米国における教員評価制度上の権限関係の変容

—Vergara v. California訴訟の分析を通して—

抄録

In the law case on teacher tenure laws, with nine public school students as plaintiffs, the Superior Court in California affirmed the Challenged Statutes violated the equal protection clause of the California Constitution, known as Vergara v. California.

The plaintiffs were minors from ages 7 to 16 who attended a public school in Los Angeles United School District（LAUSD）, Oakland Unified School District（OUSD）, the Sequoia Union High School District, Alum Rock Union School District（ARUSD）, and the Pasadena Unified School District. In Vergara v. California, the group of student plaintiffs backed by a Silicon Valley millionaire, argued that state tenure laws had deprived them of a decent education by leaving bad teachers in place. Judge Rolf Treu sided with the plaintiffs’ argument that "California’s current laws make it impossible to remove the system’s numerous low-performing and incompetent teachers, because the tenure system assures them a job essentially for life"; that "seniority rules requiring the newest teachers to be laid off first were harmful"; and that "granting tenure to teachers after only two years on the job was farcical, offering too little time for a fair assessment of the teacher’s skills." In his ruling, Judge Treu compared the Vergara case to the desegregation battle of Brown v. Board of Education, saying that the earlier case addressed "a student’s fundamental right to equal of educational experience", while the Vergara case involved applying that principal to the "quality of the educational experience."

The teacher unions’ statement suggested that this lawsuit was never about helping students, but was about scapegoating teachers for problems originating in underfunding, poverty and economic inequality. Further, Dennis Van Roekel of the president of National Education Association argued that "this lawsuit is yet another attempt by millionaires and corporate special interests to undermine the teaching profession and push their own ideological agenda on public schools and students while working to privatize public education."

The decision was a landmark case, one that could alter how California teachers are hired and fired and move changes to tenure laws in other states.