Protecting incompetence

In poll after poll, finding and rewarding good teachers ends up high on the list when Americans are asked how best to improve our public schools.

The obvious corollary to such a sentiment is ensuring school districts can get rid of teachers who don’t cut it.

But while tenure allows many excellent teachers to stop worrying about job security and focus on teaching, it also protects the jobs of many sub-par educators who have no incentive to improve. The lack of flexibility when it comes to personnel hampers reform and condemns millions of students to an inferior classroom experience.

The issue garnered national attention when in 2014, a California judge sided with nine students who had filed a lawsuit arguing that state tenure laws made incompetent teachers virtually impossible to fire, turning schools in poor neighborhoods into dumping grounds for bad instructors.

But the victory for poor and minority kids didn’t last long. The union interests that profess concern for “the children” fought on to preserve their lucrative sinecures and were rewarded last year when an appeals court tossed out the ruling. This week, the California Supreme Court voted 4-3 not to hear the case.

Make no mistake, this is an unfortunate development on a number of levels, not the least of which is that it sacrifices the progress of thousands of vulnerable youngsters stuck in crummy schools with bad teachers. As the Superior Court judge who made the initial ruling noted in his decision, the amount of harm done to students by ineffective yet protected teachers “shocks the conscience.”

None of this moves the teacher union warriors, however, who care only about protecting a system they’ve managed to milk for decades. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten cheered the decision, saying with a straight face that she hopes it “closes the book on the flawed and divisive argument that links educators’ workplace protections with student disadvantage.”

Would it be impolite to point out that Hillary Clinton has backtracked on education reform in order to win the support of Ms. Weingarten and her union? Donald Trump, on the other hand, has no tolerance for those seeking to knee-cap charter schools or to coddle inept classroom teachers.

If Ms. Weingarten thinks that taxpayers won’t eventually revolt over a system that places the job security of a deficient educator ahead of the long-term well being of children struggling to acquire the academic skills they need to survive in life, she’s as tone deaf as advertised.