what they can cut to pay for those CalSTRS payments.
Add stress by making it harder to remove the higher paid teachers who might actually collect their pensions?
When all the legislatures and elected officials are on a defined contribution plan, give me a call.
Of course pension benefits should only be based on the contribution made. To say otherwise is the mark of a grifter or mathematically challenged fool. Let the politicians prove they are neither first, and I’m sure the rest of the public servants will gladly follow shortly.
Bear Stearns,
Your advice is both bearish and full of bull. And rather boorish.
The poison pill forbids more from taxpayers?
Too bad the poison pill does not require more from some 150 corporations housing profits offshore to avoid paying some $250 billion dollars in taxes back the USA. Too bad we spend so much on our military campaigns and we could not “afford” to pay ransom for that poor Foley gentleman who was executed recently. Of course, if it had been Pelosi, Hillary, or Obama about to be executed, then you bet the federal government would have come up with the money in minutes.
Pensions and otherwise are not nearly about money as much as they are about political will and greed on behalf of pension bashers like you.
I am not at all opposed to minding costs and managing pensions efficiently, as well as the cost for all infrastructure and social safety nets.
But please don’t leave the impression that the USA government is cash-strapped and just cannot afford to fund pensions. Yes, more contribution from civil servants is a good idea, but let’s also have the 2% pay their fair share of taxes to fortify the inrastructure that aided them significantly in getting rich.
You want to be a fiscal hawk, but the hawk’s eye is only on certain prey. A good hungry hawk looks at all sorts of critters, especially those who control 23% of the nations wealth (1% of the population) and 38% of he nation’s wealth (2% of all critters).
The critters your hawk is looking out are a hidesouly incomplete set of critters.
What kind of hawk are you anyway?
If you can’t be a great hawk, then go land on a highway and face your fate as roadkill . . . . . . .
Cx:
The critters your hawk is looking out for are a hideously incomplete set of critters.
NY teachers–make SURE that you ALL get out and vote! It CAN happen for Teachout!
Looking at the disappointing school board elections in Florida (one of today’s posts), should teach everyone a lesson. If you want to change things, it can be as easy as
casting a ballot–there’s NO excuse for not doing it. Changing our public school hating legislators is up to us. Yes, WE can…we DID,,,& we WILL! (Run, Karen, run!)