Students Lose, Liberals Elated
California denies a constitutional challenge to failing schools
Aug. 22, 2016 6:56 p.m. ET
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Remember when progressives worked to break down the barriers to minority education? You know, Brown v. Board and all that. Well, nowadays good liberals rejoice when their judicial friends deny upward mobility to poor black and Hispanic children.
That’s how the left reacted to Monday’s decision by the California Supreme Court not to hear an appeal of the Vergara v. California case charging that the Golden State has systematically denied minority kids trapped in failing schools their constitutional right to an education. The plaintiffs, backed by some public-spirited donors, had won in lower court but lost on appeal and now the state Supreme Court has doomed tens of thousands to lives of diminished possibility, if not poverty.
“I am relieved by the court’s decision declining an appeal of the unanimous California Court of Appeal ruling upholding California educators’ due process rights,” declared Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. At issue were the contractual powers of teachers that denied the due-process rights of students, but facts must be distorted when your first priority is protecting failure factories.
The plaintiffs in Vergara showed that 98% of teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District are guaranteed a job for life after only 18 months on the job. Over a decade only 91 teachers in California had been fired, only 19 for subpar performance. Meanwhile, California students rank near the bottom in the country in reading and math.
The defeat for the students is also a victory for Governor Jerry Brown, who along with most of the state’s Democratic establishment sided with the unions. Congratulations, Governor, on another triumph for educational opportunity denied.
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