Case Study. Vergara V. California

Find and summarize a case study about an effort to update or challenge a state constitution.

Vergara V. California is a lawsuit filed in the California state court in May 2012. The lawsuit challenged California statutes that violated the state constitution. The plaintiffs were nine students from three different school districts. The Districts included the Los Angeles Unified School District, Oakland Unified School District, and the Alum Rock Union School district. The students unified through the help of the non profit organization called Students Matter and by attorneys Theodore B. Olson and Theodore J. Boutrous. They argued that the California State constitution and Jurisprudence guarantees equal educational opportunities but that current tenure,dismissal, and seniority policies create a virtually impossible opportunity to dismiss bad teachers from the education system. These bad teachers have proven costly to the academic gains of students and deprive them of many opportunities. Due to systemic effects these bad teachers are found in high quantities in low-income, predominantly minority schools. Even then many students who are already facing academic difficulties are being places with these bad teachers who do not help the student. Soon after the lawsuit was filed, the California Teachers Association (CTA) and the California Federation of Teachers (CFT), the two teachers unions joined the case as intervenor. After nearly two years of trial the California superior court decided that five provisions of the California education code were unconstitutional. They decided that laws protecting tenure, dismissal, and seniority was imposing schools from hiring teachers that would benefit the students  and forced to keep bad teachers.