Foes of teacher tenure appeal to Calif. Supreme Court
By Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle
Opponents of teacher tenure and seniority laws in California asked the state Supreme Court to take up their case last week, arguing that an appellate court disregarded evidence that the laws shield incompetent teachers and harm low-income and minority students.
The April 14 appellate ruling upholding the laws “abdicated the long-standing duty of California courts to serve as the guardian of educational opportunity for all,” lawyers for the plaintiffs — nine students backed by a Silicon Valley entrepreneur — said in a filing to the state’s high court.
The court will decide this summer whether to leave the lower-court ruling intact or grant review of the plaintiffs’ claims that the tenure and seniority laws violate students’ right to an equal education. The case has drawn national attention, including praise from President Obama’s then-secretary of education, Arne Duncan, for a trial judge’s June 2014 ruling — the first of its kind in any state — declaring the laws unconstitutional.
