Earlier today, I posted Mercedes Schneider’s report about Campbell Brown’s failed lawsuit in Minnesota, where she was trying to get another Vergara-style decision to abolish teacher tenure.

I noted that the judge who tossed the lawsuit said that Brown and her “Partnership for Educational Justice” failed to show a connection between low test scores.

But the state’s own filing against the lawsuit added another important point, which I overlooked. Charter schools are disproportionately represented among the state’s lowest scoring schools, and their teachers do not have tenure. That argument blew a huge hole in the claim of Brown and her PEJ that tenure “causes” low test scores.

Here is the quote that Mercedes drew from the state’s document:

“Plaintiffs Lack Standing. The State Defendants demonstrated in their initial memorandum that Plaintiffs lacked standing because their First Amended Complaint failed to identify a concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent “injury-in-fact,” fairly traceable to the teacher tenure laws. … Plaintiffs reiteration of their generalized grievances set forth in the First Amended Complaint do not alter this conclusion.

“Nor will this case remedy Plaintiffs’ alleged harms. … As Plaintiffs acknowledge, eliminating teacher tenure will not ensure Plaintiffs’ children never again receive a teacher they consider “ineffective.” … Furthermore, Plaintiffs also fail to address the causal deficiencies in their claims, including the fact that (1) it is speculative whether elimination of the teacher tenure laws would result in greater teacher “effectiveness” or higher district-wide test scores; and (2) that Minnesota Charter schools, which do not have tenure, are disproportionally represented among Minnesota’s lowest performing schools.”