The 2018 governor’s race got off to an informal start last week with candidate forums in Anaheim and San Francisco.

Former San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom leads all gubernatorial candidates in polling and fundraising. A September Berkeley IGS survey showed he had support from 26 percent of likely voters, followed by Republican businessman John Cox with 11 percent. In campaign finance filings from July, Newsom had $5.3 million in donations this year, state Treasurer John Chiang $2.6 million, Villaraigosa $2.3 million and former state Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin just over $300,000. His fundraising advantage is even bigger when available funds from previous years are included, an August Los Angeles Times analysis noted.

In the San Francisco forum moderated by Chronicle editorial-page editor John Diaz, Newsom showed why he was recently endorsed by the California Teachers Association. He declined to discuss the specifics of the Vergara v. California case, which pose difficult questions for social justice activists. In the lawsuit, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge found in 2014 that the state’s teacher job-protection laws were unconstitutional because they had led to schools in poor minority communities being much more likely to have ineffective teachers and much more likely to face major layoffs in years with budget cuts. An appellate court threw out the trial court ruling.

Villaraigosa was the only Democratic candidate in the forums to support the Vergara plaintiffs, saying it had long been evident in Los Angeles that tenure and seniority laws hurt schools with heavy concentrations of English-language learners.

Newsom declared that the issues in the Vergara matter had been “litigated” and said that if tenure and seniority changes were needed, they could be collectively bargained. “In other words: They would not happen,” Diaz wrote tartly in his Chronicle column about the forum.

Worries about cost of single-payer dismissed as ‘specious’

On health care, all four Democrats support the concept of a single-payer system, the biggest issue of the California Nurses Association, which endorsed Newsom nearly a year ago. But while Villaraigosa and Chiang have said California needs to figure out how to pay for such a system, Newsom says concerns about cost are “the most specious argument” against a state health-care-for-all system. Senate Bill 562, a bill committing the state to single-payer, passed the Senate earlier this year but stalled in the Assembly after estimates that its annual cost could be $400 billion – more than double the entire state budget.

If Newsom and Villaraigosa finish first and second in the June “top two” primary and give voters a choice between two Democrats in November 2018 – as happened in California’s 2016 U.S. Senate race – teacher tenure/seniority laws and how to adopt and pay for single-payer could dominate the general election fight.

In the forums, there was little difference between the two men on other top issues. Both agreed with the need to build millions of new housing units, to resist Trump administration immigration policies and to provide much more money to public schools.

There is a possibility other prominent Democrats might get in the race. The filing deadline for the June 5 primary isn’t until March 9, and there has been speculation that Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti might jump in. But Sunday, Garcetti said on Twitter that he was definitely not going to run for governor.

The issue involves the contentious matter of teacher job protections, which the union says are necessary to counter unfair and politically motivated firings. Education reformers believe such protections – tenure, a seniority-based layoff system, and the long and costly dismissal statutes – deprive some students of a quality education.

The main dismissal-related measure this year is Assembly Bill 1220, which extends the time period before teachers are eligible for tenure, at which point they can only be fired for certain types of misbehavior. The bill would extend the probationary period to three years for districts with more than 250 students and mandates an individualized improvement plan for teachers in their third year.

Currently, teachers are eligible for tenure after just two years, and they must be told whether they will receive tenure after only 18 months. That forces school districts to make tenure decisions rather quickly. The bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, and other backers argue that “districts would make wiser hiring decisions with more time,” according to EdSource, which recently analyzed 10 education-related bills that have passed the Assembly or Senate but still must be approved by the other house.

This is the latest bill that responds to issues raised in a much-publicized California legal tussle. In the Vergara case, nine public-school students filed suit against the State of California and the California Teachers’ Association claiming these policies violate the California Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. As Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu explained in his June 2014 decision, the plaintiffs argued that these protections “result in grossly ineffective teachers obtaining and retaining permanent employment, and that these teachers are disproportionately situated in schools serving predominantly low-income and minority students.”

Treu agreed with the plaintiffs. “The evidence is compelling. Indeed, it shocks the conscience,” the judge ruled as he tossed out as unconstitutional teacher tenure and other job protections, including the “last in, first out” seniority system under which younger teachers are the first to go whenever districts must implement layoffs. The appeals court overturned the ruling in 2016, pinning most of the problems on poor decisions by the school district rather than the job-protection statutes.

Later that year, the state Supreme Court declined to review the case on a 4-3 vote, thus letting the appeals court’s decision stand. But the controversy didn’t subside. In direct response to the appeal court ruling, reformers introduced Assembly Bill 934 last year to extend the tenure process to three years and allow districts to negotiate an “alternative teacher dismissal process,” according to the bill analysis. The CTA opposed the bill, which died in committee.

The union likewise opposes this year’s bill. “AB1220 is the wrong solution to support good teaching and learning, and it’s disappointing that leaders in the Assembly refused to work with educators to improve the bill,” said CTA President Eric Heins in a June 2 statement. “Forty-six other states provide due process rights to teachers on day one. California is taking a step back by adding another year without any rights for our newest educators.”

Reformers argue that including new rights for probationary teachers from “day one” would make it even harder to get rid of those teachers who don’t make the grade. They note that 42 other states have probationary periods ranging from three to five years.

“California has one of the shortest times for a teacher to demonstrate classroom readiness and achieve permanent status,” according to a statement from Weber’s office. “A statewide survey of 506 teachers in traditional California schools found that 85 percent of teachers think that tenure decisions should be made after at least three years of classroom instruction. Only 15 percent of teachers found California’s current two-year timeline was sufficient.”

Backers of extending the probationary period point to statistics raised in Treu’s decision. The judge pointed to testimony suggesting that 1 to 3 percent of California public-school teachers are “grossly ineffective,” which amounts to 2,750 to 8,250 such teachers statewide. That’s a large enough number to have “a direct, real, appreciable and negative impact on a significant number of California students,” he wrote.

While AB1220 will be heard July 12 in the Senate Education Committee, another high-profile education bill this year has reformers concerned. It would ban for-profit charter schools, beginning in 2019. Backers argue that it’s a misuse of tax dollars to fund charters that have the goal of maximizing profits. Opponents argue the bill is part of a broader attack on charter schools and note that for-profit online charters provide needed services for a small segment of students with special needs or who are bullied in traditional schools.

There are other education measures that are still alive in the Legislature. As EdSource explained, they would “require more accounting for spending under the Local Control Funding Formula, mandate a later start time for middle and high schools and further restrict student suspensions.” But the teacher tenure and for-profit charter measures promise to be the most contentious matters for this legislative session, and the ones most important to track.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

“At issue were five state laws that established layoff procedures based on seniority, laid out dismissal procedures and awarded teachers permanent status, known as tenure, after two years on the job,” as EdSource recalled.

Although teachers unions hailed the reversal, an appeal was all but certain, keeping California’s beleaguered education system in uncertain waters for possibly years to come.

The court rejected Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu’s holding that California’s teacher job protections “deprive poor and minority students of a quality education or violate their civil rights,” as the New York Times reported, “reversing a landmark lower court decision that had overturned the state’s teacher tenure rules.”

“In reversing the trial court’s decision, a panel of three appeals judges wrote that if ineffective teachers are in place, the statutes themselves were not to blame because it was school and district administrators who ‘determine where teachers within a district are assigned to teach.’ The laws themselves, the judges wrote, do not instruct districts in where to place teachers.”

Justice Roger Boren, writing for the court, concluded that the Vergara plaintiffs “ultimately failed to show that the statutes themselves make any certain group of students more likely to be taught by ineffective teachers than any other group of students,” as Southern California Public Radio observed. “Administrators — not the statutes — ultimately determine where teachers within a district are assigned to teach,” he went on. “It is clear that the challenged statutes here, by only their text, do not inevitably cause poor and minority students to receive an unequal, deficient education.”

Uncertain futures

The ruling immediately threw into question the fate of pending litigation around the country. “Parties on both sides viewed the Vergara decision as a bellwether for the nation,” the Los Angeles Times noted. “Similar litigation was filed soon after in New York; and on Thursday, just before the release of the appellate decision in California, another lawsuit was filed in Minnesota.”

“The case was being closely watched across the country by those who argue that allowing administrators to more easily fire bad teachers would improve schools and student performance. Right now, there are a series of job protections that can be invoked before school districts can remove a tenured teacher.”

Battle lines harden

Teachers unions and their supporters rushed to applaud the ruling, which spared them a politically dangerous humiliation; as the Sacramento Bee recalled, until Vergara, they had “easily batted back legislative challenges from groups seeking to overhaul the public education system by eliminating tenure and adding test scores to teacher evaluations.” As the Los Angeles Times noted, “union critics turned to the courts because teachers — ranking among the state’s most powerful interest groups — have been able to block substantial revisions to laws that protect them.”

“From the start, many Vergara supporters saw victory as a long shot but reasoned that the effort at least would keep teacher unions and their allies on the defensive — and call attention to parts of the system they wanted to change.”

But officials in the state GOP also spoke out fast, showing little concern that their political momentum had truly been blunted. Assembly Republican leader Chad Mayes, R-Yucca Valley, expressed hope that the case rose quickly to the state Supreme Court. “Although I disagree with the court ruling, I know the fight to better our children’s education doesn’t end here,” he said in a statement. “Our children have a civil right to a quality education, and it is disappointing to see that the appeals court doesn’t agree.”

“Although this ruling is a disappointing win for the failing status quo in California, I am committed to continuing the fight to provide every child — regardless of background or zipcode — with a top-quality education that will set them up for success in the classroom, in the workplace, and in life,” said Education Committee vice-chair Assemblywoman Kristin Olsen, R-Riverbank, in a statement.

While Tuesday night was grim for liberals, embattled teachers unions have won a big victory in California.

Incumbent state school superintendent Tom Torlakson repulsed a strong challenge from reform-minded charter school executive Marshall Tuck, defeating him by a margin of about 52-48 percent.

That’s from the Daily Caller. But given the stakes, it seems obvious that Torlakson’s relatively narrow win was a battle in a war that’s not going to end any time soon.

Who started the war? You’ll be surprised

And who touched off this war in California? As I wrote in the U-T San Diego, a case can be made that it was Gov. Jerry Brown — allegedly the close buddy of the CTA and CFT.

The education establishment is like a supertanker that requires the application of vast energy to make it change course. There are subtle but unmistakable signs this course change has begun.

The first factor driving this change was Gov. Jerry Brown’s declaration that the single most important issue in the Golden State is ensuring struggling minority students get a strong education so they can have productive lives. This was followed by Brown’s 2013 overhaul of school funding formulas, which was meant to ensure such students benefit from extra resources. Though the governor was careful not to frame this as an indictment of how these students are now being treated, that is the only interpretation that makes sense.

The second was Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu’s June ruling in the Vergara vs. California case that minority students received such inferior educations that it “shocked the conscience.” Treu cited the vast evidence presented in the Vergara trial that because of several state laws, bad teachers are almost impossible to fire, and are funneled to the minority schools most in need of the best teachers.This led to national news coverage, which accepted the premise that teacher union power hurt minority students.

The third was Tuck’s candidacy and its universal support among California editorial boards — conservative, libertarian and liberal alike. They too embraced the view that union power had metastasized in the public school system to the detriment of the most vulnerable students.

Finally, the canard that teacher and student interests are one and the same has been routed. Now it is only a matter of time before state Democrats are forced to address the emerging conventional wisdom that teacher unions, their most powerful faction, are doing harm to their most loyal factions: Latinos and African-Americans.

Is the gov a modern Machiavelli?

I have tried out this theory — that what’s happened appears to show how Jerry Brown is downright Machiavellian on education — with many people over the past few months. Journalists are more skeptical than non-journalists.

But the comments of a friend who is a sports fan have stuck with me. He said what Brown had done reminded him of a newly hired football coach commenting in obliquely negative ways on his roster. The goal is putting the who-is-to-blame focus on the general manager and the spotlight on the bigger picture, not the next game.

That’s sort of what Jerry Brown did. In a subtle way, he said California’s biggest problem was the CTA’s and the CFT’s fault. He’s framed the issue as if he were … Marshall Tuck.

First came Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf True’s ruling that teacher tenure laws are unconstitutional and “shock the conscience” because they protect incompetent teachers and funnel them to the schools in poor minority communities that most need the best teachers.

Now U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Klein has struck another blow for sanity by rejecting CalPERS’ argument that the city of Stockton can’t cut the pensions of city employees and retirees as it tries to get out of bankruptcy. CalPERS’ claim that state laws somehow trump federal laws has always seemed strange. Klein’s comments Wednesday certainly reflected that view. This is from Ed Mendel at calpensions.com:

Part of his analysis yesterday that CalPERS pensions are not state “governmental or political powers” protected under federal bankruptcy law is that while state workers are in CalPERS by statute, cities choose to join CalPERS.

Klein said California cities have the option of forming their own pension systems, joining a county pension system, hiring a private pension provider or withdrawing from CalPERS, if they can afford to do so.

He concluded that benefits not prescribed by state law are not “governmental or political” powers protected by the federal bankruptcy law, but instead are unprotected “business powers.”

Klein said a CalPERS-sponsored state law preventing cities from rejecting their CalPERS contracts in bankruptcy is “flat-out invalid” under the constitutional “supremacy clause” giving federal law priority over state law.

The judge said another CalPERS-sponsored state law that gives CalPERS a lien on all city assets, except wages, when they declare insolvency is an invalid attempt by the state Legislature to “edit” the federal bankruptcy law.

Judge: “Why should I take [CalPERS claim] seriously?

The New York Times treated this ruling as a major national story and made a point that California coverage did not: “Judge Klein’s ruling went beyond anything that Stockton was seeking.” More from the NYT:

Calpers had argued that if Stockton stopped making payments and dropped out of the state pension system, the lien would let it claim $1.6 billion of its assets. But Judge Klein said those statutory powers were suspended once a California city received federal bankruptcy protection.

“Why should I take that lien seriously?” he asked a lawyer for Calpers, Michael Gearin. …

“The bankruptcy code provides that the lien can be avoided and be treated as an unsecured claim,” Judge Klein said.

Judge Klein also said that Stockton had many options other than Calpers for retirement benefits: a private provider, like an insurance company; a multiemployer pension plan affiliated with a union; one of California’s county-run pension plans; or it could even offer no pensions at all.

“There are lots of permutations and combinations out there with respect to the art of the possible,” he said, adding that nothing in the law required any city to give its business to Calpers. “The whole world is out there.”

Conservatives, libertarians and believers in small government have long viewed the courts with suspicion. That’s especially so in California, where conservative ballot propositions have often been scrapped or enfeebled by courts but liberal ballot measures rarely seem to get picked apart.

But Judge Treu and Judge Klein go against that narrative — and offer hope that a new balance of power is coming in a state dominated for too long by public employee unions.

]]> https://calwatchdog.com/2014/10/02/stockton-ruling-like-vergara-ruling-shakes-ca-status-quo/feed/ 20 68689 https://calwatchdog.com/2014/10/01/torlakson-continues-lying-about-teacher-discipline-bill/ https://calwatchdog.com/2014/10/01/torlakson-continues-lying-about-teacher-discipline-bill/#comments Wed, 01 Oct 2014 15:00:31 +0000 http://calwatchdog.com/?p=68618

Tom Torlakson supports a status quo in which an average of 2.2 of the state’s 275,000 public school teachers are fired each year for incompetence — a figure so ridiculous you barely need to add context. It shows the public school system is run for the adult employees, not the students.

Yet as he seeks a second term as state superintendent of public instruction against reformer Marshall Tuck, Torlakson continues to pretend he doesn’t like horrible teachers in the classroom and did something about it.

As he has done throughout his campaign, Tuck condemned Torlakson’s appeal of a Superior Court judge’s ruling in Vergara v. the State of California, overturning laws creating tenure in two years, governing dismissals and requiring layoffs by seniority. Those laws, he said, “have led us to a situation where we can’t have an effective teacher in the classroom” and are “crushing the hopes” of the state’s most challenged students. …

Torlakson agreed that when “teachers are not up to it, move them out” and said that he wrote and helped pass a law this year making it easier to fire “ineffective and abusive teachers.” The bill, AB 215, by Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan, D-Alamo, dealt primarily with teachers charged with abuse, not poor performance.

That’s from John Fensterwald’s coverage of the final forum between the two Democrats running for superintendent. I’m glad he mentioned Torlakson’s, er, disingenuousness, but he was on the kind side. AB 215 has nothing — nothing — to do with getting rid of incompetent teachers. Fensterwald’s use of “primarily” to describe what the bill is focused on gives Torlakson a bit of cover he just doesn’t deserve.

At a little bit after the 51-minute mark of a forum in Los Angeles last week with state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson and challenger Marshall Tuck, the candidates are asked a question from the audience about the Vergara ruling, which is described as holding that state tenure laws are so harmful to low-income students that they violate the Constitution. Should the state accept the ruling, appeal it or work out a settlement in which tenure laws are amended but not scrapped?

Tuck succinctly says the state should accept the ruling and work to fix broken policies hurting students.

But when it’s Torlakson’s turn to respond, he ducks the substance of the Vergara ruling, misrepresents Gov. Jerry Brown’s position, misrepresents the legal arguments made in the state’s appeal and tells a huge whopper about the teacher discipline bill enacted this year — all in a little over a minute. Here’s my transcription of Torlakson’s comments:

We have a fundamental disagreement. I am for kids. I’m for low-income kids. I’ve been a fighter spending my whole career for those kids and their future.

I did say we should appeal that decision because I think it is fundamentally flawed. it’s wrong on the facts. It’s wrong on the law. The governor and the state board of education agreed. We’ve asked the state attorney general to file an appeal and bring it to a higher court level.

I believe job protections giving teachers a chance to have a hearing if they’re on a proposed layoff list to have them have a chance for a fair hearing having experienced teachers do that.

Teaching is a tough job. Not everybody is cut out for that work. I know that. And what we are looking at is how do we move teachers who can’t make it out of the profession faster.

And I helped with a law this year that was signed in by Governor Brown that will expedite the process of removing abusive teachers and ineffective teachers from our schools in it. It’s a tough job, but we should allow teachers to move forward and get rid of the ones who can’t make it and then the others have a chance through … we’re being cut off.

Sigh.

Gov. Jerry Brown did not reject the idea that tenure is bad for minority kids. In his recent debate with Neal Kashkari, he tiptoed around the issue.

In her appeal, Kamala Harris did not reject the idea that tenure is bad for minority kids. She questioned Judge Rolf Treu’s legal reasoning.

Finally, it is absurd for Torlakson to argue that a bill triggered by the difficulties Los Angeles Unified faced in firing a teacher who fed semen to his students has anything to do with targeting ineffective teachers. It’s not just absurd; it is, to use a technical term, a lie.

Here are the first three sentences of AB 215, the teacher discipline law Torlakson crows about:

Existing law prohibits a permanent school employee from being dismissed, except for one or more of certain enumerated causes, including immoral or unprofessional conduct. This bill would also include egregious misconduct, as defined, as a basis for dismissal. Existing law requires the governing board of a school district to give notice to a permanent employee of its intention to dismiss or suspend the employee, together with a written statement of charges,
at the expiration of 30 days from the date of service of the notice, unless the employee demands a hearing. This bill would additionally apply the above to egregious misconduct.

I look forward to the education beat reporters jumping on the plain evidence of Torlakson’s dishonesty. Maybe I’m naive, but I really do. The deceit is too obvious to miss or ignore.

The judge in Vergara vs. California today released his final review of the case, affirming his preliminary decision in June, that five state statures governing teacher employment rules violate the California constitution by denying students access to a quality public education.

In his final ruling, filed yesterday, Judge Rolf Treu, said, “plaintiffs have met their burden of proof on all issues presented.”

The decision effectively starts the clock for the defendants — the state and its two largest teachers unions, which joined the case — on whether to appeal. They have 60 days to decide.

Implications many for governor, state Dems

Cal Watchdog has had extensive coverage of the Vergara decision and its educational and political implications.

Here’s part of a piece from Monday — “Vergara appeal decision: Nixon goes to China for Jerry Brown?”:

He is on cruise control for re-election, so if he backed an appeal — especially on narrow grounds — he wouldn’t face the blowback that [state Superintendent of Public Instruction] Torlakson would.

But at this point in his life, Brown isn’t necessarily thinking about the short term. He may be thinking about history and his lasting legacies.

 Here’s part of a piece from June 12 — “The left-wing theory driving Vergara ruling.”

A point that hasn’t been made nearly enough by the MSM is that the Vergara vs. California ruling rejecting the state’s lax teacher tenure practices depends on a legal doctrine associated with lefty causes. That doctrine deals with “disparate impact” and holds that if a seemingly neutral law has the real-world effect of hurting discrete groups, that law can be seen as de facto discriminatory under constitutional equal protection provisions.

It is most associated with employment discrimination lawsuits challenging standardized tests in government employment. In public education — at least until this week — the doctrine had mostly been invoked in litigation targeting the sharp differences in student discipline by race.

Here’s part of the piece about the Vergara ruling’s potential to dynamite the California Democratic Party coalition from June 24 — “Vergara’s grim implications for CA Dems ignored”:

[The] landmark court ruling [portends a highly] … consequential rift between California Democratic factions. The Vergara vs. California decision posits that state policies which protect mostly white veteran teachers and funnel the worst teachers to schools in poor minority neighborhoods are an unconstitutional affront to equal protection laws. The judge explicitly likened his ruling to Brown vs. Board of Education, the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that “seperate but equal” public school systems were unconstitutional.

This puts the Democratic coalition at great risk. Its most powerful members — the CTA and the CFT — are accused of orchestrating an assault on the interests of the children of blacks and Latinos — its most loyal voters.

A spokesman for Attorney General Kamala Harris told me repeatedly that the AG’s office wasn’t deciding on whether to appeal. He said Harris would do what her clients wanted. Gov. Jerry Brown and state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson are named plaintiffs in the case, and if either or both want to appeal, I was told, Harris would then appeal.

Treu is expected to issue a final ruling by Sept.10, at which point an appeal decision must be finalized.

But even if that is delayed, Brown and Torlakson will certainly face pressure to explain their stands because they are running for re-election. Torlakson is in the much tougher race, against experienced Democratic education reformer Marshall Tuck, than Brown, who faces neophyte GOPer Neel Kashkari.

Vulnerable Torlakson still likely to back unpopular side

Yet it is Torlakson who is far likelier than Brown to take the unpopular stand of siding with crazy tenure laws that give teachers lifetime job protections after 16 months.

That’s because his greatest patron during his political rise — the California Teachers Association — is appealing Treu’s ruling. Torlakson has to join the CTA in defending the status quo that argues that school quality is a function of school spending, and that if only schools would spend more on veteran teachers’ salaries, schools would get better.

If Torlakson didn’t appeal a ruling premised on the idea that the CTA was bad for minorities, that would be mind-boggling.

A career-defining moment for Jerry Brown

The stakes are far higher for the governor. He is on cruise control for re-election, so if he backed an appeal — especially on narrow grounds — he wouldn’t face the blowback that Torlakson would.

But at this point in his life, Brown isn’t necessarily thinking about the short term. He may be thinking about history and his lasting legacies.

The last governor thought this way. Leading the biggest, richest, most trendsetting state apparently inspires this view of the California gov job. It’s why Arnold championed AB 32 and bills that were forerunners of Obamacare.

The CTA may have plenty of wins on its plate of late, starting with the fake teacher-discipline bill and the scam that is the Local Control Funding Formula. But in the long haul of history, it can’t win with its argument that tenure after 16 months is OK, or its defense of policies under which school systems funnel their best teachers to the schools where they arguably are least needed.

Can a CA Dem admit that unions hurt minorities?

Brown is not a dolt. He knows this. Brown must also know that even if President Obama will go down as the first powerful Democrat to fight for reforms focusing on teacher tenure and competence, if he decides to be a loud champion of the Vergara ruling at the state level — in America’s largest state — his historical standing will benefit immensely.

Though it will probably make his second term a much bigger headache. Once again, the Vergara ruling is predicated on the idea that teachers unions are bad for minorities. That is a very toxic premise to throw into the Dem mainstream debate. It’s one thing if an obscure Los Angeles judge makes the point. It’s another thing entirely if it’s Gov. Jerry Brown.

We shall see.

The ruling’s potential impact on California public education — and public education nationally — could be immense. Even if it doesn’t stand, it will inspire similar lawsuits everywhere, and similar concerns about the proper balance of power in public schools between unionized employees of those schools, and students and their parents.

But to just focus on the California politics angle, the Vergara effect could also be immense.

From now on a litmus test for every Latino politician is whether they agree with Judge Rolf M. Treu’s comparison of California’s public school system with the formally racist segregated school systems that existed in much of America before the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling.

Will Latino pols stand up for Jim Crow Lite?

Treu goes farther than even Latino reformers like Gloria Romero in depicting the fight over teacher tenure and teacher union power in a starkly racial fashion.

I look forward to seeing how John Perez, Hilda Solis, Lorena Gonzalez, Juan Vargas, Xavier Becerra, Joe Baca, Loretta Sanchez, Linda Sanchez, Tony Cardena, Gloria Negrete McLeod, Raul Ruiz, etc., react to Vergara.

This is not a question they can finesse.

Do they want to keep an education system that the judge called functionally anti-Latino so as to stay on the CTA’s and the CFT’s good side?

Or do they want to blow up the Jim Crow Lite system the unions have built for poor Latino students?

We shall see. I will set up Nexus alerts to keep tabs on what these pols are saying — and to see if California’s Democrats have a cleansing civil war that will force party members to wrestle with the fact that the CTA and the CFT stand for a lot of things.

But social justice isn’t one of them.