Suing for Truth on Tenure

The city’s teachers union this week failed yet again in its effort to stop a lawsuit that aims to prove that the state’s tenure laws and “last in, first out” job protections hurt kids.

Since the suit was filed by the NYC Parents Union and Partnership for Educational Justice in 2014, the United Federation of Teachers has repeatedly tried to get the case dismissed — only to lose in now three separate courts.

Of course, the UFT’s main argument is absurd: It keeps claiming that the parents of the students its members teach lack standing to bring the complaint. But it will likely try at least one more appeal.

For now, though, the plaintiffs are free to start obtaining the evidence needed to prove that tenure and other job projections fail the city’s minority students by allowing ineffective teachers to remain in publicschool classrooms around the city.

The system is a joke: A full 97 percent of city teachers score “satisfactory” ratings even as more than half of all students leave school unready for college or a career.

Similar suits across the country have met scattered results: In 2016, California’s top court upheld that state’s teacher-tenure laws. But Colorado’s highest court last month found that teachers there don’t have a fundamental right to tenure protection.

Win or lose in New York, the case can bring a full airing of the issues involved: Do union job protections trump a city kid’s right to a quality education?