Union, NYSED Argue That Campbell Brown's Anti-Tenure Suit Is Moot With New APPR Changes

From the Post:

The teachers union and state officials argued Tuesday that a lawsuit challenging New York’s tenure policy should be tossed because Gov. Cuomo and the Legislature approved a new law tightening teacher accountability.

The changes make the tenure suit moot, lawyers defending the state claimed during oral arguments in Staten Island Supreme Court.

“We live in a different world ­today than when this action was filed,” said Assistant State Attorney General Steven Banks.

Cuomo and lawmakers approved in April a tougher tenure law that more closely links teacher job ratings to the test scores of their students. The new law also awards tenure after four years instead of three.

The lawyer representing plaintiff Campbell Brown and the NYC Parents Union claimed the changes to the tenure law were just "windowdressing" and the suit should go forward.

Windowdressing?

Tenure is effectively abolished under the new APPR law.

If a teacher receives two consecutive ineffective ratings, the district may bring a 3020-a proceeding and the burden of proof shifts to the teacher with the hearing completed within 90 days.

If a teacher receives three consecutive ineffective ratings, the district must bring a 3020-a and the only defense a teacher can use is fraud or mistaken identity with the hearing completed within 30 days.

How the hell are those windowdressing changes to tenure?

Those are drastic changes that essentially abolish tenure protections since a tenured teacher can be fired based upon his/her APPR rating.

Brown is also aiming at LIFO seniority - the last in, first out rules for layoffs - so it's possible the suit will go forward based on that.

But for Brown's lawyer to claim that the new APPR law only provides "windowdressing" changes that do not affect the core tenets of tenure - well, that's just absurd.

Campbell Brown Anti-Tenure Lawyer Uses Obsolete Data To Argue Tenure Must Be Abolished

From the WSJ:

Tenure laws are “not a gift to teachers,” Richard Casagrande, a lawyer for New York State United Teachers, told the court. “These laws empower teachers to teach well.”

...

Jay Lefkowitz, representing nine families organized by Partnership for Educational Justice, said granting tenure after three probationary years was like a “rubber stamp” because so few were denied it, and three years was too short a time to tell who deserved the benefit.

He cited a study finding that from 2004 to 2008, legal proceedings to dismiss an ineffective teacher spanned an average of 830 days and cost an average of $313,000.

“Our statutes create a Rube Goldberg-esque system” where it’s nearly impossible to fire a teacher, he said.

Mr. Casagrande said that data was obsolete because the state revised its laws for evaluating teachers in 2012, and created an expedited process for hearing incompetency cases.

With the changes made to the teacher evaluation law and the expedited process for hearings put into place in 2012, it's difficult to see how the anti-tenure forces win a court case on tenure here.

If Cuomo and Tisch get some of the "reforms" they want on teacher evaluations and (including automatically pulling teachers with two consecutive "ineffective" ratings out of the classroom and an expedited incompetency firing process as a result of two consecutive "ineffective" ratings), it further undermines the anti-tenure court case.

And then there's this:

Lawyers for the city and state asked the justice to dismiss the case, saying it was up to the Legislature to revise tenure laws, the plaintiffs had shown no direct injuries caused by bad teachers, and plaintiffs hadn’t described any remedies.

Further, Janice Birnbaum, a lawyer for New York City, said the plaintiffs hadn’t been joined by representatives of all of the nearly 700 districts statewide that would be affected by a change in tenure laws.

I'm not a lawyer, but from the perspective of a layman looking at the case, it seems a little messy on the anti-tenure side.

UFT Launches Ads To Defend Itself Against Attacks Over Tenure And Charter Schools

It's behind a paywall at Capital NY, but here's the details so far:

The United Federation of Teachers is launching a $1.4 million ad campaign today, as the union attempts to defend itself from attacks over teacher tenure and charter schools.

$1.4 million sounds like a lot, but if you consider that pro-charter proponents and supporters threw more than $5 million into the "De Blasio hates children/Eva loves them" ad blitz last budget season and threw millions more into pro-charter ads right before last week's rally in Foley Square, you see that the $1.4 million UFT ad buy is way too late and too many dollars short.

Non-Union Teacher Joins Campbell Brown's Anti-Tenure Lawsuit, Provides Highly Ineffective Argument Against Tenure

Eliza Shapiro at Capital NY:

Campbell Brown's lawsuit challenging teacher tenure and other union-backed protections is gaining a new plaintiff: a non-union public school teacher from Albany.

DeLaine Wilson, a 15-year veteran pre-school teacher at the North Albany Academy YMCA, said in an interview with Capital on Thursday that New York's slate of teacher protections academically harmed students in upper grades at her school.

"We had honor roll students [at my school] and when it came to the Regents tests they weren't able to pass them," said Wilson, who has four children who attend public schools in Albany and was a member of the New York State United Teachers when previously she taught at a private school.

...

Wilson, who is joining the lawsuit along with her husband, Roderick Wilson, said she believes eliminating the current teacher tenure laws will "hold more teachers accountable."

"Tenure makes them comfortable," she said, adding she would try to convince unionized teachers that potentially eliminating tenure and other protections would help all teachers perform better.

If the argument is that tenure makes teachers comfortable so they don't actually care whether children do well on Regents tests or not, whether they learn or not, it's not a "highly effective" argument.

The state's new teacher evaluation law holds teachers accountable for their students' test scores, including Regents scores.

40% of a teacher's evaluation is based on so-called student performance - 20% from local measures of performance (which may include tests or performance assessments) and 20% from state measures (like Regents exams.)

DeLaine Wilson can join Campbell Brown's anti-tenure bandwagon (if there's room on it, since Mona Davids and Sam Pirozzolo are already there and fighting with Brown over the direction of the lawsuit), but I am skeptical that argument she's bringing onto the bandwagon will help much since it's easily refuted by the parameters of the APPR teacher evaluation law.

And while some deformers may counter that most teachers were deemed "effective" or "highly effective" in the state so that the APPR system has no teeth, I would note that teachers in Rochester, Buffalo and other urban districts with high poverty found out just how much teeth the system has when overwhelming numbers of them were rated "developing" or "ineffective" on the evaluation system.

No Wonder The Corporatists Want To Get Rid Of Teacher Tenure/Due Process Protections

From Bloomberg Businessweek:

A political candidate’s firing in Florida offers a reminder of a little-understood fact of American life: Companies have sweeping discretion to effectively regulate what their workers do outside of work, including running for elected office.

That startling reality resurfaced after Marriott Vacations Worldwide came under fire for terminating Viviana Janer, a senior manager who is also the Democratic nominee for a seat on the Osceola County Commission. “I think it’s a stinking maneuver to rob her of her job and rob the voters of their votes,” Democratic Representative Alan Grayson charged this week. Janer says her candidacy is consistent with the company’s support for civic participation; her employer, a time-share company spun off from Marriott International in 2011, says her candidacy threatened a conflict of interest.

In a Sept. 19 termination letter, Marriott Vacations wrote that Janer had been given the choice to either resign from her campaign or resign from her job. “She was given those two options,” confirms Edward Kinney, a vice president for the company, “and she chose not to do either one.”

The company’s move may be controversial, but there’s nothing obviously illegal about it. In fact, as I’ve noted before, U.S. workers can be fired for all kinds of activities outside of work: volunteering for the AIDS Foundation, using medical marijuana, even just driving around with a John Kerry bumper sticker. There are some clear exceptions. Firing someone for practicing a religion or organizing a union during his or her time off is illegal. But aside from Montana, neither state nor federal laws require that private sector companies have a good reason for firing people.

Few states require that terminations have anything to do with work performance. According to a 2010 review (PDF) by the National Conference of State Legislatures, only four states have statutes broadly protecting workers from being fired for (noncriminal) things they do outside for work. Seventeen states offer specific protections for after-hours tobacco users, and another eight protect using lawful products.

The First Amendment protects free speech and the right to petition the government, but it only restricts the government from trampling those rights—it doesn’t ban your boss from punishing you for exercising them.

As you can see, most Americans can be fired from their jobs for any reason at any time.

When the corporatists and ed deformers talk about the need to reform teacher tenure and due process protections, what they really mean is that they want to make teaching as "at-will" a job as most others - then districts can fire teachers whenever they want for any reason they want.

You know, like you're running for office.

Or driving around with a John Kerry bumper sticker.

Or volunteered for the AIDS Foundation.

Or because you make too much money.

Or Campbell Brown doesn't like you.

Or whatever.

Anti-Teacher Tenure Lawsuit In New York Starts Off Like A Circus (UPDATED - 8:08)

The Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal:

Justice Philip Minardo in Richmond County Supreme Court agreed Thursday to merge two lawsuits seeking to challenge state tenure laws.

The state attorney general's office had filed a motion to consolidate the two cases on grounds the issues were so similar, and the United Federation of Teachers had asked to intervene as a defendant.

The court granted both requests. The cases were filed by the New York City Parents Union and Partnership for Educational Justice. Both groups charge that current tenure laws keep ineffective teachers in classrooms.

The union argues that tenure guarantees due process to keep teachers from unjust terminations, and plans to file a motion to dismiss the case by Oct. 14, a spokeswoman said.

The WSJ ignored the circus at yesterday's festivities - the Daily News did not:

A judge consolidated a pair of lawsuits challenging teacher tenure in New York on Thursday — but the two people behind the cases couldn’t be farther apart.

Mona Davids, president of the New York City Parents Union, who filed the first legal action, made wild accusations Thursday against Campbell Brown, who filed the second.

“This is our lawsuit. We will not be bullied by Campbell Brown,” said Davids, who passed out fake dollars bearing Brown’s likeness at a bizarre press conference outside Staten Island Supreme Court.

Davids insisted that Brown, a former CNN anchor turned education advocate, had orchestrated a behind-the-scenes effort to undermine her suit. But Davids, despite the fire with which she made her accusation, did not produce evidence to back it up.

Capital NY nailed the circus-like atmosphere as well:

A would-be alliance in the battle over New York's teacher-tenure laws fell apart Thursday, as parent-activist Mona Davids held a press conference to attack CNN anchor-turned-education reformer Campbell Brown.

The drama between Davids and Brown, who are each suing to invalidate the state's tenure laws, threatens to delegitimize their shared legal argument which has, at least on its face, a chance of succeeding considering the positive result for anti-tenure reformers in the Vergara vs. California case earlier this summer.

State Supreme Court Justice Philip Minardo on Thursday ordered Davids and Brown to consolidate their lawsuits, meaning the two will be represented by the same firm and will have to work together.

The number of legal players involved in the case and Davids' dramatic pre-hearing press conference outside Richmond County Court on Staten Island turned what was supposed to be a mundane legal proceeding Thursday into an unexpectedly dramatic bit of political theater.

Davids, head of a group called the New York City Parents Union, accuses Brown of trying to steal the spotlight and divert resources away from her case.

"Campbell Brown is is trying to reform her image and make herself relevant on the backs of black and Hispanic children, our children. This is our lawsuit," Davids said at a press conference where members of her group held up fake $100 bills with Brown's screaming face in the middle and signs that read "Campbell Brown does not speak for NYC parents."

Davids claims Brown discouraged Gibson Dunn, the prestigious law firm that helped secure victory for the plaintiffs in Vergara vs. California, from helping Davids' case. Gibson Dunn said in early August it would be providing legal support to Davids' case, then abruptly dropped out several weeks ago, citing conflicts of interest.

Davids claims Brown, whose own group is called the Partnership for Educational Justice, asked lawyers at Gibson Dunn to drop their support for Davids' group and cited unpublished emails between Brown and lawyers at the firm.

Davids also claims Brown began "a bullying campaign" against her.
...

Charles Moerdler, a partner at the law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, who is representing the U.F.T., said the union will seek to have the case dismissed.

Davids and Brown will be able to submit two separate complaints, Minardo said, but will have to act as a single plaintiff.

Minardo also told Gibson Dunn to file a formal motion asking to leave the case; Davids said she will most likely oppose the motion to show that she wants to retain legal help from the firm.

Moerdler indicated that formal legal proceedings are unlikely to begin until December, at the earliest.

What are the chances this lawsuit, a mess from the beginning, is going to be successful?

UPDATED - 8:08:

Also, it's interesting that the WSJ ignored the circus clowns and other distractions at yesterday's event.

Think the WSJ would have ignored them if the clowns had "UFT" on their shirts instead of "NYCPU"?

Anti-Tenure Lawsuit Groups Battle Each Other

The NY Post reports of dysfunction among the anti-tenure groups fighting to end teacher protections in New York State:

The powerhouse law firm that was supposed to represent parent advocates suing to overturn the state’s teacher tenure laws has withdrawn from the case, The Post has learned.

One of the parent advocates, Mona Davids, charged that the firm Gibson Dunn pulled out after “bullying” by rival parent advocate Campbell Brown, the former CNN anchor who has her own set of lawyers.

“We are moving forward with our lawsuit,” said ­Davids. “Campbell Brown does not speak for Davids vs. New York.”

Brown declined to comment.

Gibson Dunn spokeswoman Pearl Piatt said the proposed consolidation of lawsuits filed separately by Davids and Brown “advances the same issues.”

But multiple sources said the firm pulled out because several of its longstanding education clients complained about previous run-ins with Davids.

Also withdrawing was the California group Students Matter, which funded the landmark case overturning that state’s tenure laws.

Love it - "Multiple sources said the firm pulled out because several of its longstanding education clients complained about previous run-ins with Davids."

Norm Scott's early July post on the Davids lawsuit was prescient:

The news that self-serving Moaning Mona Davids, hoping  to get a piece of the hedge fund ed deform anti-tenure action, has filed a Vergara copycat suit over teacher tenure, has spurred me to dredge up this blog post that's been lurking in draft mode for many months. I hadn't bothered  because the idea that anyone actually takes Moaning Mona Davids seriously causes me constant amusement as to just how naive so many people are. Her press release regarding the suit is laugh out loud reading.

I'd like to see if this law suit has any real financial backing. Mona may just be trolling, knowing full well there will be a well-financed suit coming. Her hope is to get her pitiful attempt combined with others. If you had a choice between Moaning Mona Davids and Crappy Campbell Brown, both desperate to use the teacher bashing issue in an attempt to remain relevant, who would you choose? Hmmmmm.  Let's see if there are any ed deform funders out there will to take a chance on venturing forth into a Moaning Mona minefield loaded with IEDs. Today's NY Times piece indicates that this is a trolling law suit looking for publicity.

Education reform groups, some of them supported by Wall Street philanthropists, are expected to support a wave of Vergara-inspired suits. Ms. Davids contended that her suit was different because it was not being bankrolled by outside interests.

However, Ms. Davids said she expected that if multiple cases were to be filed, they would eventually be lumped together by the courts.

Sure, not bankrolled by outside interests because they are too smart to get involved in Moaning Mona's shenanigans. Her main hope is to have hers combined with the heavy hitters and pick up a few crumbs on the way.

Looks like the heavy hitters decided Mona will get no crumbs.