As a California judge rules that the state's teacher tenure system is disproportionately harmful to children from low-income families, Dana Goldstein explores the origins and impacts of the state's teacher tenure system—both positive and negative—in The Atlantic.
Goldstein's "Will California's Ruling Against Teacher Tenure Change Schools?" cites Professor Brian Jacob's tenure study, finding that even when districts made it easier for principals to fire teachers, "some 40 percent of principals, including many at the worst performing, poorest schools, fired no teachers at all."
Goldstein wonders if reforming California's "far from best practices" teacher tenure system will do enough to address educational inequality. "Educational equality is about more than teacher-seniority rules," writes Goldstein. "It is about making the schools that serve poor children more attractive places for the smartest, most ambitious people to spend their careers."
Brian Jacob is the Annenberg Professor of Education at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and co-founder of the Ford School's Education Policy Initiative.