A California judge has delivered a haymaker to the teachers unions by finding that laws governing tenure and other job security laws are unconstitutional. Perhaps more than the finding, it was the language used by the judge in his deicsion that was shocking. Politico: He ruled that such a system violates the state constitution’s guarantee that all children receive “basic equality of educational opportunity.” In a blunt, unsparing 16-page opinion, Treu compared his ruling to the seminal federal desegregation case Brown v. Board of Education, decided 60 years ago last month. “The evidence is compelling. Indeed, it shocks the conscience,” Treu wrote. In adopting the language and legal framework of the civil rights movement, Treu gave a major boost to school reformers from both parties who have long argued that the current system dooms poor and minority students to inferior educations. The key takeaway is that Judge Treu justified the...(Read Full Post)