By Vanessa Grigoriadis
NY Magazine

“Don’t you love the energy here?” asks Campbell Brown, bouncing down the hall at the offices of “co-working” office-share WeWork. Forty-five and wearing a gray turtleneck sweater and mom jeans, Brown has small, curious brown eyes, a volleyball player’s carriage, and a deep voice that’s pleasant no matter what she’s saying. “You know, an Israeli guy [co-founder Adam Neumann] started WeWork with one office,” she says, swishing by row after row of glassed-in spaces for companies like Parking Panda, which helps find a spot for your car, and Unroll.Me, which has something to do with cleaning up a messy in-box. “And now it’s ­international and it’s huge!”

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New York Daily News

“Public-school parents whose children have been failed by their teachers will valiantly petition the state’s judicial system on Wednesday for a redress of grievances.

With evidence aplenty, they argue that New York laws and regulations protect incompetent educators — and make it far more likely that disadvantaged students will be subjected to future-destroying lemons year after year.”

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By Ben Chapman
New York Daily News

“Plaintiff groups representing New York parents are fighting a motion to dismiss the suit, which claims that state tenure laws violate students’ right to a basic education.

The two sides in the war over teacher tenure in New York will square off for a legal battle Wednesday in a Staten Island courtroom.”

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By Leslie Brody
The Wall Street Journal

“A justice in state Supreme Court on Staten Island heard arguments Wednesday on whether two lawsuits to overturn New York teacher tenure laws should proceed.

After a two-hour hearing in which he peppered lawyers for seven parties with questions, Justice Philip Minardo said all presented “well-argued” positions. Lawyers said they expected his written ruling in several weeks.

The lawsuits promoted by Partnership for Educational Justice and the New York City Parents Union say excessive tenure protections make it too costly to remove incompetent teachers, and violate students’ right to a sound basic education.”

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CBS New York

“NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) – A judge on Staten Island heard arguments Wednesday on two lawsuits challenging New York’s teacher tenure rules.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuits argue that job protections for teachers deprive some students of a sound, basic education.
Parents from around the state, meanwhile, rallied outside Richmond County Court.”

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By Erika Sanzi
Education Port

“When a bad law doesn’t affect us, we usually don’t even know that it exists, let alone that it causes children and families to suffer. However, once we become aware, it’s important that we stand with those victims brave enough to put themselves out there to try and change it.

Right now, in New York, parents need our voices too.”

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By Beth Fertig
WNYC

“Lawyers representing the state, New York City, teachers and principals all urged a Staten Island judge on Wednesday to dismiss a lawsuit challenging teacher tenure.

The suit was brought by two groups of parents who claim the rights of students to a sound, basic education under New York state law have been violated because the tenure system makes it too hard to get rid of bad teachers. But lawyers representing the city and state argued that the state’s sound basic education law is really about a minimum level of funding, not teacher quality.”

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By Jonathan Chait
New York Magazine – Intelligencer

“You should read Vanessa Grigoriadis’s fascinating profile of Campbell Brown, the former television journalist turned school reformer (and, incidentally, Jew). Brown is the current major antagonist of the teacher unions, a role previously occupied by Michelle Rhee, and the object of an intense campaign of personal animosity (a position Brown appears to handle better than Rhee did). Part of what makes the story fascinating is that Brown’s opponents, rather than Brown herself, have had the strongest interest in making her character a centerpiece of the struggle over education reform. One thing I took away from Grigoriadis’s portrait is the degree to which the unions have failed to come to grips with the underlying policy rationale that Brown has latched on to.”

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“LOS ANGELES, CA, JANUARY 12, 2015—A new Teach Plus survey of more than 500 California teachers demonstrates that teachers in the state value tenure but want it to become a truly meaningful professional benchmark earned through performance. Teachers believe that a substantially longer period of time than the current 18 months is necessary for administrators to make tenure decisions. Teachers also broadly support making classroom effectiveness an integral part of both tenure and layoff decisions.”

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ReasonTV

Oral arguments are scheduled to begin on Wednesday in Wright v. New York, a lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court last July that seeks to overturn certain teacher tenure protections on the grounds that they deny public school students their constitutional right to an adequate education.

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