Unlikely State Provides a Big Win for School Reform: CA Judge Rules Tenure Unconstitutional

A Superior Court Judge in California has ruled that tenure is unconstitutional--- and results in discrimination against poor students who, becuause of tenure protections, are forced to accept ineffective, sub-par teachers. From The Atlantic: "under current California law, principals are forced to make high-stakes decisions about teachers without enough evidence. This disadvantages students, who might get stuck with sub-par instructors, but it also hurts teachers, who aren’t given enough time to prove their skill. Once a teacher earns tenure, it can cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars—and countless administrative and legal man-hours—for a district to permanently remove him from his job. And in the event of budget cuts or school closings, California law mandates that the least experienced teachers be laid off first, even if they are more effective than their older colleagues, a policy known as “LIFO,” or “Last In, First Out... California is an outlier. Only 12 states have formal laws on the books mandating LIFO."