Dive Brief:
- The California Supreme Court voted against hearing an appeal of a teacher tenure case that has been closely watched in the state as plaintiffs argued teacher job protections were to blame for poor educational quality in high-poverty schools.
- The Los Angeles ABC affiliate reports the supreme court’s vote will let an April decision stand in support of tenure and other job protections — an appeals court had decided unanimously that the labor protections were not to blame for the “deleterious impact” of principal staffing decisions.
- The case, Vergara v. State of California, started out with a win for the plaintiffs in Los Angeles Superior Court in March 2014.
Dive Insight:
Teacher tenure has been attacked across the country as an unnecessary labor protection at the K-12 level. School reformers have also worked to get rid of seniority protections, fighting to keep the best teachers in the classroom in the event of layoffs and not necessarily the ones who had been there the longest. Supporters of both policies, though, say they help draw people to a field that is increasingly unpopular.
Besides the Vergara decision, the California Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal in the Robles-Wong v. State of California school funding case. While the court ruled 45 years ago that the state constitution protects education as a fundamental right, it declined to comment on the matter of how much money is necessary to fulfill it.