California Judge Strikes Down Teacher Tenure/​Dismissal Laws

A superior court judge has ruled in Vergara v. California that the state's laws regulating tenure, dismissals, and last-in-first-out layoffs are all unconstitutional. The judge ruled that these laws impede administrators' efforts to improve the quality of the teaching workforce, and that the harm falls disproportionately on poor, minority students. Naturally, the reformers who brought and supported the suit are elated.

The decision will almost certainly be appealed, but even if it is upheld it seems to me unlikely to accomplish as much as its supporters hope. I wrote about the reasons why in a piece earlier this year, concluding that:

Lawsuits can redress specific legal wrongs, like compelled segregation, but they can’t produce educational outcomes that require the coordination and relentless dedication of thousands or even millions of people, year after year.

For those who really want to maximize the quality of education offered to disadvantaged and minority students—indeed to all students—the best hope is to study the different sorts of education systems that have been tried around the world and across history, and then ensure universal access to the best among them: a free educational marketplace.

If you want people to relentlessly search for better and more efficient ways to serve families, you have to give them the freedom, the encouragement, and the incentives to do so. Liberate, respect, and reward education entrepreneurs, and they will strive to the utmost to better educate your children. Don't, and they won't.