On Top of the News
High-Profile California Lawsuit on Teacher Protections Begins
1/27/14 | Ed Week

Behind the Headline
Invisible Ink in Teacher Contracts
Fall 2010 | Education Next

Arguments begin today in Vergara v. California, a lawsuit brought by nine California students and their parents that challenges teacher tenure, seniority, and dismissal procedures in the state. The lawsuit charges that five sections of the state’s education code violate the state’s constitutional guarantee to an equitable public education because most teachers are granted tenure before they are known to be effective, it is very hard to fire bad teachers, and ineffective teachers are concentrated in schools serving poor and minority students because of seniority rules.

While many people assume that teacher tenure, seniority, and dismissal procedures are the result of collective bargaining agreements between teacher unions and school boards, these policies are often a matter of state law. In an Ed Next article “Invisible Ink in Teacher Contracts: State policy trumps collective bargaining,” Emily Cohen and Kate Walsh describe how this works.

-Education Next