Dr. John E. Deasy, Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, supports the California lawsuit against the state’s tenure, layoff and termination rules. He believes that the current system has a disparate impact on the quality of education offered to poor students and minorities, and is therefore unconstitutional.
Randi Weingarten is the president of the American Federation of Teachers (a separate entity from the California Teacher’s Association, which represents Golden State teachers). Her organization opposed the lawsuit. “While teachers led their classrooms, a judge in a Los Angeles courtroom said that for students to win, teachers have to lose,” the AFT stated after the plaintiffs won the case, which is being appealed. “Vergara v. California was a blow to public education everywhere, but especially demoralizing to hundreds of thousands of teachers who dedicate their lives to lifting up California’s students…Our opponents have spent months—and millions—vilifying California teachers to push a political agenda. We’re fighting back—in the media, on the ground, in the legislature and in the courts.”
These two shared a stage in Aspen this weekend, where they debated the lawsuit, teacher tenure, accountability, and related issues. The video of the entire panel is here: