class.

an ongoing discussion/moment of clarirty.

words.

"The decision in Vergara v. California won’t do much to help poor kids and is a diversion from the real source of inequality identified in Brown itself: the segregation of our public schools.

Racial segregation continues to bedevil American society and is closely coupled with rising income segregation. Concentrations of poverty have much more to do with why poor and minority students often end up with the worst teachers than do tenure laws. If the plaintiffs were genuinely concerned about connecting great teachers with poor and minority kids, they would go after that problem, not the due process rights of teachers.

...Reforming (or gutting) tenure laws might make it easier to weed out bad teachers, but it does nothing to address the underlying ability of segregated schools to attract and retain strong teachers. As a result, even if tenure reform is successful, there is little reason to think new teachers hired in high-poverty schools will be much better.

...Rather than gutting hard-won protections for teachers, the next legal case should go after economic segregation itself. Instead of invoking Brown in a broad metaphorical sense, why not bring a state-level suit against actual segregation by class and race? If it is a violation of the California state constitution to have tenure laws that make it hard to fire bad teachers in poor and minority communities, why isn’t it a violation when the state and districts draw school boundary lines in a way that promotes deeply unequal, economically segregated schools that many strong educators won’t teach in?

... Careful research comparing students who applied for a lottery to attend the integrated magnet schools found that those admitted later performed better on math and reading than those who lost the lottery and attended other urban schools. California needs a similar lawsuit. Such a case would underline a profound truth: The big problem in education is not that unions have won too many benefits and supports for teachers. It’s the disappearance of the American common school, which once educated rich and poor side by side."

SLATE: Tenure Is Not the Problem: Teacher protections are not why poor schools are failing. Segregation is.