Appeals Court Throws Out Ruling That Would Have Ended California Teacher Tenure

A three-judge state appeals panel has thrown out a Los Angeles court's ruling that California teacher tenure and seniority laws violate the rights of low-income and minority students in public schools.

The 2014 Vergara v. California ruling by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu struck down several parts of the state's education code, finding that they denied many students equal protection under the law.

"The evidence is compelling," Treu wrote. "Indeed, it shocks the conscience."

Treu's decision would have overturned laws governing how tenure is granted, teacher dismissal procedures and the last-hired/first-fired process for laying off teachers.

But the unanimous appeals court ruling Thursday said that the plaintiffs in the case had not made their case:

We reverse the trial court’s decision. Plaintiffs failed to establish that the statutes violate equal protection, primarily because they did not show that the statutes inevitably cause a certain group of students to receive an education inferior to the received by other students. Although the statutes may lead to the hiring and retention of more ineffective teachers than a hypothetical alternative system would, the statutes do not address the assignment of teachers; instead, administrators — not the statutes — ultimately determine where teachers within a district are assigned to teach. Critically, plaintiffs failed to show that the statutes themselves make any certain group of students more likely to be taught by ineffective teachers than any other group of students.

With no proper showing of a constitutional violation, the court is without power to down the challenged statutes. The court’s job is merely to determine whether the statutes are constitutional, not if they are “a good idea.”

Treu's ruling two years ago was rendered in a lawsuit brought by Students Matter, a group founded by Silicon Valley billionaire engineer/entrepreneur David F. Welch on behalf of nine public school students.

Largely because of close ties between Students Matter and a variety of charter and school-privatization proponents, the Vergara case is seen by the state's teachers unions as an attack on classroom educators. Critics also say the suit and similar legal action ignore the galaxy of factors, including scarce funding, high crime rates in school neighborhoods and fragmented families, that contribute to poor educational outcomes for many inner-city students.

The California Teachers Association issued a statement celebrating the Thursday appeals court ruling as a complete vindication of its position that the state's tenure and seniority laws are essential protections:

In a sweeping victory for students and educators, the California Court of Appeal today reversed a lower court decision in the deeply flawed Vergara v. California lawsuit. The unanimous appellate opinion is a stinging rebuke to Judge Rolf M. Treu’s poorly-reasoned ruling, and to the allegations made and millions of dollars spent by wealthy anti-union “education reformers” to bypass voters, parents, and the legislature with harmful education policy changes. The reversal affirms the arguments of educators, civil rights groups, legal scholars and education policy experts that the state statutes affirming educator rights do not harm students.

But in a statement on the Students Matter website, Welch promised an appeal of Thursday's ruling:

The fight continues! I just got off the phone with our attorneys, and I’m not going to mince words — we lost. This is a sad day for every child struggling to get the quality education he or she deserves — and is guaranteed by our state constitution.

We think the California Court of Appeal is wrong, so our fight for California students isn’t over — not even close. We’re taking this case to the California Supreme Court, and we intend to win. For our plaintiffs, for our families, for every child in California working hard to get ahead.