Merriam-Webster defines “tenure”, in part, as: “the right to keep a job (especially the job of being a professor at a college or university) for as long as you want to have it.”

Teachers in public schools throughout the U.S. have long enjoyed a presumption that once they reach a certain level of seniority, their jobs become extremely secure. So secure, in fact, that it becomes very difficult to dismiss tenured teachers, even if some are widely known to lack competence or to be facing serious allegations of criminal activity or other forms of severe employee misconduct.

Teacher tenure, as it is commonly applied in public school districts, has become so entrenched in American society and culture that it is often written directly into public law. In California the term “tenure” as it applies to public school teachers, appears hundreds of times throughout several of its numerous legal codes.

Tenure is also, of course, typically a part of any public school teacher labor contract language and LBUSD’s contracts with the Teachers Association of Long Beach (TALB) are certainly no exception.

In the U.S., the concept of tenure for public school teachers was developed in the early 1900’s, when the profession was practiced almost exclusively by women who, as a result, were often very badly treated in the male-dominated school workplace of that day. Before tenure, female teachers were often dismissed without cause, regardless of their qualifications, competence, or seniority and often just for getting married or becoming pregnant and, sometimes, just for rebuffing a romantic advance from a male school administrator.

Those days have, fortunately, long since passed. Men are far more common in the teaching profession now (though still a noted minority in K-12 schools) and teachers’ unions have succeeded in securing wage, benefit, and working condition improvements the likes of which public school teachers in the 1920’s-1950’s could never have dreamed possible.

Seniority should be an important consideration in any profession. All other things being equal, a promotion, a raise, or a retention should go to a worker who has more seniority over one who has less. “All other things being equal.” Teacher tenure considerations as currently practiced, however, often require that, during layoffs, a less capable teacher with tenure be retained, while a demonstrably more capable teacher without tenure be laid off.

Tenure considerations also sometimes make it extremely difficult and hugely expensive for a school district to terminate incompetent and sometimes even grossly malfeasant teachers.

In an L.A. Times article from 2010, a former LAUSD School Board President described a:

“…‘dance of the lemons,’ a term that broadly describes controversial tactics LAUSD utilizes to cope with tenured teachers who can’t teach but, under the current system, cannot be fired. Those tactics include not only paying them to leave, but quietly transferring bad teachers to other, unsuspecting schools or repeatedly and fruitlessly “retraining” them while they continue to teach, sometimes harming the educations of thousands of children.”

Such practices, I suggest, are a gross misapplication of the intent of the teacher tenure concept.

After decades of fruitless attempts to reform tenure in California, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ralph M. Treu has finally agreed. On June 9, 2014, in a 16-page decision, Judge Treu found that five sections of California’s Education Code which deal specifically with tenure to be unconstitutional. Judge True found:

“…both students and teachers are unfairly, unnecessarily, and for no legally cognizable reason (let alone a compelling one), disadvantaged by the current permanent employment statute.” (Page 10, line 15)

“…the Dismissal Statutes unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the Constitution of California.” (Page 13, line 19)

“…the LIFO (‘last in-first out’) statute unconstitutional under the equal protection clause of the Constitution of California.” (Page 14, line 26)

“…the Challenged Statutes disproportionately affect poor and/or minority students.” (Page 15, line 3)

“…the churning (aka ‘Dance of the Lemons’) of teachers, caused by the lack of effective dismissal statutes and LIFO effect high-poverty and minority students disproportionately. This in turn greatly affects the stability of the learning process to the detriment of such students.” (Page 15, line 12)

The decision in “Vergara et. al., v. State of California” (California Teachers Association – Intervenors) is deemed a tentative one, and no actions can proceed upon it pending subsequent appeals, but if the ruling stands, teacher tenure protections as California has practiced them for many decades, no longer exist.

This, to my mind, is a very good thing and a very important and necessary first step toward reforming public education in California, and in Long Beach, in a meaningful and sustainable way.