Vergara Decision Is Latest Attempt to Blame Teachers and Weaken Public
Education
Judge Rolf M. Treu, who decided the Vergara case, declared that he was shocked -- shocked!
-- to learn from Professor Raj Chetty and Professor Thomas Kane of Harvard about
the enormous harm that one "grossly ineffective" teacher can do to a
child's lifetime earnings or to their academic gains.
How did he define "grossly ineffective" teacher? He
didn't. How did these dreadful teachers get tenure? Clearly, some grossly
incompetent principal must have granted it to them. What was the basis --
factual or theoretical -- that the students would have had high scores if their
teachers did not have the right to due process? He didn't say.
The theory behind the case -- as I see it -- is that low test
scores are caused by bad teachers. Get rid of the bad teachers, replace them
with average teachers, and all students will get high test scores. You might
call it the judicial version of No Child Left Behind -- that is, pull the right
policy levers -- say, testing and accountability, or eliminate tenure -- and
every single child in America will be proficient by 2014. Congress should hang
its collective head in shame for having passed that ridiculous law, yet it
still sits on the books as the scorned, ineffective, toxic law of the land.
Judge Treu was also regurgitating the unproven claims behind
Race to the Top, specifically that using test scores to evaluate teachers will
make it possible to weed out "bad teachers," recruit and reward top
teachers, and test scores will rise to the top. Given this theory, a concept
like tenure (due process) slows down the effort to fire those "grossly
ineffective" teachers and delays the day when every student is proficient.
Relying on Chetty and Kane, Judge Treu is quite certain that
the theory of universal proficiency is correct. Thus, in his thinking, it
becomes a matter of urgency -- a civil rights issue -- to eliminate tenure and
any other legal protection for teachers, leaving principals free to fire them
promptly, without delay or hindrance.
Set aside for the moment that this decision lacks any
evidentiary basis. Another judge might have heard the same parade of witnesses
and reached a different conclusion.
Bear in mind that the
case will be appealed to a higher court, and will continue to be appealed until
there is no higher court.
It is not
unreasonable to believe that the California Teachers Association might
negotiate a different tenure process with the legislature, perhaps a
requirement of three years probationary status instead of two.
The one thing that
does seem certain is that, contrary to the victory claims of hedge fund
managers and right-wing editorial writers, no student will gain anything as a
result of this decision. Millions more dollars will be spent to litigate the
issues in California and elsewhere, but what will students gain? Nothing. The
poorest, neediest students will still be in schools that lack the resources to
meet their needs. They will still be in schools where classes are too large.
They will still be in buildings that need repairs. They will still be in
schools where the arts program and nurses and counselors were eliminated by
budget cuts.
If their principals fire all or most or some of their
teachers, who will take their places? There is no long line of superb teachers
waiting for a chance to teach in inner-city schools. Chetty and Kane blithely
assume that those who are fired will be replaced by better teachers. How do
they know that?
Let's be clear. No "grossly ineffective" teacher
should ever get tenure. Only a "grossly ineffective" principal would
give tenure to a "grossly ineffective" teacher. Teachers do not give
tenure to themselves.
Unfortunately, the Vergara decision is the latest example of
the blame-shifting strategy of the privatization movement. Instead of
acknowledging that test scores are highly correlated with family income, they
prefer to blame teachers and the very idea of public education. If they were
truly interested in supporting the needs of the children, the backers of this
case would be advocating for smaller classes, for arts programs, for
well-equipped and up-to-date schools, for after-school programs, for health
clinics, for librarians and counselors, and for inducements to attract and
retain a stable corps of experienced teachers in the schools attended by
Beatriz Vergara and her co-plaintiffs.
Let us hope that a wiser judicial panel speedily overturns
this bad decision and seeks a path of school reform that actually helps the
plaintiffs without inflicting harm on their teachers.
