By Stephen Sawchuk
(From Education Week, May 15th 2012)
A handful of California parents have sued the state over five laws that allegedly concentrate poorly performing teachers in schools that primarily serve disadvantaged and minority students.
Filed today in the California superior court, the lawsuit takes aim at California rules that: require tenure be granted after only two years, before a teacher’s performance has been well documented; create some dozen steps in the due-process procedures for dismissing teachers for poor performance, which the plaintiffs say allows that process to drag on for months or years; and mandate that seniority serve the major factor (barring a few exceptions) in determining which teachers are laid off during reductions-in-force.
Read the full article here.