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Los Angeles • A judge struck down tenure and other job protections for California's public school teachers as unconstitutional Tuesday, saying such laws harm students — especially poor and minority ones — by saddling them with bad teachers.
In a landmark decision that could influence the gathering debate over tenure across the country, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu cited the historic case of Brown v. Board of Education in ruling that students have a fundamental right to equal education.
Siding with the nine students who brought the lawsuit, he ruled that California's laws on hiring and firing in schools have resulted in "a significant number of grossly ineffective teachers currently active in California classrooms."
He agreed, too, that a disproportionate share of these teachers are in schools that have mostly minority and low-income students.
The judge stayed the ruling pending appeals. The case involves kindergarten through 12th grade.
The California Attorney General's office said it is considering its legal options, while the California Teachers Association, the state's biggest teachers union with 325,000 members, vowed an appeal.
"Circumventing the legislative process to strip teachers of their professional rights hurts our students and our schools," the union said.
Teachers have long argued that tenure prevents administrators from firing teachers on a whim. They contend also that the system preserves academic freedom and helps attract talented teachers to a profession that doesn't pay well.
Other states have been paying close attention to how the case plays out in the nation's most populous state.
"It's powerful," said Theodore Boutrous Jr., the students' attorney. "It's a landmark decision that can change the face of education in California and nationally."
He added: "This is going to be a huge template for what's wrong with education."
In striking down several laws regarding tenure, seniority and other protections, the judge said the evidence at the trial showed the harm inflicted on students by incompetent teachers.
"The evidence is compelling," he said. "Indeed, it shocks the conscience."
The judge cited an expert's finding that a single year with a grossly ineffective teacher costs a classroom full of students $1.4 million in lifetime earnings.
The lawsuit contended that bad teachers are so heavily protected by tenure laws that they are almost impossible to fire. The plaintiffs also complained that because the tenure system allows only two years for evaluation before a teacher is hired permanently, it does not provide sufficient time to weigh an educator's ability.
Los Angeles School Superintendent John Deasy testified that it can take over two years on average — and sometimes as long as 10 — to fire an incompetent tenured teacher. The cost of doing so, he said, can run from $250,000 to $450,000.
The judge declined to tell the Legislature exactly how to change the system, but expressed confidence it will do so in a way that passes constitutional muster and provides "each child in this state with a basically equal opportunity to achieve a quality education."
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan hailed the decision as a chance for schools everywhere to open a conversation on equal opportunity in education.
"The students who brought this lawsuit are, unfortunately, just nine out of millions of young people in America who are disadvantaged by laws, practices and systems that fail to identify and support our best teachers and match them with our neediest students," he said. "Today's court decision is a mandate to fix these problems."
The trial represented the latest battle in a nationwide movement to abolish or toughen the standards for granting teachers permanent employment protection and seniority-based preferences during layoffs.
Dozens of states have moved in recent years to get rid of such protections or raise the standards for obtaining them.
The lawsuit was brought by Beatriz Vergara and eight other students who said they were saddled with teachers who let classrooms get out of control, came to school unprepared and in some cases told them they'd never make anything of themselves.
The lawsuit was backed by wealthy Silicon Valley entrepreneur David Welch's nonprofit group Students Matter, which assembled a high-profile legal team including Boutrous, who represented George W. Bush in front of the U.S. Supreme Court during the 2000 election recount dispute in Florida.
James Finberg, who represents the teachers, agreed that Treu's decision could be a bellwether for other states. With 6 million students, California has one of the biggest educational systems in the country.