Seven families in Albany, backed by former news anchor Campbell Brown’s advocacy group, the Partnership for Educational Justice, filed the nation’s second Vergara-inspired lawsuit. (The first copycat suit was filed in New York City earlier this month by the New York City Parents Union.) The plaintiffs argue that New York State’s teacher-tenure and -seniority laws violate their children’s right to effective education. Meanwhile, recent New York City Department of Education data show that, of the 826 attempts to fire teachers over the last two years, only 40 resulted in termination; 330 are still pending.
In the upcoming school year, NYC charter schools will be allowed to offer pre-K for the first time; six schools are getting ready to do so. Many states, unfortunately, continue to make it all but impossible for charters to offer pre-school services. Ohio, for example, doesn’t provide charter funding for children under five. This is yet another form of underfunding of charter schools—and a situation that reform-minded lawmakers need to fix.
Teacher unions, fearing soured public opinion and wanting to make up ground lost in 2010, are set to play hardball in this year’s midterms. Politico reports that they’ll likely spend at least $70 million (or maybe much more) and are already sending out armies of teachers to go door-to-door—believing they’ll be more effective than the usual volunteer canvassers. Unions are also coaching their members to persuade their own spouses—mostly middle-aged white suburban and rural men, a demographic segment that the Democratic Party has recently had trouble reaching. Quipped union-watcher Mike Antonucci, “I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume these union strategists are not married, at least not successfully.”
