Down goes Reed

Another ballyhooed attack on tenure in CA bites the dust. I'm sure Vergara will be the next one to go down, though rust never sleeps, as they say...

http://www.utla.net/reedappeal


Today, the California Court of Appeals sided with UTLA and invalidated the Reed settlement, which had been agreed to by LAUSD and two outside groups over UTLA’s objections in 2010.

Settlement violated teacher rights and destabilized schools

By changing the way layoffs are handled in LAUSD, the Reed settlement violated the rights of UTLA members and hurt student learning by destabilizing schools across LAUSD. UTLA is gratified that the court affirmed that the rights of teachers and health and human services professionals cannot be so easily swept aside and that due process must be respected.

The Reed settlement—which prioritized some schools over others by protecting 45 campuses from layoffs—was reached by LAUSD and several outside groups to settle a lawsuit. The case was another example of non-educators trying to use the court system to force unproven changes on schools and students instead of working with teachers to implement proven strategies to help schools.

Decision not final for 30 days

The Court of Appeals decision is not final for 30 days, and Reed unfortunately stays in effect for now. Plaintiff’s counsel and LAUSD have signaled that they may appeal to the state Supreme Court. In the meantime, UTLA will analyze the decision and prepare to vigorously enforce the rights of members who may have been unfairly laid off as a result of the Reed settlement.

Reed has been a failed experiment
The Reed settlement has proven to be a failed experiment at most of the campuses involved because it does nothing to address the underlying issues at high-turnover schools. It has also severely harmed hundreds of additional schools, triggering widespread displacements and layoffs at non-Reed schools. Some non-Reed schools reportedly lost 25% of their staff because of “skipping” provisions in the settlement.

Not the way to stabilize struggling inner-city schools

UTLA has always recognized the serious issues at the heart of the original court case. We presented the settlement plaintiffs with a package of research-based proposals to address systemic problems at these schools, but those proposals were ignored. The purported purpose of the settlement was to protect schools from losing a large percentage of teachers, but it has fallen disastrously short of that goal because it tries to address just one sliver of what affects teacher turnover—layoffs—without addressing the more imperative issues, such as ineffective administrators, unsafe conditions, lack of intervention for struggling students, and other problems.

Ultimately, the lasting solution for school stability is for all schools to be fully funded and fully staffed, eliminating year after year of painful layoffs that hurt student learning and decimate school communities.