Bad teachers need to leave. And it is a gross injustice that they are disproportionately congregated in low-income communities. Right now, because of Vergara vs. California, the lawsuit waged against education laws alleged to protect bad teachers, there is a tremendous amount of public anger directed at those teachers. But to fire grossly incompetent teachers...

It took six days of testimony to finally put a human face on the legal issues in Vergara vs. California, and it wasn’t Beatriz Vergara or any of the other eight plaintiffs challenging the state and its biggest teacher unions. Rather it was Joey Raymond, the son of the former Sacramento City Unified superintendent, Jonathan...

Testimony resumes this morning in Vergara v California, with Troy Christmas of the Oakland Unified School District returning to the stand to face cross examination by lawyers for the defendants — the state and its two big teachers unions. Christmas, the Director of Labor Management and Employee Relations for his district, has largely plowed the...

After the first week of the groundbreaking trial Vergara vs. California in a California superior court, lawyers and witnesses talked a lot about ineffective teachers, arcane rules for dismissing them and how much money it costs. One thing they didn’t talk about was Beatriz Vergara. The lawsuit in her name — she’s an LA Unified...

The Los Angeles teachers union election process is long – from February to July – and a lot like a reality show, with multiple voting rounds to knock out candidates/contestants, until finally, there’s only one person left standing. That’s especially true in the race for UTLA president, which has 10 men competing for the chance...

Legal battles aren’t only waged in the courtroom; they’re also hard fought in the court of public opinion. As testimony in the landmark case, Vegara vs. California, resumed today inside a state superior court, another star witness took the stand — more accurately, the mic — outside the courtroom. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa held...

Steve Zimmer isn’t giving up. Despite legal opinions against him, the LA Unified board member for District 4 is still seeking a way to give voting rights to a temporary appointee to the vacant District 1 board seat until a permanent member is elected later this year. The board voted earlier this month against such a...

A new report from the National Council on Teachers Quality finds that California has made marginal, if any, progress on improving state policies that shape effective teachers. For the third straight time, California was given an overall grade of D+ by the council, which issues a new report for every other year. Compared with the...

And so begins the battle of the expert titans. In the landmark lawsuit, Vergara vs. California, the winner may ultimately be the side that had the more persuasive expert witnesses. The first came to the stand today as lawyers for the nine students bringing the suit called Harvard professor Raj Chetty, a renowned expert in public...