A stunning silence fell over the courtroom today when Bhavini Bhakta, the first teacher to testify in the Vergara v California trial, described the impact of the state’s current teacher dismissal and seniority laws. An award-winning educator with two master’s degrees, she recounted how despite her success, the warm embrace of her students and the...

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...