By Campbell Brown
NY Daily News

“Gov. Cuomo’s gutsy call for dramatic changes in New York education deserves support and praise from every political corner, because he’s right: The reforms he wants would help so many students who have waited for so long.

Of all the ideas Cuomo outlined Wednesday, two in particular scream for overdue action by lawmakers. One change would make it easier to fairly fire teachers who have demonstrably shown they are failing on the job. The other would extend to five years from three the period teachers must serve effectively before they can qualify for the extensive layer of job protection known as tenure.”

Read More

Nine brave parents from across New York State have sued the state against specific statutes that make it nearly impossible to keep ineffective teachers out of the classroom. These are the plaintiffs of Wright vs. New York.

Last month, they sat down and shared with us their stories and reasons for joining this lawsuit. Watch these videos to hear why they are making their voices heard.

You can view a shorter version of the video here.

As a distinguished professor of law, Erwin Chemerinsky offered a thoughtful case of how to improve public education (“Teacher Tenure: Wrong target,” Oct. 23). Yet given that his column focused on the legal action by the parents whom our organization supports, and because his argument all flowed from a factually inaccurate description of our effort, a response to set the record right is in order.

The goal of the lawsuit by nine families against the State of New York is to ensure that all of our public school students have access to good teachers. The litigation targets three sets of laws that combine, in a quiet and devastating way, to undermine the state constitution’s promise of a sound, basic education.

The problem breaks down this way:

· Tenure laws that allow extensive job protections to be granted to teachers long before school leaders have a reasonable chance to determine the effectiveness of those teachers.

· Dismissal laws that make it nearly impossible for schools to fire grossly ineffective teachers.

· Seniority laws that solely consider how long teachers have been in class – without regard to quality, effectiveness or dedication – when educators are laid off during times of budget cuts.

The view of the parents, and our view at the Partnership for Educational Justice, is that New York deserves a system that supports, protects, trains, appreciates and properly pays good teachers. At the same time, teachers are not interchangeable parts; we must have a way to remove in a responsible and fair way those teachers judged to be incompetent. Otherwise, students will pay the price for years.

And this is where Chemerinsky’s column falls short.

He wrongly says that our lawsuit asserts that teachers’ rights are causing disadvantaged or minority students to have substandard educations. That is untrue. The suit never claims that tenure causes a bad education.

Rather, it says that tenure (which can assure a lifetime of employment) should not be granted until a teacher’s effectiveness can reasonably be determined. Even common sense supports that conclusion, to borrow a phrase from Chemerinsky’s column.

What’s more, he asserted that the lawsuit would eliminate due-process for teachers. That, too, is false. The lawsuit does not seek to, and would not, destroy basic due process for teachers. The problem in New York is that tenure and dismissal laws in our state provide such impenetrable protections that students come last – essentially, an “uber due process,” as a judge in the California Vergara case put it.

Yes, protections against arbitrary or political firings are vital. But our policies must protect our teachers and provide benefit to our students.

And it does not automatically stand to reason, as Chemerinsky says, that teacher effectiveness always improves with experience. Seniority is a factor in who keeps a teaching job, but as the only factor? When a California teacher of the year was fired based solely on inadequate seniority, did that help kids?

Finally, Chemerinsky cited other important problems that affect student performance and need to be addressed, including inferior salaries for teachers, community conditions and disadvantaged students. We agree. For example, teachers in hard-to-staff schools or high-demand fields should be paid more.

Our position is that all those challenges are not in competition with the ones of our lawsuit. We must work on all of them; they are all legitimate concerns and they all demand real action.

The families who are suing the State of New York have chosen to start with teacher quality because it is the single-most important school-based factor to student success. Research has supported this point. One exhaustive Harvard-led study found that replacing a low-performing teacher with even an average one increased the lifetime earnings of a single student by $50,000—or that of a classroom by $1.4 million.

We believe the parents of the case deserve to have a day in court, just as all students deserve to know that getting a quality teacher should not be a matter of which school or class they attend. The constitution promises a sound education for all. And that is why, in fact, we have chosen the right target.

—

Reshma Singh is the Executive Director of Partnership for Educational Justice. Follow her on Twitter: @reshma_a_singh.

1. Did Campbell Brown file a lawsuit in New York?
2. Does PEJ want to cut funding for public education and redirect people into private schools?
3. Who is funding Partnership for Educational Justice?
4. Why is tenure reform needed when New York has instituted teacher evaluations?
5. Won’t rolling back tenure eliminate due process rights for teachers?
6. Is your goal to dismantle teachers unions?
7. Does PEJ oppose the consolidation of Davids v. State of NY and Wright v. State of NY?

The Partnership for Educational Justice (PEJ) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to help families and students advocate for the great schools and teachers they deserve through coalition building and legal action.

The group was founded by Campbell Brown, a former journalist with CNN and NBC and parent advocate, and is led by executive director Reshma Singh, an education advocate who previously led external relations for charter management organization Achievement First.

In an attempt to distract from the case filed by seven courageous families trying to improve education for their kids and others around New York state, those who oppose our efforts keep raising the same questions that we’ve already answered.

In the courtroom, lawyers can object when the opposing counsel raises a question that has already been answered.

Objection, your honor. Here are questions that have been asked and answered:

Did Campbell Brown file a lawsuit in New York?

---

No. Seven plaintiffs from across the state of New York filed the lawsuit, also known as Wright v. New York. Plaintiffs filed the suit on behalf of their minor children who experienced a harmful impact as a result of the teaching they received in the classroom. The suit is named after Keoni Wright, a father from East NY, Brooklyn who saw a growing achievement gap between his twin daughters after they were taught by different teachers as Kindergarten students.

PEJ is providing organizational support to the Wright family and other plaintiffs.

You can find the text of Wright v. New York here.

Does PEJ want to cut funding for public education and redirect people into private schools?

---

Not at all. Our organization was founded to strengthen public education. We know that the quality of teaching is the single biggest factor in determining whether students will succeed or fail.

There are other things we can do to strengthen public education, like fully and equitably funding schools and paying teachers like professionals. We support those things too. That said, we must also address education policies that have made it nearly impossible to dismiss teachers that are shutting down opportunities for students.

Who is funding Partnership for Educational Justice?

---

PEJ’s Founder Campbell Brown provided the seed funding for PEJ herself, and the lawyers at Kirkland and Ellis are representing the plaintiffs in Wright v. New York pro bono. Additional funding has been provided by a bipartisan group of donors. Like many other non-profit organizations, we have donors who wish to remain anonymous.

Why is tenure reform needed when New York has instituted teacher evaluations?

---

Tenure has become disconnected from teacher quality. Under New York law, schools must decide after 3 years whether teachers are granted tenure — a supreme level of job protection that can amount to permanent employment.

Once a teacher is grated tenure, an additional set of laws, New York’s disciplinary statutes, make it nearly impossible to dismiss a teacher that has been found to be ineffective, taking years if principals decide to engage at all in the process.

The nation’s top school official, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, has summed it up well: Tenure itself is not the issue. Job protections for effective teachers are vital to keep teachers from being fired for random or political reasons. But “awarding tenure to someone without a track record of improving student achievement doesn’t respect the craft of teaching, and it doesn’t serve children well.” It’s clear that the current tenure system in New York does not promote teacher quality and we working with families to take the necessary measures to change it.

Won’t rolling back tenure eliminate due process rights for teachers?

---

This lawsuit is not intended to — and it will not — eliminate due process protection for teachers entitled to it. The mechanisms provided under the state tenure law go over and above what due process requires at the expense of students’ educational experience.

Tenure has become disconnected from teacher quality. Under New York law, schools must decide after 3 years whether teachers are granted tenure — a supreme level of job protection that can amount to permanent employment. And state law makes it nearly impossible to dismiss a teacher that has been found to be ineffective, taking years if principals decide to engage at all with the odds staked against them. In a study of disciplinary proceedings between 1995-2006, the proceedings took an average of 520 days to complete costing taxpayers an average of $128,000.

Is your goal to dismantle teachers unions?

---

No. All sides can agree that we must elevate teaching and the hardworking professionals who teach our students. These reforms are aimed at ensuring tenure is granted once and only if we have determined a teacher’s effectiveness, giving administrators and districts the flexibility to run great schools and ensuring that teachers aren’t laid off simply due to seniority.

Does PEJ oppose the consolidation of Davids v. State of NY and Wright v. State of NY?

---

No. Please refer to this letter to the court filed August 22, 2014.

http://edjustice.org/asked-answered/