Jeremiah Kittredge | New York Post

“Violence has become a routine part of life for many students in New York City schools.

There’s ample data to prove it, but even more powerful are the stories of the students affected by this epidemic of violence — the 8-year-old boy who stabbed his ear with a pencil to block out his peers’ taunts, the 11-year-old girl who eats lunch in the bathroom to avoid her longtime bully and the 13-year-old boy who was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder after years of abuse.

These three stories — along with thousands more that haven’t yet come to light — have something in common. In each of these cases, school administrators and city officials knew that violence and harassment were taking place but did nothing to fix the situation, endangering the victims over and over again.”

Read More

New York Daily News

“A California appeals court has struck down a landmark ruling declaring that state’s restrictive teacher tenure laws to be unconstitutional. Students who brought the case will now appeal to the state’s top court.

The plaintiffs in Vergara vs. California must be vindicated, and the statutes in question must be struck down.

The same should be said for similar laws on the books in New York State, where the worst teachers are typically foisted on the neediest kids, and where a lawsuit inspired by Vergara is currently in the courts.”

Read More

Alejandra Matos | Star Tribune

“A group of mothers supported by local and national education reform groups filed a legal challenge Thursday to state laws that protect teachers’ jobs, saying they prevent thousands of students from receiving a high-quality education.

Meanwhile, the California tenure lawsuit on which the Minnesota case is closely modeled was dealt a severe setback late in the day.”

Read More

Alejandra Matos | Star Tribune

“Minnesota laws protect teachers who should no longer be in classrooms, thus preventing thousands of students from getting a high-quality education, claims a lawsuit to be filed Thursday by national and local education reform groups.

The suit — only the third of its kind in the country — could reignite the battle over union protections for Minnesota teachers.

‘When we look throughout the country at places where there are harmful teacher employment statutes and significant achievement gaps, Minnesota was one of the first states that popped up as a place that could use this kind of help,’ said Ralia Polechronis, executive director of Partnership for Educational Justice.”

Read More

Solvejg Wastvedt | MPR News

“A group of parents backed by a national nonprofit say Minnesota’s teacher tenure laws perpetuate the state’s academic achievement gap between white students and students of color.

The group on Thursday filed a lawsuit that challenges Minnesota laws that make it more difficult to fire teachers once they’ve been employed for more than three years. The suit was filed in Ramsey County district court.”

Read More

Motoko Rich | The New York Times

“Opening a new front in the assault on teacher tenure, a group of parents backed by wealthy philanthropists served notice to defendants on Wednesday in a lawsuit challenging Minnesota’s job protections for teachers, as well as the state’s rules governing which teachers are laid off as a result of budget cuts.

Similar to cases in California and New York, the plaintiffs, who are filing the lawsuit in district court in Ramsey County in St. Paul, argue that the state’s tenure and layoff laws disproportionately harm poor, minority children because, they say, the most ineffective teachers are more likely to be assigned to public schools with high concentrations of those children.”

Read More

Naomi Nix | The 74

“From California to New York, political and policy struggles between labor groups and education reform advocates over teacher tenure laws have slowly made their way through the courts.

The next battleground? Minnesota.

An education reform group initiated a lawsuit against the state Wednesday afternoon, alleging that its laws governing teacher tenure and dismissal violate children’s right to a quality education.”

Read More

Sonali Kohli | Los Angeles Times

“Headlines and talk shows across the country often feature parents worried about their children’s stressful workload or pulling their kids out of new standardized tests.

But an umbrella organization of civil rights groups contends that there is a huge population of people whose voices are missing when talking about the needs of schools. In a nationally representative survey of black and Latino parents in the U.S., the Leadership Conference Education Fund found that these parents care about having good teachers, more money for their schools and a more challenging curriculum for their students.”

Read More

Molly Hensley-Clancy | BuzzFeed News

“A New York City mother knew something was seriously wrong when the school called to say her eight-year old son had stabbed himself in the ear with a pencil. He had been bullied relentlessly for months, she said, and when she came to pick him up that day, he told her he had only wanted to make the insults stop. His leg was marked with visible bruises from a bully’s foot.

New York City public schools are bound by law to protect children from bullying by investigating and remediating acts of violence. But the mother said that never happened for her special-needs son. He lost sleep because of stress and anxiety for a half a year until he was finally moved to another class, away from the bully who had repeatedly hit, harassed, and chased him.”

Read More

Marc Porter Magee, Vallay Varro | Education Post

“Over the past two years, 1,300 people applied for just 10 spots in 50CAN’s Education Advocacy Fellowship. The extraordinary response is a reflection of the deep hunger in our country for better schools. People want to speak out, get involved and make a difference and we are proud to provide a platform for dedicated, principled individuals to do this work.

We’re also proud to work side by side with strong partners like StudentsFirst, who have been driving policy changes in states all across the country since their founding in 2010. Last week we announced that 50CAN and StudentsFirst are joining to create a new and better advocacy organization with deeper roots in the communities we serve.”

Read More