Brown v Board, the sequel

A TEACHER in California has a one in 125,000 chance each year of being sacked for incompetence. In this respect, Californian teachers’ jobs are about 3,750 times more secure than those of private-sector workers. Contracts make it almost impossible to fire duds. And if a dwindling population or tight budget means lay-offs are necessary, schools are forced to fire the newest teachers rather than the worst ones. The system is hardly designed to foster excellence.

Lousy teachers hurt children. Pupils assigned to better teachers are more likely to go to university and earn good wages; girls are less likely to fall pregnant, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research study published in 2011. Bill Gates once noted that if every child had maths teachers as good as those in the top quartile, the achievement gap between America and Asia would vanish in two years.

Studies have repeatedly shown that teacher quality is more important than class size, income level or access to high-tech wizardry. Eighteen states and Washington, DC now require tenure decisions to be “informed” by measures of whether a teacher is any good. And in 23 states teachers can now be sacked if their evaluations are unsatisfactory.

Until this week California’s unions had successfully thwarted reform. Teachers in the Golden State received tenure after less than two years on the job; firing bad ones was so costly and arduous that school districts rarely tried. But thanks to a lawsuit brought by Students Matter, an advocacy group formed by David Welch, a telecoms millionaire, this may now change. On June 10th Mr Welch, helped by some expensive lawyers, won a stunning victory in a case he had brought against five state laws governing the hiring and firing of teachers.

The lawsuit, issued on behalf of nine schoolchildren, concentrated on three areas: teacher tenure, dismissal procedures and seniority rules. The plaintiffs argued that the laws allowed grossly ineffective teachers to remain in their jobs, and that such teachers were disproportionately to be found in poor and non-white areas. Judge Rolf Treu struck down all five laws, saying they violated constitutionally guaranteed rights to equal education. “The evidence is compelling,” he wrote. “Indeed, it shocks the conscience.”

The ruling was stayed pending an appeal, which could take years. Meanwhile California’s legislators must think about how to replace the fallen laws, if at all; some reformers argue that the protections afforded to other public-sector workers are good enough for teachers. Unions protest that teachers may now be fired on unreasonable grounds, or that experienced ones, who cost more, will be laid off first. They have also criticised the circumvention of the legislative process; but Mr Welch has said he felt obliged to use the courts after watching union-backed Democrats repeatedly block reform. California’s governor, one of those against whom the case was originally brought, has yet to comment.

The case highlights a new tactic of education reformers: framing their case as a defence of children’s civil rights, not an attack on teachers. In April John Deasy, the Los Angeles schools chief and a witness for Students Matter, compared the denial of adequate education to ethnic-minority children to the refusal of cafés to serve coffee to black students over 50 years ago. So reformers will have been gratified to see Mr Treu open his ruling by quoting from Brown v Board of Education, the Supreme Court case that ordered the desegregation of American schools.

This decision is one for the history books, says the National Council on Teacher Quality, a reformist group. Arne Duncan, the education secretary, and Jeb Bush, a Republican bigwig, issued statements of support. Even Mr Welch’s legal team sounded surprised at the scale of their victory. The broad sweep of Mr Treu’s verdict, and the stridency of his language, means it will resonate well beyond California. Mr Welch has hinted at interventions elsewhere, and other reformers will take heart from his success; look in particular to Connecticut, New Jersey and New York.