Source: http://edjustice.org/category/press/page/3/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 02:34:59+00:00

Document:
St. Paul, MN—A group of mothers from across Minnesota today petitioned the state supreme court to hear Forslund v. Minnesota, which challenges state education laws that provide outsized job security to chronically ineffective teachers. The State defendants have 20 days to submit a response and once fully briefed, the Minnesota Supreme Court will issue a determination as to whether they will hear the case. At issue is whether the Minnesota courts will provide judicial review on issues related to the quality of public education, which is protected as a fundamental right in the state.
A full copy of the parents’ petition to the Minnesota Supreme Court, along with all other legal filings related to the case, is available for download here.
An affiliate of the national education nonprofit 50CAN, PEJ pursues impact litigation that empowers families and communities to advocate for great public schools through the courts. PEJ is currently working with parents and students in Minnesota, New York, and New Jersey in support of legal challenges to unjust teacher employment statutes in those states. In all three states, PEJ has connected families with pro bono legal representation and is providing parents with ongoing legal, advocacy, and communications support.
SFER-Minn organizes students and families to fight for educational justice in their communities. Their members identify issues that are driving inequities in the education they receive, share their stories, and push for lasting policy change on campus, in the community, at the Capitol, and – when necessary, in the courts – to ensure every child in Minnesota receives an equitable education. Other current SFER-Minn efforts include addressing Minnesota’s broken remedial education system, promoting statewide standards and oversight for how police work in schools, and monitoring local school board performance.
Trenton, NJ—A group of Newark parents yesterday filed a formal request to appeal a trial court judge’s dismissal earlier this month of their lawsuit challenging the state’s “last in, first out” teacher layoff law. Filed last November, the parents’ lawsuit asserts that the LIFO statute violates students’ right to an education by unjustly requiring school districts to retain ineffective teachers while cutting other areas of education spending or laying off more effective teachers when faced with funding deficits.
Defendants from Newark Public Schools (NPS) and the State of New Jersey did not move to dismiss the case. Instead, NPS admitted nearly every allegation made about the impact of New Jersey’s LIFO law on children within NPS. The motions to dismiss the case granted earlier this month were raised by intervening defendants from local and national teachers unions, including the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), and the Newark Teachers Union (NTU).If the parents’ request for appeal is granted, arguments from the Newark families and the teachers unions will be reviewed by a panel of four judges from the Appellate Division of New Jersey Superior Court.
Since at least 2012, NPS has avoided laying off effective teachers by paying millions of dollars per year to cover the salaries of ineffective – but more senior – teachers even when no school would agree to their placement in the school. This expensive work-around, which is costing the district $10 million dollars in 2016-17, diverts valuable resources from educational programming and other critical components of an adequate public education. Because NPS employs more than half of the state’s ineffective teachers, it also puts Newark students at significant risk of being assigned to an ineffective teacher.
After it was announced that New Jersey State education funding would remain essentially flat for the 2017-18 school year, NPS acknowledged a looming $30 million deficit because of rising costs. Facing similar budget gaps over the past three years, NPS administrators restricted hiring practices, forcing teachers previously without placement into schools without mutual consent from the teacher and the principal. Research shows that teacher quality is the most influential in-school factor when it comes to student learning. It also shows that student achievement improves when principals are allowed to hire school staff according to quality and fit, rather than restricted by seniority.
To learn more about the parent-led lawsuit to end LIFO in New Jersey, please go to edjustice.org/nj. All legal filings related to the lawsuit are available online here.
Founded in 2014, Partnership for Educational Justice is a nonprofit organization pursuing impact litigation that empowers families and communities to advocate for great public schools through the courts. In addition to supporting teacher layoff litigation in New Jersey, PEJ is currently working with parents and students in New York and Minnesota in support of legal challenges to unjust teacher employment statutes in those states.
Trenton, New Jersey — Six Newark parents yesterday opposed motions to dismiss HG v. Harrington, the lawsuit they filed last November challenging the constitutionality of New Jersey’s quality-blind “last in, first out” (LIFO) teacher layoff law. The motions to dismiss the case were filed earlier this month by local and national teachers unions, who intervened as defendants in the case last December. Oral arguments on the motions to dismiss are scheduled for 2pm on May 3 before the Mercer County Superior Court. Defendants from Newark Public Schools and the New Jersey Department of Education did not move to dismiss the case.
In their answer to the lawsuit, defendants from the Newark Public Schools overwhelmingly conceded that the LIFO law harms students, acknowledging that enforcement of LIFO in Newark will remove quality teachers, which leads to lower test scores, lower high school graduation rates, lower college attendance rates, and sharply reduced lifetime earnings. They also admit that the current practice of keeping ineffective teachers on the district payroll, including those in a pool of “educators without placement sites” (EWPS) is harmful and unsustainable, and that the EWPS pool would be wholly unnecessary were it not for LIFO.
To learn more about the parent-led lawsuit to end LIFO in New Jersey, please go to edjustice.org/nj. All legal filings related to HG v. Harrington are available online here.
St. Paul, MN—Four mothers today appealed a district court’s dismissal of Forslund v. Minnesota, which challenges state education laws providing ironclad job security to chronically ineffective teachers. The lawsuit asserts that laws governing teacher tenure requirements, dismissal procedures, and quality-blind layoff statutes, violate students’ rights by allowing ineffective teachers to remain in classrooms long after they have demonstrated themselves to be ineffective. Minnesota’s State Constitution and Supreme Court case law guarantee that all children in the state have a fundamental right to an adequate public education. The mothers’ lawsuit was first filed in April 2016. Oral argument before the Minnesota Court of Appeals, if granted, is anticipated for this spring or early summer.
“This lawsuit is about our children. And when your child is suffering, as a parent you can’t back down,” said Roxanne Draughn, mother of two from St. Paul and a plaintiff in Forslund v. Minnesota.
In their appeal, the plaintiffs point to state standards that require effective teaching as a necessary component to an adequate education. They urge the courts to use these pre-existing guidelines to evaluate the constitutionality of teacher employment laws that provide ironclad job security to chronically ineffective teachers even when, by the state’s own definition, such teachers are unable to meet effectiveness standards.
This is a marked difference between Forslund v. Minnesota and Cruz-Guzman v. Minnesota, an education lawsuit that was dismissed by the Court of Appeals earlier this month because the court was unwilling to define the “qualitative standard” to evaluate the educational adequacy claims at issue. Additionally, the Cruz-Guzman plaintiffs challenged general policies and practices, while the Forslund plaintiffs are challenging specific laws that protect the employment of ineffective teachers.
“It is the courts’ role to ensure that laws do not violate constitutional rights,” said Jesse Stewart, attorney with Fishman Haygood, the lead firm representing the Forslund plaintiffs.
A full copy of the Minnesota parents’ appeal, along with all other legal filings related to the case, is available for download here.
Founded in 2014, PEJ is a nonprofit organization pursuing impact litigation that empowers families and communities to advocate for great public schools through the courts. PEJ is currently working with parents and students in Minnesota, New York, and New Jersey in support of legal challenges to unjust teacher employment statutes in those states. In all three states, PEJ has connected families with pro bono legal representation and is providing parents with ongoing legal, advocacy, and communications support.
Trenton, New Jersey — The Newark Public School (NPS) district and NPS Superintendent Christopher Cerf, defendants in HG v. Harrington, yesterday submitted an answer to the lawsuit filed in November 2016 by six Newark mothers challenging the constitutionality of New Jersey’s quality-blind “last in, first out” (LIFO) teacher layoff law. Newark’s answer includes admissions that overwhelmingly concede the allegations put forward by the plaintiffs. This filing is significant for two reasons: 1) the district admits that New Jersey’s LIFO law causes harm to students and 2) these admissions undermine the credibility of motions to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the teachers’ unions, who intervened as defendants in the case in December 2016.
This is the first case of its kind in which all original defendants submitted an answer to the lawsuit, rather than moving to dismiss the case, signaling that these cases can and should be heard by a court of law. Earlier this month, the New Jersey Department of Education and New Jersey’s Acting Education Commissioner Kimberly Harrington submitted an answer to the parents’ complaint. All legal filings related to HG v. Harrington are available online here, including the answers filed by Newark and the State, and motions to dismiss the case filed by national and local teachers’ unions.
Click to download the plaintiffs’ complaint.
To learn more about the parent-led lawsuit to end LIFO in New Jersey, please go to edjustice.org/nj.
Newark, NJ—A short video that explains New Jersey’s “last in, first out” (LIFO) teacher layoff law was released on social media today by Partnership for Educational Justice (PEJ), the nonprofit supporting six Newark parents and their pro bono legal team in a legal challenge to the constitutionality of this statute. In the lawsuit filed on November 1, 2016, the parents assert that New Jersey’s LIFO law violates students’ right to an education by unjustly requiring school districts to ignore teacher quality and retain ineffective teachers while laying off effective teachers, despite substantial research establishing that teacher quality is the most important in-school factor affecting student learning.
The video supports the plaintiff parents in their fight to end an illogical law that puts their children at risk of losing the thorough and efficient education guaranteed to them by the state constitution. By explaining the LIFO policy mandated by this law, the video also informs other New Jersey parents about the negative impact of LIFO and encourages them to follow the progress of the lawsuit. The video appears on PEJ’s website and will also be promoted on PEJ’s social media channels – Youtube and Facebook – as well as select local news platforms. The full script of the video is included at the end of this press release.
State funding for local school districts in the 2017-18 school year remains somewhat uncertain after Governor Christie’s budget address last week. But, in the 2017-18 state aid summary budget released by the State Education Department last Thursday, district allocations are projected to be flat with current funding rates. In Newark, this will result in a $60 million deficit for the public schools. Under the LIFO law, this financial situation forces the district to make a difficult decision: either lay off dozens or hundreds of teachers, many of whom are effective; or, retain ineffective teachers and make cuts to other educational expenditures. Newark Public Schools employ more than half of the state’s ineffective teachers, according to the most recent data released by the state education department. Other school districts around New Jersey are also facing significant funding deficits.
The video released by PEJ today highlights academic research showing that students with high-quality, effective teachers are more likely to graduate from high school, attend college, have higher paying jobs, and higher lifetime earnings than their peers who have ineffective teachers, even for just one year.
Newark ranked in the bottom third of twenty-five urban school districts investigated in a report released last year by the Fordham Institute looking into how difficult it is for ineffective veteran teachers to be removed. Newark Public Schools received only three out of a possible ten points awarded for degree of difficulty removing a veteran teacher who has been identified as ineffective, with ten indicating that it is easy to remove an ineffective teacher and zero indicating that it is very difficult.
To better understand the effect that LIFO layoffs would have on Newark’s overall teacher quality, Newark Public Schools ran the numbers in 2014 on a hypothetical teacher layoff scenario. Under the quality-blind LIFO layoff mandate, 85 percent of the teachers laid off would have been rated effective or highly effective, and only 4 percent of the teachers laid off would have been rated ineffective. Under a performance-based system, only 35 percent of teachers laid off would have been rated effective and no teachers rated highly effective would lose their jobs.
Since at least 2012, the Newark Public School district has avoided laying off effective teachers by paying millions of dollars per year to cover the salaries of ineffective – but more senior – teachers even when no school would agree to their placement in the school. This costly work-around, which cost the district $10 million dollars in 2016-17, has diverted valuable resources from educational programming and other expenses that could improve the education of Newark students.
Parents, did you know that some New Jersey school districts are facing a terrible budget crisis that will force them to lay off teachers?
Did you also know that state law mandates teachers must be laid off based only on seniority? The law is called Last In, First Out. It prohibits school districts from considering how good—or bad—teachers are.
This law is bad for students and unfair to some of New Jersey’s most qualified teachers.
In Newark, 85 percent of teachers who stand to lose their jobs have been rated “effective” and “highly-effective” by their principals. That’s hundreds of our best teachers being taken away from our children.
But, if schools were allowed to consider how well a teacher teaches, they could keep their best educators in classrooms with students.
With great teachers, students learn more, are more likely to graduate high school, attend college, and earn a higher salary.
New Jersey’s education law should protect students first. Support the families fighting to keep great teachers in public schools. Our children deserve the best.
The New Jersey Supreme Court today denied the State’s September 2016 motion to re-open the decades-old school funding lawsuit, Abbott v. Burke. As part of their broad motion, the State had asked the court to grant the State Commissioner of Education – a political appointee – the authority to waive enforcement of the State’s “last in, first out” (LIFO) teacher layoff law, among other education laws and negotiated policies.
In response to the State’s motion, six Newark parents also filed a motion with the Supreme Court against the State’s legal tactics to address LIFO. These same parents instead are fighting the LIFO statute on its own in the trial court. Their case, HG v. Harrington, asserts that New Jersey’s quality-blind LIFO law violates students’ constitutional right to a “thorough and efficient” education by allowing ineffective teachers to remain in classrooms while effective teachers are let go. The plaintiff families have asked the court to declare LIFO unconstitutional and render it unenforceable in Newark and similar districts.
The Supreme Court’s denial of the State’s motion today means that the lawsuit filed in November by six Newark parents is the only case pending to address New Jersey’s outdated LIFO statute.
To learn more about HG v. Harrington, the parent-led lawsuit challenging New Jersey’s “last in, first out” teacher layoff law, please go to edjustice.org/nj. To read all legal filings related to HG v. Harrington, click here.
Partnership for Educational Justice Executive Director Ralia Polechronis released the following statement in response to motions filed yesterday evening by the New Jersey Commissioner of Education and the New Jersey Board of Education to stay HG v. Harrington, a lawsuit filed by six Newark parents challenging the constitutionality of New Jersey’s quality-blind teacher layoff law.
Despite carrying far more than its fair share of ineffective teachers, most teachers in Newark were rated effective, and 321 Newark teachers were rated highly effective in 2014-15. Recognizing that some of these effective and highly-effective teachers are at risk of losing their jobs while Newark Public Schools continue to employ a disproportionate number of ineffective teachers, six Newark parents filed a lawsuit on November 1, 2016, challenging the constitutionality of New Jersey’s quality-blind teacher layoff law. Under the current statute, when budget reductions force school administrators to lay off teachers, they must do so based only on the date teachers started in the district, with the newest teachers losing their jobs first. In districts like Newark, this “last in, first out” (LIFO) law forces school districts to lay off some of their best teachers while keeping ineffective ones. Newark Public Schools currently face budget cuts that will reduce state funding to the district by nearly 69 percent.
Research studies have consistently established that teacher quality is the most important in-school factor affecting student learning. Students with high-quality, effective teachers are more likely to graduate from high school and attend college, more likely to have good jobs and higher lifetime earnings, and they are less likely to become teenage parents.
Newark ranked in the bottom third of twenty-five urban school districts investigated in a report released earlier this month by the Fordham Institute looking into how difficult it is for ineffective veteran teachers to be removed. Newark Public Schools received only three out of a possible ten points awarded for degree of difficulty removing a veteran teacher who has been identified as ineffective, with ten indicating that it is easy to remove an ineffective teacher and zero indicating that it is very difficult.
To better understand the effect that LIFO layoffs would have on Newark’s overall teacher quality, Newark Public Schools ran the numbers in 2014 on a hypothetical teacher layoff scenario. Under the quality-blind LIFO layoff mandate, 75 percent of the teachers laid off would have been rated effective or highly effective, and only 4 percent of the teachers laid off would have been rated ineffective. Under a performance-based system, only 35 percent of teachers laid off would have been rated effective and no teachers rated highly effective would lose their jobs.
Since at least 2012, the Newark Public School district has avoided laying off effective teachers by paying millions of dollars per year to cover the salaries of ineffective – but more senior – teachers even when no school would agree to their placement in the school. This costly work-around has diverted valuable resources from educational programming and other expenses that could improve the education of Newark students.
The six Newark parents who filed HG v. Harrington have also filed a motion with the New Jersey Supreme Court to intervene in Abbott v. Burke, a decades-old school funding lawsuit. The Newark parents’ Abbott motion, which is also supported by Partnership for Educational Justice, opposes the State of New Jersey’s request to remove the current court order for extra education funding to 31 high-need school districts, including Newark, paving the way for significant funding cuts to these same districts. The Newark parents also oppose the State’s proposal to the Supreme Court that the enforcement of New Jersey’s “last in, first out” teacher layoff law should be left to the discretion of the State Commissioner of Education, a political appointee.
Founded by award-winning journalist Campbell Brown, Partnership for Educational Justice is a nonprofit organization pursuing impact litigation that empowers families and communities to advocate for great public schools through the courts. In addition to the parent-led lawsuit challenging New Jersey’s quality-blind teacher layoff law, PEJ is currently working with parents and students in New York and Minnesota in support of legal challenges to unjust teacher employment statutes in those states.
Earlier this week, the State of New Jersey opposed a motion filed by six Newark parents requesting participation in potential New Jersey Supreme Court proceedings related to the state’s “last in, first out” (LIFO) teacher layoff law. With support from Partnership for Educational Justice, the same parents earlier this month filed HG v. Harrington, challenging the constitutionality of the state’s LIFO law in Mercer County Superior Court.
“If New Jersey’s Supreme Court considers the state’s “last in, first out” quality-blind teacher layoff statute, the parents challenging the constitutionality of this law deserve a seat at the table. The State’s opposition to their participation is telling. Instead of welcoming Newark parents’ voices on the issue of LIFO, the State seeks to keep them out of a debate about a broken law that violates students’ rights by forcing school districts to either lay off effective teachers while keeping ineffective ones, or waste limited education funding to avoid laying off teachers who are successfully educating their students.

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