Minnesota Anti-Tenure Lawsuit is Dismissed

I am biased when it comes to whether or not educators should continue to receive tenure.

I believe in tenure. 100%.

After dealing with charges prosecuted at 3020-a that are crazy, unfair, ridiculous, frivolous and factless for 14 years, and supporting teachers who are terrific in their classrooms and simply terminated because their representative, the lawyer, was no good or couldn't care less about the career trashed by the Department and their bulldozers, I believe that our children need to depend on us to protect their teachers from the whim of a manic-depressive principal.

Tenure for life doesn't exist, as we all know. Good teachers are terminated for no reason other than the politics of education, which doesn't look at how good a teacher is, but how expensive he/she is.

The spiel is that senior teachers, after a certain random amount of time, lose their ability to teach effectively.

This factless nonsense is supported by the absurd Danielson rubric, which is used to rate teachers so that biased administrators can see whatever they want to see and get rid of anyone they want to get rid of. If they want someone out of their schools, they see bad teaching/coaching/writing/etc, whatever. They see you not using your lesson plan, or they believe that you do not have the aim on the board reflect what is in your lesson plan....or god forbid, you didnt have a lesson plan.

You can be terminated for this nonsense.

Currently, the Courts agree with me and have not allowed tenure to end, although California's original judge in the Vergara case gave us tenure-supporters a scare.

The Appellate Court ruled against the decision, luckily.

And in Minnesota the anti-tenure proponent behind most of the lawsuits to end tenure,

Campbell Brown

Campbell Brown, also lost. I'm happy.

We need our teachers to feel secure and we must allow them to be creative with our kids, knowing that they don't have to be looking over their shoulder every minute.

Stop the movement to end tenure. It's hurting our kids, education, and our country's future.

Betsy Combier

Campbell Brown’s PEJ Is Having Trouble Connecting Test Scores with Tenure Laws

October 29, 2016

LINK

On October 26, 2016, the Minnesota teacher tenure lawsuit prodded by Campbell Brown’s Partnership for Educational Justice (PEJ) hit a roadblock when Ramsey County (MN) Judge Margaret Marrinan tossed out the PEJ-supported (instigated?) Forslund vs. Minnesota suit on the grounds that the suit “failed to establish a link between low academic achievement and the due process provided by the tenure laws,” as the Star Tribune reports.

PEJ has a library of the documents in the case, including the motions to dismiss the suit, and the plaintiffs’ opposition to the motions to dismiss, and the defendants’ responses to the plaintiffs’ opposition to the motions to dismiss. (Indeed, the legal back-and-forth is rather detailed, and costly, to be sure. I am still waiting for access to the PEJ tax form from 2014-15, which has been filed in June 2016 and which includes $4.7 million in revenue as of November 2015.)

The State of Minnesota was one entity that filed a motion to dismiss Forslund. In the State’s July 2016 reply in support of motion to dismiss, the State concisely captures the reason the Judge Marrinan dismissed the suit as reported in the Star Tribune (note that no record of Marrinan’s exact words is publicly available as of this writing):

Plaintiffs Lack Standing. The State Defendants demonstrated in their initial memorandum that Plaintiffs lacked standing because their First Amended Complaint failed to identify a concrete, particularized, and actual or imminent “injury-in-fact,” fairly traceable to the teacher tenure laws. … Plaintiffs reiteration of their generalized grievances set forth in the First Amended Complaint do not alter this conclusion.

Nor will this case remedy Plaintiffs’ alleged harms. … As Plaintiffs acknowledge, eliminating teacher tenure will not ensure Plaintiffs’ children never again receive a teacher they consider “ineffective.” … Furthermore, Plaintiffs also fail to address the causal deficiencies in their claims, including the fact that (1) it is speculative whether elimination of the teacher tenure laws would result in greater teacher “effectiveness” or higher district-wide test scores; and (2) that Minnesota Charter schools, which do not have tenure, are disproportionally represented among Minnesota’s lowest performing schools.

The reason for dismissal of the suit is straightforward: No established, direct connection between teacher tenure laws and those dastardly low test scores– with the low test scores of charter schools (which have non-tenured teachers) blasting the no-tenure, higher-test-score pseudo-argument.

Still, as PEJ offers in a press release that appears pretty well ignored in the mainstream media, an appeal is coming:

PEJ Statement in Response to the Granting of Motions to Dismiss Forslund v. Minnesota by the Ramsey County Court

October 26, 2016

Today, in response to the granting of defendants’ motions to dismiss Forslund v. Minnesota, challenging the state’s teacher tenure, dismissal, and layoff laws, Partnership for Educational Justice Executive Director Ralia Polechronis released the following statement:

“While the Minnesota courts have considered and ruled on many education cases in the past, this is the first time that they have been asked by parents to consider the constitutionality of teacher employment statutes. Under these circumstances, it’s no surprise that the battle for students’ rights will be hard fought.

The fact remains that far too many students in Minnesota, especially those from communities of color and low-income families, are not receiving the quality education to which they are entitled. The plaintiff families are preparing to appeal, and remain committed as ever to continue this fight until students’ rights are justly put above unfair job protections for chronically ineffective teachers.”

– Ralia Polechronis, Executive Director

Note that the press release does not directly confront Forslund vs. Minnesota’s lack of a directly-established connection between Minnesota’s teacher tenure laws and any specific, negative student outcome.

This appeal is already swirling around the bowl.

UFT, NYSUT Fight to Keep Tenure in New York State Supreme Court

How I wish the UFT and NYSUT meant what they said today:

“For the past 10 years, teachers have been demonized across the country,” he said. “You can’t demonize people and expect them to say, ‘hit me again.’ We’ve got to end this reign of terror.”

- Attorney Charles Moerdler

When I worked for the UFT 2007-2010, I was told not to question the investigations of any agency, OSI, SCI, OEO. I asked: "How can we defend members' rights if we do not question the tactics and conclusions of investigators who either do not know what they are doing, or deliberately choose to make false claims into facts?"

I was told to be quiet. Me? Quiet? Not when someone's rights are at stake.

Ergo, I do not work for the UFT anymore.

Betsy Combier, Editor
President, ADVOCATZ

Michael Rebell: The Anti-Tenure Lawsuit In NYC Will Fail, and Why

 Mona Davids' Attorneys Withdraw From The Anti-Tenure Lawsuit

The Frivolous Case of NYC Parent Mona Davids v Tenure

 A Select Few Make A Profit Off of the California Vergara Lawsuit on the End of Tenure Rights For Teachers

NYC DOE Press Office Issues A Press Release on ATRs

Unions call for dismissal of anti-tenure lawsuit

BY LINDA OCASIO | PUBLISHED AUGUST 25, 2015

LINK

Lawyers for the city, the state, the UFT and its state affiliate NYSUT asked a Staten Island judge on Aug. 25 to dismiss the lawsuit to abolish tenure brought by TV personality Campbell Brown and others on the grounds that the state Legislature has dealt with many of the issues in play.

The union lawyers argued that Brown and her group were bent on destroying teachers’ due process rights under the guise of education reform. “Creating a climate that demonizes teachers does not help children and it does not improve education,” said Charles Moerdler, a partner at the law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, which is representing the UFT, after the hearing.

Charles Moerdler

The lawsuit, filed in 2014 after plaintiffs in California won a similar lawsuit at the lower court level, charges that teacher tenure deprives New York children of a sound, basic education, as guaranteed in the state constitution. 

“It would be unprecedented to say public employees can have no job protection,” said Richard Casagrande, the NYSUT general counsel, in his oral argument in court. “This is a political attack that says if we just take away teacher rights, we’ll improve education.”

General Counsel Richard E. Casagrande

 

The UFT and NYSUT joined city and state attorneys in arguing that the lawsuit should be dismissed because the state Legislature this spring significantly altered the statute governing tenure and the teacher evaluation and discipline process. For new hires, the standard probationary period is now four years and teachers will usually need three years of Effective or Highly Effective ratings to earn tenure; and teacher disciplinary proceedings have been further expedited. 

Their remarks were made during oral arguments before Justice Philip G. Minardo in a packed courtroom of the Richmond County Supreme Court on Staten Island. Minardo reserved his decision for a later date after hearing passionate arguments from — and asking pointed questions to — both sides.

Minardo grilled the union representatives on the details of the legislative changes, but saved some of his toughest questions for Jay Lefkowitz, the lawyer for the plaintiffs.

State Supreme Court Justice Philip G. Minardo and Dr. Marianne LaBarbera, sitting and John Minardo and
Kathryn Krause Rooney at the couple's wedding reception in the Richmond County Country Club, Dongan Hills. (Courtesy/Joey G. Making Memories) February 2015

Lefkowitz argued that the lawsuit should proceed because changes in the law merely “tweaked” existing laws. He also insisted that the teacher evaluation process was based on “soft factors” or subjective observations instead of “hard metrics.”

The judge reminded him that evaluations are based in part on student performance on tests as well as observations, which may indeed be subjective. “Subjectivity has a place in all professions, does it not?” he asked.

During the hearing and afterwards in remarks to the press, Moerdler drew a direct connection between attacks on teachers and the news of a nationwide teacher shortage.

“For the past 10 years, teachers have been demonized across the country,” he said. “You can’t demonize people and expect them to say, ‘hit me again.’ We’ve got to end this reign of terror.”

In Los Angeles, "Teacher Jail" Statistics and Instructions for Skelly Review Officers

The teachers in LA have certain rights known as "Skelly" and the rules are basically the same as for 3020-a in NYC.

Most serious right now are the teacher tenure trials and the attack on tenure in the Vergara case.

Betsy Combier

Most in LAUSD ‘jail’ facing charges of sexual misconduct, violence

Posted on July 17, 2015 3:50 pm by Mike Szymanski

LINK

Despite persistent concerns about teachers sexually harassing or abusing students in the classroom, only slightly more than a third of the teachers and other school personnel currently in LA Unified’s so-called “teacher jail” have been accused of sexual misconduct, according to the district’s latest accounting.

Almost the same number are facing accusations of “violence.”

As of July 1, a total of 174 district employees, the vast majority of them teachers, have been taken out of classrooms, awaiting the results of an investigation into charges. The total includes 65 accused of questionable sexual abuse or harassment, about 37 percent, while the rest face accusations on a variety of other issues, including 55 (or 32 percent) who have been cited for violent acts.

The total reflects 151 certificated employees and 23 classified, such as teacher assistants, library aides, janitors and other support staff.

The list, made available to LA School Report, is the first comprehensive breakdown of misconduct allegations being investigated by the district’s Student Safety Investigative Team (SSIT). And while it suggests that large numbers of personnel are still being taken out classrooms and schools for the goal of protecting students, it also shows that the district is making progress on clearing cases at a faster pace than in years past.

The district said today that the number of housed district employees reached a peak on April 9, 2013, with 322 teachers who were removed from classrooms.

“The district continues to deal with the housed teachers situation as quickly as possible, and they have expanded the staff and the scope for the investigations,” saidShannon Haber, the LAUSD district spokeswoman. “As of July 1, the SSIT is investigating all sexual and nonsexual allegations which have resulted in the teachers being reassigned.”

In a statement, UTLA said: “The ‘teacher jail’ system that ballooned under former Superintendent John Deasy was broken. In our new collective bargaining agreement with LAUSD, important changes were made that protect both students and due process rights of educators.”

On the other hand, the union still expressed concerns that the district was using teacher jail inappropriately.

“Allegations that do not involve safety should not result in an educator being removed from the classroom—a move that is disruptive to students,” the statement said. “Unfortunately educators have been stuck in ‘teacher jail’ over concerns about field trips and science experiments, or for simply questioning a principal’s decisions. We are hopeful that the changes we negotiated will put an end to these practices.”

Suzanne Spurgeon, the union spokeswoman, added, “UTLA will be meeting with LAUSD monthly to review cases under the new contract language.”

The issue of teacher jail — more formally know as “housed teachers” — has been a persistent and contentious issue between the district and the teachers for years. Throughout his campaign for the union presidency last year and again during negotiations for a new labor contract this year, Alex Caputo-Pearl demanded an end to teacher jail, insisting that the district intentionally delayed in resolving cases and unfairly denied teachers a full explanation of why they have been removed.

Through sustained pressure from the union, the district agreed to make the process more transparent and expedite case resolution.

The latest statistics show that 65 of classified and certified personnel were taken out of the classroom for sexual abuse or harassment allegations. The vast majority of the cases, 62, involved a minor while the other three involved another adult. In five cases, the incident happened to non-LAUSD victims.

The second-largest category was violence, accounting for 55 removals — almost 32 percent — although the district did not break down what sorts of incidents were involved. Another 14 people were removed in each of two infraction categories — “inappropriate language” and “below standard performance.”

Other reasons that teachers were taken out of the classrooms include: “Failure to report child abuse” (4), “Finances”  (3), “Accepted use policy violations,” for things like inappropriate software use (2)  and “Drugs/Alcohol” (2).

The school board in 2013 instructed former Superintendent John Deasy to set up a team of professional investigators to speed up investigations of allegations of abuse and sexual misconduct against teachers and other employees. At that time, the focus was primarily accusations of sexual abuse against students, in part, due to major scandals of misconduct by teachers the year before at Telfair Elementary in Pacoima and Miramonte Elementary in south Los Angeles.

By January 2014, the district created the SSIT to accelerate investigations with a staff of seven. But over the last year or so, the staff grew to 15 as the district expanded the mission to include investigations on a wider array of alleged violations.

For now, some teachers are allowed to stay at their homes during the period of investigation while other spend time at a district holding facility during school hours, and can return home by the end of the day. They are not allowed to have computer access or work on school activities while being reassigned.

High-Profile California Lawsuit on Teacher Protections Begins

By Stephen Sawchuk on January 27, 2014 9:30 AM

LINK

Los Angeles
A controversial and potentially precedent-setting trial begins in Los Angeles Superior Court this week, with the plaintiffs essentially looking to overturn three of the teachers' unions holy grails: seniority, tenure, and dismissal procedures.
The lawsuit, Vergara v. California, stands to have implications far beyond the Golden State. It's a touchstone for some of the most heated debates in K-12 education, particularly how to promote effective teaching—and whether policies relating to teacher employment help or hinder that effort.
Brought by nine California students and their parents, the suit charges that five sections of the education code run counter to the state's constitutional guarantee to an equitable public education. The statutes in question, they say, mean that most teachers are granted tenure before they've established a successful track record, that it's virtually impossible to fire abysmal teachers, and that  seniority rules concentrate "grossly ineffective" teachers in schools serving low-income and minority students.
"You have someone voted the Teacher of the Year one day and a couple years later is laid off because she's junior compared to other people," said Theodore Boutrous, one of the litigators representing the plaintiffs, in a conference call last week with reporters. "It's really creating an irrational, unequal process that the political system hasn't been able to fix."
The lawsuit is being bankrolled by an advocacy group, Students Matter, set up by David Welch, a Silicon Valley technology entrepreneur. Its board includes several figures who have a reputation for battling the unions on policy, and such ties have led the California Teachers Association to paint the suit as a thinly veiled attack on unions.
"It's disappointing because putting professional rights of teachers on trial hurts students," CTA President Dean E. Vogel said in a statement. "This most recent shenanigan by corporate special interests and billionaires to push their education agenda on California public schools is resulting in a waste of taxpayer dollars and time—time that should be spent focusing on providing a quality education to all students as the economy improves." 
The CTA and the California Federation of Teachers—the state affiliates of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, respectively—were not named in the suit, but chose to join it as "intervenors" in March of last year.
Legal Issues 
There's plenty of star power on display: The plaintiffs have hired a team from the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and they include former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, fresh off his Supreme Court win in the Prop. 8 case on same-sex marriage.
Legal arguments in the case are likely to hinge on whether the statutes themselves deny students' constitutional rights, or whether they have merely been poorly implemented by administrators.
The trial is by far the most sweeping of several lawsuits related to teacher quality filed in the state, but that's no guarantee of success. As Education Week reported previously, some legal experts wonder whether the scope of the lawsuit might work at cross purposes for judges, who might favor a more narrowly tailored form of relief.
If the court rules in favor of the plaintiffs, it isn't clear how teachers and districts would be immediately affected. That's in part because whichever way the ruling goes, it's likely to be appealed to the state Supreme Court. And it is further complicated because the tenure rules and dismissal processes for California teachers are layered on top of existing protections, known as Skelly rights, that protect all public employees from arbitrary dismissals.
Witness Lists
The case is expected to last up to 20 days, which means testimony will go through February. Witness lists released by the parties provide some clues as to what kinds of evidence each side will offer. (Education Week reached out to several witnesses for comment. Most demurred, citing their status as witnesses; others have already recorded depositions.) 
Slotted to be called by the plaintiffs are several researchers who have conducted studies on the impact of teachers on student outcomes. They include Raj Chetty, a Harvard professor whose 2012 study with two colleagues found that students taught by effective teachers, as measured by student test scores, had higher lifetime earnings and were more likely to attend college; Thomas Kane, the Harvard professor and researcher behind the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Measures of Effective Teaching study, which examined value-added and other evaluation tools; and Stanford University's Eric Hanushek. Hanushek is no stranger to the witness box, having argued in several school-finance cases that more educational spending by itself doesn't significantly correlate to better learning. And he's the author of a controversial thought-piece suggesting student achievement would significantly improve if districts fired the bottom 10 percent of teachers each year.
Most of those researchers probably won't be called until the trial's second week. Expected to be among the first up on the stand is Los Angeles Superintendent John Deasy, who has pressed the district to include measures of academic progress in teachers' evaluations. 
The defense, meanwhile, plans to call Linda Darling-Hammond, the chairwoman of the state's teacher-credentialing board and an opponent of using value-added measures in teachers' evaluations; Jesse Rothstein, a University of California, Berkeley, assistant professor whose research has found fault with "value added" approaches to gauging teacher effectiveness, and who has written several papers critical of the Gates MET work; and Steve Zimmer, who serves on the board of the Los Angeles district. Zimmer has dismissed the Vergara lawsuit as an attack on teachers' unions.
A Gradual Shift
Beyond the immediate action in California, the trial marks the latest in a gradual shift in the definition of educational equity. Once, that concept was thought of almost exclusively in terms of access to integrated schools, more funding, or adequate facilities. Teachers' unions have been important supporters of such lawsuits.
A decade of research has shown, though, that of the factors within schools' control, teacher quality is both the most important for learning—and widely variable across classes. In California, such findings have gradually been building the case that the constitutional right to an equitable public education includes access to good teaching. 
It is clear, also, that the plaintiffs are already eyeing how to take any victory statewide.
"Even though we're focused in California constitutional provisions, we think it could provide a model for challenging the laws of other states that have the same arbitrary unequal effects on rights of students," said Boutrous, the plaintiffs' lawyer. He notes that the legal team has received inquiries from other jurisdictions and states.
Education Week will be closely following this lawsuit, so stay tuned to this blog and edweek.org.

Is Campbell Brown a Bully?

I have a question: how does Campbell Brown have standing to bring a lawsuit against tenure for public school teachers/employees?

How many of her children attended public school in NYC?

Just askin'.

Betsy Combier

Campbell Brown

Law firm supporting New York Parents Union quits, parents blame bullying by Campbell Brown’s education reform group

by Eclectablog on AUGUST 30, 2014 in EDUCATION, TEACHERS

LINK

In early June, a decision in the California court case Vergara v. California deemed the state’s teacher tenure laws to be unconstitutional because they deny children access to a quality education. The decision has sparked similar cases around the country. In New York, the parents group New York City Parents Union (NYCPU), headed by Mona Davids, filed the first of these lawsuits in early July. In Davids v. State of New York, et al., eleven students, all children of members of the New York City Parents Union, are plaintiffs. The complaint (pdf) asks the court to issue permanent injunctions against the New York statutes involving “Last In, First Out” (LIFO) layoff rules and dismissal rules for teachers found to be ineffective. UnlikeVergara, Davids does not go after tenure rules which protect teachers who have worked for a pre-specified period of time from being fired for non-educational reasons.

Mona Davids has been, and still is, involved in a variety of lawsuits challenging the funding of schools and the release of student and parent data to a private corporation among other issues and she has fought against lack of parental oversight in charter schools in New York. I spoke to Davids and NYCPU Vice-President Sam Pirozzolo at length this past week to prepare this piece.

Mona Davids

According to Davids and Pirozzolo, the week before the lawsuit was filed, NYCPU was contacted by Campbell Brown, the former CNN anchor. Brown has left her journalism career to become a staunch and well-funded advocate of education reform. With Michelle Rhee leaving her position as CEO of StudentsFirst, Campbell, through her group Partnership for Educational Justice (PEJ), appears poised to take up Rhee’s torch and establish herself as the face of education reform. Her type of education reform echoes Rhee’s model with a strong focus on blaming teachers for poor performing schools and a disdain for teachers unions and teacher tenure laws, in particular.

When Brown contacted Davids and Pirozzolo, she told them she wanted to work with them and set up a meeting. On his way to the meeting Pirozzolo learned that Brown’s group had cancelled. They attempted to reschedule but soon learned that Brown was coming to New York City and seemed to have no interest in talking with them. Fearful that Brown was attempting to preempt their forthcoming lawsuit, they hurriedly found an attorney, Jonathan Tribiano, and filed their suit on the July 3rd. Pirozzolo paid the $250 filing fee out of his own pocket. He told me that they chose to file in Staten Island because they felt they would have a better chance of getting a sympathetic Republican judge than if they filed in Albany. Due to the hurried nature of their filing, they knew they would have to file an amended suit before too long.

Sam Pirozzolo

After they filed, they heard once again from Campbell Brown who congratulated them as “brave parents” who were standing up for students and once again offering to help. Davids and Pirozzolo gladly accepted. However, Brown called them back a short time later and told them she didn’t have any money to support them. Instead, she offered to put them in touch with her attorney so that he could explain to them how bad their lawsuit was. Davids and Pirozzolo already knew their complaint needed to be improved and on July 24th, they filed an amended complaint.

Four days later Campbell filed her own lawsuit in Albany. In a tearful press conference, she said called the plaintiffs “incredibly brave”, saying she was “just proud to be holding [their] coats.”

On August 6th, Students Matter, the California group founded by millionaire David Welch which bankrolled the Vergara case, announced they would be supporting the plaintiffs in the Davids case. The legal representation would be taken over by the law firm Gibson Dunn with attorneys Randy Mastro, former Deputy Mayor of New York City, and Theodore Boutrous, lead counsel for the plaintiffs in the Vergara suit, in charge.

The next day, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman filed a motion asking that the court combine the cases in Staten Island due to their similarities. All parties agreed to this and next week, on September 3rd, there will be a hearing to formalize the consolidation.

After that, however, Davids and Pirozzolo told me “all hell broke loose.” Gibson Dunn attorney Mastro recently asked them to come to his office telling them he had “shocking news”. Mastro, they said, told them that Campbell Brown had contacted some of his other clients and those clients were now threatening to pull their business from his firm if they didn’t drop the Davids suit. In the meantime, their original attorney, Jonathan Tribiana had become “cagey” and wouldn’t answer their questions. Mastro assured them that there were plenty of other firms that would be willing to take on their case pro bono and that Gibson and Dunn would help them find someone.

Thursday night, less than an hour before I spoke with Davids and Pirozzolo, Gibson Dunn “fired” their clients. Because of this, they are currently without representation as they head into next Tuesday’s hearing. Students Matter, the California group bankrolling the lawsuit, is also pulling out.

Davids and Pirozzolo tell me that the players involved will not acknowledge any of this in public. The various players have said variously that Gibson Dunn was quitting their case because of a conflict of interest due to the other lawsuits that Davids is currently involved in or that it was because of “bad behavior” by Davids and Pirozzolo. None of the players are willing to go on the record to say that Campbell Brown acted like a playground bully, threatening everyone who supported them to isolate them and leave them without resources so that she and her group could take over their suit once it was consolidated with hers. Indeed, since they were fired, PEJ has reached out to them to “craft a productive path forward”, one that surely involves the case being handled by Brown’s PEJ attorneys with the shots being called by them.

Davids and Pirozzolo have found themselves both opponents of and allies with the New York teachers union United Federation of Teachers (UFT), at various times. And though their complaint doesn’t go after teacher tenure laws, they are still at odds with the UFT over the other elements of their suit (you can read their FAQ about it HERE.)

However, they now appear to share a common enemy: Campbell Brown.

Brown has long championed transparency and disclosure in her position as an anchor at CNN. However, now that she’s the one receiving the money, she has gone silent. On an appearance on the Colbert Report, she told Steven Colbert that she would not reveal her funders because if she did, people “are going to go after people who are funding us.” Inhis op-ed in Salon magazine, Gabriel Arana lays it out plainly:

If the pearl-clutching millionaires behind Campbell Brown’s lawsuit are too emotionally fragile to withstand any sort of public scrutiny, they have no business wading into a debate whose outcome will affect millions of students.

Brown’s secrecy about her funders is especially unconscionable given her background as a journalist. Her organization claims it wants to encourage debate about public education. But if anything, the Partnership’s lack of transparency only makes open dialogue more difficult. Without knowing who is behind the effort to get rid of teacher tenure, it’s difficult to tell if they are acting in the best interests of students or whether they are among the for-profit education entrepreneurs looking to cash in on the privatization of public education, which has become a multibillion-dollar industry.

From Davids’ and Pirozzolo’s perspective, they are the true grassroots activists and they are being silenced by a high-profile, well-funded celebrity. “We can fight with the unions but still find ways to work together,” Davids told me. “We piss off the unions all the time but we also piss off the education reformers. In this situation, the giants are fighting and we’re being pushed to the sidelines.”

I asked her why she thought Brown was doing this after initially offering to help. “She want to be the next Michelle Rhee,” Davids said. “This is all about her. When she did this, we had to get over the shock that she would to this to the parents and the students.”

Davids and Pirozzolo tell me they will continue on with their suit with or without the support of Students Matter and Gibson Dunn. “How can Campbell Brown go in front of cameras to talk about a lawsuit named ‘Davids’?,” Davids asked rhetorically. “This is our suit and we will keep fighting.”

There are reasonable people on both sides of the issues at stake with these lawsuits. However, if what Davids and Pirozzolo claim is true, it appears that Campbell Brown is using the court case to launch her new career as an education reformer. And, when when inconvenient parents got in the way of that, she used her influence and money from unknown sources to try to isolate and squash them. Rather than “holding their coats”, Brown appears to want to hold all of the power.

For their part, the New York City Parents Union is doing everything they can to make sure the world knows that Campbell Brown has bullied them and does not speak for them, sending out tweets like this one:

"Campbell Brown does not speak for #DAVIDSvNY  We are INDEPENDENT, GRASSROOTS PUBLIC SCHOOL PARENTS who can speak & advocate for OUR children"

The hearing to combine Brown’s complaint with theirs is on Wednesday. I will follow up as this story develops.

[CC Brown photo credit: Asa Mathat/Fortune MPW | Flickr, Pirozzolo and Davids photos courtesy of NYC Parents Union]

Mona Davids' Attorneys Withdraw From The Anti-Tenure Lawsuit

Now it turns out that Mona Davids cannot get along with her attoneys who are helping her sue New York City for protecting "bad" teachers by allowing them to have tenure. Or, at least that is the current rumor, for anyone who cares at all about Mona, I certainly don't and I don't know anyone who does either....

Mona's attorneys are possibly as confused as any of us are as to what exactly she is trying to prove. We must all remember her starting the New York Charter Parents Association, which disappeared, and her moaning and groaning about charter schools not being given public school buildings and having to deal with CECs and parents who try to fight her.

After her switch to becoming an advocate for NYC teachers Mike Mulgrew gave her $10,000, and Mona said thank you by giving him an award as a "Community Leader" - see below).

Soooo confusing.

Betsy Combier

Mona Davids

New parent group all $nug with UFT

By Carl Campanile

 

It’s the new teacher’s pet.
A nonprofit touting itself as an “independent” parent advocacy group has quickly cozied up to the United Federation of Teachers — and to the union’s deep pockets, The Post has learned.
The New York City Parents Union, which supported the UFT’s legal battle against charter schools being housed in public buildings and which recently ripped the mayor’s handling of the schools system, has already received $10,000 from the teachers union since launching in April.
The relationship between the two groups will take center stage tonight when the Parents Union hosts its first annual awards benefit — honoring none other than UFT President Michael Mulgrew at the UFT’s downtown headquarters.
Also honored for community leadership will be the state’s NAACP chief, Hazel Dukes — who has railed repeatedly against charter schools — and Arthur Z. Schwartz, a longtime labor lawyer who represented the transit union during its unlawful 2005 strike, which crippled the city.
His new group, Advocates for Justice, filed a lawsuit last summer on behalf of the Parents Union that echoed the UFT’s losing legal bid to keep struggling schools from being shuttered.
A host of other unions were also donors to the event including the AFL-CIO, Teamsters Local 237, SEIU 32B and the Transit Workers Union.
School-choice advocates accused the new parents group of being an arm of the UFT.
“It was always clear that the UFT was behind this organization, but now they aren’t even trying to pretend there is any separation,” said Joe Williams, executive director of Democrats for Education Reform.
Parents Union founder Mona Davids insisted her group is not a union tool, saying it “welcomes and appreciates alliances with other individuals and organizations who share our interest in obtaining the highest-quality public education for all children in New York City.’’
Additional reporting by Yoav Gonen

 



Mona Davids and children



Anti-tenure advocates’ law firm withdraws from case

By Aaron Short

LINK

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.

Gov. Jerry Brown has appealed a California judge’s sweeping ruling that threw
out teacher job protection laws

California Governor Appeals Court Ruling Overturning Protections for Teachers

By ADAM NAGOURNEYAUG. 30, 2014

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LOS ANGELES — Wading into an intense national battle that has pitted teacher unions against a movement to weaken tenure protections, Gov. Jerry Brown has appealed a California judge’s sweeping ruling that threw out teacher job protection laws on the ground that they deprived students of their constitutional rights.

In a one-page appeal filed late Friday afternoon, Mr. Brown and the state attorney general, Kamala D. Harris, argued that a decision of such scope needed to be made by a higher court, and that the judge in this case had declined a request by the governor and attorney general “to provide a detailed statement of the factual and legal bases for its ruling.”

“Changes of this magnitude, as a matter of law and policy, require appellate review,” it said of the case, Vergara v. California.

The notice of appeal was filed one day after the judge in the case, Rolf M. Treu of Los Angeles Superior Court, issued his final ruling. Tom Torlakson, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, had also requested that Ms. Harris file the appeal.

The decision by Judge Treu, handed down in June, sent shock waves across the educational establishment here and nationwide. He found that tenure protections for teachers deprived students of a constitutional right to an education, and disproportionately hurt poor and minority students.

“The evidence is compelling,” the judge wrote. “Indeed, it shocks the conscience.”

The case was brought by an organization of students,Students Matter, backed by a Silicon Valley technology millionaire, David Welch. A lawyer for the organization, Theodore J. Boutrous Jr., criticized Mr. Brown’s decision to appeal.

“The State of California should be supporting and protecting students not defending these harmful and irrational laws,” Mr. Boutrous said Saturday. “Judge Treu got it exactly right, and this appeal is destined for failure.”

Teacher unions here had denounced the decision, saying teachers were being scapegoated for the failures of educational institutions. But the ruling was strongly welcomed by the federal education secretary, Arne Duncan, and California Republicans — including Neel Kashkari, who is challenging Mr. Brown this fall.

“I am beside myself with anger that JB is appealing Vergara,” Mr. Kashkari said in a post on his Twitter account. “His lifetime of empty words about caring for the poor is utterly worthless.”