Recent NEWS of Interest to California Teachers
Posted July 25, 2014
California asks judge to finalize teacher tenure
ruling; Brown declines comment on appeal
[Associated Press / Daily
Reporter, 7/23/14]
The Associated Press (AP) reports in the Daily Reporter that
California Attorney General (AG) Kamala Harris has filed a
request, without indicating whether the state will file an appeal, asking
the Los Angeles County Superior Court to clarify some points in the tentative
decision and issue a final opinion in Vergara v. California, the recent teacher
tenure case.
See NSBA’s summary of Vergara
from June 10, 2014:
Posted July 24, 2014
LAUSD v. Superior Court—Court of
Appeal agrees with LAUSD to keep teacher data private
[California Appellate
Report, 7/23/14]
Data regarding student
performance, disaggregated by teacher, may be kept away from the public,
pursuant to the Public Records Act, according the this appeal. Read the Cal App
Report blog:
The decision in LAUSD
v. Superior Court can be found at:
Guidance shows light at end of teachers’ bleak tunnel
[Cabinet Report, 7/24/14]
Much of the
disproportionally high rate of teacher turnover in hard-to-staff schools
serving high-poverty students can be attributed to a lack of quality induction
programs for beginning teachers, according to guidance released earlier this
month.
Posted July 23, 2014
Agreement reached on ‘willful defiance’ bill
[EdSource, 7/23/14]
After several months of negotiations, Gov. Jerry Brown and advocates for less punitive disciplinary policies have compromised on a bill that would limit schools’ ability to suspend or expel students for “willful defiance,” according to Assemblyman Roger Dickinson, D-Sacramento, who is sponsoring the bill.
http://edsource.org/2014/agreement-reached-on-willful-defiance-bill/65671Read AB 420:
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB420&search_keywords=
Posted July 21, 2014
Vergara ruling becomes
campaign issue
[EdSource, 7/17/14]
State
Superintendent of Public Instruction candidate Marshall Tuck this week launched a petition calling on his
opponent, incumbent Superintendent Tom Torlakson, not to appeal a lawsuit
ruling that struck down statutes giving California teachers firing
protections and rights to tenure and seniority. The move indicates Tuck views
the decision in Vergara v. California as an election issue that can work
in his favor.
State of the Teachers' Unions: Money and Membership
[Education Week, 7/2/14]
The National Education
Association and the American Federation of Teachers remain powerful players in
the K-12 policy arena. With nearly 4 million members in total, they are deeply
engaged in elections and in policy. (Five of the unions’ state affiliates have merged.)
Harris v. Quinn: Decision
Silences Workers’ Voices
[CTA blog,
7/1/14]
In the 5-4 decision, the high court ruled that eight Illinois
home health-care workers cannot be required to contribute union bargaining
fees.
Posted June 28, 2014
Erwin
Chemerinsky: Scapegoating California teachers
[Orange County Register,
6/25/14]
Laws providing for job security for teachers are not to blame
for educational problems in California or elsewhere. There is little evidence
that lessening job protections for teachers would do anything to make education
better. In fact, it might make education worse by making teaching a less
attractive profession.
Borenstein: Educators failing to report child abuse to police as
law requires
[Contra Costa Times, 6/28/14]
Teachers should instruct our children, not prey
upon them. Educators should help purge abusive employees from our schools, not
protect them.
Posted June 26, 2014
Bill aimed at speedier teacher firings among those
signed by Brown
[Associated
Press / EdSource, 6/26/14]
Gov. Jerry Brown
on Wednesday signed legislation aimed at speeding the dismissal of public
school teachers for gross misconduct, a bill in reaction to a sex abuse case at
Miramonte Elementary School in Los Angeles. However, it unfortunately
complicates some other attempts by districts to fire teachers.
See a critique
by the Contra Costa Times, “Gov. Jerry Brown should veto flawed teacher
discipline bill” [6/20/14]:
Aren’t California tenure policies in fact
unreasonable? Plus 4 more Vergara
questions asked and answered
[Washington Post, 6/19/14]
Here are five
key issues explained by Kevin Welner, the director of the National Education
Policy Center, an attorney and a professor education policy at the University
of Colorado Boulder.
Appeals tie up teacher misconduct cases
[Cabinet Report, 6/19/14]
Two years after teacher
misconduct scandals rocked Los Angeles Unified and sent a surge of complaints
to state regulators, a new spike threatens to degrade the educator oversight
system as credential-holders accused mostly of criminal offenses fight to
retain their licenses.
Brownstein: Why the Vergara Decision Isn’t Enough
[National Journal, 6/18/14]
A California court struck
down laws that put adults before kids in public schools. But that won't close
the achievement gap.
A silver lining in the Vergara decision?
[Washington Post, 6/11/14]
A
decision by a California judge on Tuesday to strike down — pending appeal —
five state statutes that provide job protections to teachers has deeply
troubled many teachers and teacher activists concerned about the effect on the
profession should the ruling stand. Here is a detailed look on what might be a silver lining in the ruling for those concerned about
equity in public education.
Moraga
School District agrees to pay largest ever per student molestation settlement
[Contra Costa Times,
6/18/14]
Seeking closure for a scandal that devastated a school
community, the Moraga School District has agreed to pay $14 million to two
women suing them over a teacher's sex abuse, in what is apparently the nation's
largest molestation settlement per student.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/news/ci_25982749/moraga-district-agrees-pay-largest-ever-per-student
Posted June 15, 2014
New ruling on California
teacher tenure sparks call for change
[Los Angeles Daily News,
6/15/14]
Though a judge’s recent
decision to throw out tenure and other protections long afforded to
California’s teachers could take years to play out, school reformers are hoping
the ruling inspires education leaders to take matters into their own
hands.
John Deasy: 3 LAUSD teachers
should have been fired without a hassle
[Los Angeles Daily News,
6/15/14]
Los Angeles Unified School
District Superintendent John Deasy has said there are about 350 teachers in his
school system that, if given the chance, he’d fire immediately, but can’t
because the administrative process for dealing with the cases is too
cumbersome.
Posted June 11, 2014
LEAs
experiment with alternative teacher
evaluations
[Cabinet Report, 6/11/14]
Much of the nation is
engaged in some new form of teacher evaluation, encouraged by billions of
dollars in grant money from the Race to the Top competition or by the promise
of a waiver from key mandates imposed under the No Child left Behind Act. But
typically those efforts are limited to grades three through eight, when state
assessments in reading and math are conducted for federal accountability
purposes. A new study out from the U.S. Department of Education looks at how
eight unnamed school districts expanded the evaluation process to all teachers
using a variety of alternative systems.
Posted June 10, 2014 and on following date:
California
Judge Strikes Down Teacher Tenure in Vergara
Case
[Breitbart
News / KPCC / Politico / New York Times, 6/10/12]
A Los Angeles Superior Court
judge has struck down teacher tenure as unconstitutional, ruling in the
highly-anticipated Vergara v. California case that
such protections "disproportionately affect poor and/or minority
students." Judge Rolf Treu found that laws granting tenure after two
years, prioritizing seniority in layoffs, and making it difficult to fire
teachers violate state constitutional guarantees of adequate public education.
http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2014/06/10/37844/court-decides-vital-california-education-case/
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/us/california-teacher-tenure-laws-ruled-unconstitutional.html?_r=0
The 16-page ruling can be seen
at:
California Teacher Tenure
Found to Violate Student Rights [Bloomberg News, 6/10/14]: A nice broad look at
the possible implications:
Trial Court: The Evidence is
Compelling. Indeed it shocks the conscience.”
The plaintiff’s “Students Matter” “Victory” page:
Schrag:
Vergara ruling’s strong words in the end will make little difference [Peter Schrag in EdSource, 6/11/14]: From the start,
the Vergara case was more significant
for its political implications than for the possible benefits it would gain for
the poor and minority students on whose behalf it was purportedly brought.
Fuzzy Math [Slate, 6/11/14]:
The guesstimate that struck down California’s teacher tenure laws. The trial
judge cited a statistic that sounded damning: According to a state witness,
between 1 and 3 percent of California’s teachers could be considered “grossly
ineffective.”
Vergara Verdict
Flawed, Like Lawsuit Itself [CTA website, 6/10/14]:
Also read the
NSBA’s article from March 31, 2014, in which they cite closing arguments with
much of the language that found its way into the (contested) final opinion of
Judge Treu:
[Students
Matter, 6/10/14]: They have a “Victory” page that celebrates the decision with
language from the trial court decision.
Mark Walsh in
EdWeek’s School Law Blog (6/10/14):
Dan Walters (Sacramento
Bee, 6/11/14) calls this a “sociopolitical bomb”:
Is this the end of teacher
tenure in California? [SF Chron, 6/11/14]:
Judge strikes
down all 5 teacher protection laws [EdSource, 6/11/14]:
[NSBA Legal
Clips, 6/12/14]:
California
Education lawyer Michelle Ball comments on her blog (6/13/14):
Case Summary:
Your professional rights are
on trial
[CTA website, 6/10/14]
A Los Angeles Superior Court
judge has ruled the deeply misguided Vergara vs. State of California
lawsuit may proceed to trial, denying motions by CTA, the California Federation
of Teachers (CFT) and the state of California for summary judgment. However,
the judge said the decision to deny the request to dismiss the case in no way
indicates the trial’s outcome.
Background:
Vergara v. California: The Most Important Court Case You’ve Never Heard Of
[Daily Beast, 5/29/14]
This school year, parents
learned a tough lesson: The only force on behalf of the public interest is an interested
public. And sometimes the students show us the way.
Vergara
teacher tenure case: point counterpoint
[LA School Report, 4/8/14]
Edweek has done a nice
job providing opposing perspectives on the potential outcome of
the Vergara v. California case, a lawsuit challenging the state’s teacher
tenure and job protection laws. Read the two articles at:
Posted June 8, 2014
California ahead of most
states in abolishing harsh disciplinary policies
[EdSource, 6/5/14]
A report released this week
by The Council of State Governments Justice Center calls on school districts
across the nation to hold themselves accountable for a positive school climate
as well as test scores.
ACLU sues California claiming low-income districts fail to provide
adequate instructional time in violation of state constitution
[NSBA Legal Clips, 6/3/14]
The Los Angeles Times reports
that the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Counsel, and others have
filed a class action suit in Alameda Superior Court on behalf of
students from seven of the state’s most disadvantaged schools. Cruz et al. v. State of California charges
that the California Department of Education has failed to meet its
obligation to ensure that all California students receive a minimum level of
instructional time, predominantly affecting those who are minorities and from
low-income families.
Read the complaint:
Posted June 1, 2014
LAUSD's 'teacher jails' shut
down
[Los Angeles Daily News,
5/27/14]
Los Angeles Unified School
District shut down its "teacher jails" Tuesday, freeing educators to
stay at home on paid leave, instead of at a district office, during
investigations into alleged misconduct.
Posted May 22, 2014
Teachers quit, parents
withhold money over Catholic school morality clause
[Oakland Tribune, 5/22/14]
Catholic school teachers
under the Diocese of Oakland are quitting and parents are withholding donations
over new faith and morals contract language teachers at 54 schools must sign
that references their private lives.
Read the East Bay Express coverage of this issue:
Bishop O'Dowd Program
Director Refuses to Sign Oakland Diocese's New 'Morals' Code
[East Bay Express, 5/13/14]
In recent
weeks, the Diocese of Oakland has
increasingly come under fire for requiring teachers in East Bay Catholic schools to
agree to a new "morals" code in their contracts — a controversial
revision that covers expected behavior in their personal lives.
Interest grows in schools
where teachers run the show
[Cabinet Report,
5/21/14]
With more
than 60 so-called 'teacher-powered' schools operating in 15 states, charter
advocates in search of new models of success tout in a new policy brief the
growing interest nationally in schools designed and run exclusively by teachers.
Posted May 19, 2014
North Carolina's Anti-Tenure
Law Is Unconstitutional, State Court Rules
A North Carolina
superior-court judge has ruled that a 2013 law dismantling the state's system
of granting "career status" for teachers is unconstitutional, the
Associated Press reports.
Posted May 17, 2014
The Need for a Test to Help
Courts Make Sense of Off-Campus Student Speech
[EdJurists, 5/16/14]
Education law blogger
Spencer Weller seeks a “community of legal scholars … to develop its own test
that appropriately differentiated between off-campus speech that is completely
protected by the First Amendment and off-campus speech that should result in
on-campus consequences.” In this blog he summarizes some of the different
“tests” that have been suggested.
Benjamin Ellison’s Notre Dame Law Review article (vol. 85,
no. 2, p. 809, 2/1/2010) on the subject, “More Connection, Less Protection? Off
Campus Speech with On-Campus Impact,” can be found here:
Lawsuit: Catholic school
boys competed for up-skirt photos of female teachers
[Contra Costa Times,
5/15/14]
Sexual harassment of teachers by students is
rampant at Serra High, a teacher claims in a lawsuit filed Thursday against the
prestigious all-boys Catholic school, describing a sordid “boys will be
boys” atmosphere where kids competed to get upskirt videos of their female instructors.
contracostatimes.ca.newsmemory.com/publink.php?shareid=217cfc695
Haney: San Francisco’s new
dress code removes causes of needless conflict
[EdSource, 5/14/14]
With all the challenges that
we face in getting students to feel welcomed, comfortable and safe at school,
why we would we set up new barriers that push some students away, particularly
students of color?
Posted on May 14, 2014:
Teacher on leave after
allegation of mock hanging
[Los Angeles Times, 5/13/14]
An Orange County charter
school teacher has been placed on leave after allegedly singling out an African
American student to demonstrate a hanging during a class trip.
The
Ninth Circuit Departs from Tinker in
Upholding Ban on American Flag T-Shirts in School
[Justia,
5/12/14]
Professor
Ronald Rotunda discusses the 9th Circuit case holding that a public
school could permit students to wear t-shirts bearing the Mexican flag while
banning students from wearing shirts with an American flag. He argues that the
reasoning runs counter to the logic of Tinker
v. Des Moines Independent School District and its progeny, and effectively
sides in favor of the “heckler’s veto.”
Supreme Court's Next
Potential Religion Case: Public School Graduation at Church
[School
Law Blog, 5/8/14]
Now that
the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld prayers before town meetings, it is ready to
decide whether to take up another establishment of religion case, this one
involving a public school graduation ceremony held at a church. And it is
getting fresh advice about what it should do with the latter case.
Oakland Diocese requiring
educators to conform to church teachings
[San Francisco Chronicle,
5/9/14]
Educators at East Bay
Catholic schools must sign a new contract Friday with the Diocese of Oakland
pledging to conform to church teachings outside the workplace - leaving some,
particularly non-Catholics, wrestling with a professional and moral
dilemma.
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Oakland-Diocese-requiring-educators-to-conform-to-5464492.php
8th-grade teachers to
undergo training after Holocaust assignment
[Los Angeles Times, 5/8/14]
Rialto Unified school
officials say all eighth-grade teachers will make a mandatory visit to the
Museum of Tolerance before the end of the school year in response to a public
outcry to a writing assignment asking students to consider whether the
Holocaust actually happened.
Posted April 26, 2014:
The
lawsuit's called Vergara, but the name you should know is Welch
[KPCC, 4/25/14]
Welch is the man behind
Students Matter, the advocacy group that recruited nine public school students
to sue the state of California, saying teacher job protections harm their
ability to get the 'adequate' education they are promised in the state
constitution.
Science
teacher suspended over 'dangerous' projects returns to classroom
[Los Angeles Times, 4/26/14]
After many rally behind Greg
Schiller, suspended over students' science projects, he resumes teaching, still
could be disciplined.
California
Bill backs lessons about Obama
[Associated Press, 4/26/14]
A bill that passed the
Assembly with unanimous bipartisan support Thursday encourages California
schools to teach students about the racial significance of Barack Obama's
presidency. The Assembly approved AB 1912 with a 71-0 vote and no debate or
discussion. It now heads to the state Senate.
L.A. Unified can keep
teacher ratings anonymous, judges say
[Los Angeles Times, 4/25/14]
A three-judge state
appellate court panel tentatively found a stronger public interest in keeping the
names confidential than publicly releasing them.
Common Core now the common
element in college-preparatory courses
[EdSource, 4/24/14]
Lesson plans and teacher
training programs at the K-12 level aren’t the only things being updated to
reflect the new Common Core State Standards.
Posted April 20, 2014
Fight
grows over wearing flag shirts
[San
Jose Mercury-News / Contra Costa Times, 4/19/14]
Several
conservative groups and 20 Republican members of Congress have jumped into the
legal fray over a South Bay high school’s decision to order a group of students
wearing American-flag adorned shirts to turn them inside out during a 2010
Cinco de Mayo celebration.
Santa Monica teacher who scuffled with student to be
reinstated
[Los
Angeles Times, 4/19/14]
Santa
Monica school district officials will reinstate a teacher who was placed on
paid administrative leave after video clips showed him locked in a tussle with
a student in a classroom.
Posted April 13, 2014
Banks:
Uproar over classroom scuffle reflects a profession under siege
[Los Angeles Times, 4/12/14]
Groundswell of support for
teacher who wrestled disruptive student to the floor shows the public is fed up
with the disciplinary problems and bureaucracies that impede education.
Posted April 11, 2014
Appeal court upholds
student’s involuntary transfer
[Cabinet Report, 4/11/14]
A state court of appeal has
upheld a school district’s right to involuntarily transfer students to
continuation high school even if all other means of correction have not
necessarily been exhausted.
The opinion in Nathan G. v. Clovis Unified School District
(3/25/14) can be found at:
Posted April 10, 2014
Teacher removed for
'dangerous' science projects; supporters rally
[Los Angeles Times,
4/10/14]:
A popular Los Angeles high
school science teacher has been suspended after students turned in projects
that appeared dangerous to administrators, spurring a campaign calling for his
return to the classroom.
Posted April 9, 2014
Student
pleads not guilty in fight with Santa Monica teacher
[Los
Angeles Times, 4/9/14]
An
18-year-old Santa Monica High School student who authorities say tangled with
his science teacher in a classroom last week pleaded not guilty Tuesday to
multiple misdemeanor charges.
L.A. Unified settles lawsuit
over layoffs
[EdSource, 4/9/14]
The agreement will provide
$60 million in raises, services and staff at 37 campuses, but doesn't address
whether seniority should be the basis of layoffs.
The settlement agreement in Reed v. State of California can be
accessed here:
Majority of Students
'Engaged'—But Not Teachers, Gallup Poll Finds
[Gallup, 4/8/14]
The best
educators know that for students to achieve meaningful, lasting success in the
classroom and beyond, they must be emotionally engaged in the educational
experience. This means educators must focus on students' hope, engagement, and
wellbeing -- the predictors Gallup has discovered matter the most.
Research: New Hires May Be
Staying Longer
[Education Week Blog,
4/8/14]
In the reversal of a trend,
teachers hired during the Great Recession may be sticking it out in classrooms
longer than those hired just a few years before that, according to data
released today.
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2014/04/new_teachers_staying_longer.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS1
Posted April 8, 2014
Apple Valley teachers
infringed on rights of Christian students, district says
[Inland Daily Bulletin,
4/8/14]
For more than a year, four
of the five Peterson family children have distributed plastic coins with Bible
verses imprinted on them at Desert Knolls Elementary School during recess, giving
them out to their friends, who in turn distribute them to their family and
friends.
Posted April 6, 2014:
Parents defend Santa Monica teacher who fought with
student
[Los
Angeles Times, 4/6/14]
Parents
of several Santa Monica High School students are coming to the defense of a
teacher who was placed on leave Friday after he was recorded on video in a
physical altercation with a student.
April 1, 2014
Teacher
lawsuit is settled
[Contra
Costa Times, 4/1/14]
Liberty
Union High School District recently settled a lawsuit brought by a teacher who
said administrators were harassing her and discriminating against her. The
complaint was dismissed March 19 after the district and plaintiff June Hardy
agreed to a $260,000 settlement.
State must begin protecting students as much as teachers
[Op-Ed in Contra Costa Times
by Tony Smith, 3/30/14]
California’s
education laws currently are designed to almost unconditionally protect a group
of adults — teachers — at the expense of our children.
A rebuttal from Betty Olson-Jones, “Teachers aren’t to blame
for most of schools’ problems,” (CC Times, 4/6/14] can be found here:
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