In California an intermediate court has been reported by AP as saying judicial review is not about wisdom of legislation, but about its constitutionality; this link.
That surely seems to be precisely what should be handed back to the agitators against teacher unionization here too. The aggressors want to have this "Gee, it's for our kids" appearance, but appearances can be fooling.
And here I was naive. I always thought Republicans favored honoring contracts; such as the union and schools have reached in serious give-and-take negotiation. Honoring "CONTRACT" As a principled policy position. As they often say. Wow. What an eye opener. They only like their contracts when they hold contractual strangleholds and/or escape clauses; which is not what they say.
UPDATE: Stan Hubbard's propaganda machine does its "for the kids" spiel:
A group of Minnesota parents and national education reform groups have filed a lawsuit challenging Minnesota tenure and dismissal laws that protect teachers.
The lawsuit was filed Thursday in Ramsey County. The Minnesota plaintiffs include four mothers from Duluth and the Twin Cities metro area.
NY Times characterizes it somewhat differently:
Opening a new front in the assault on teacher tenure, a group of parents backed by wealthy philanthropists served notice to defendants on Wednesday in a lawsuit challenging Minnesota’s job protections for teachers, as well as the state’s rules governing which teachers are laid off as a result of budget cuts.
Similar to cases in California and New York, the plaintiffs, who are filing the lawsuit in district court in Ramsey County in St. Paul, argue that the state’s tenure and layoff laws disproportionately harm poor, minority children because, they say, the most ineffective teachers are more likely to be assigned to public schools with high concentrations of those children.
In the lawsuit, parents of children in public schools across Minnesota argue that the state’s tenure laws, which grant teachers job protections after three years on the job, deprive students of “their fundamental right to a thorough and efficient education” under the state’s Constitution.
It is a state by state coordinated attack, each time asserting a state's constitution and not the federal one. The stink of Koch and ALEC is all over it. Face the fact. It's a crappy and thankless job putting up with the often ill-brought-up and ill-mannered children of others, in oppressively large numbers per classroom because of budget bending class size impositions on the profession; and those taking on the job deserve praise and not mud slinging by right wingers who don't take the job in regarding it as something below their station.
The Koch empire is founded on pollution, not on responsibility or respect for others. They could care about the children of any but the fiscally elite, who have private schools with tiny student to teacher ratios along with lavish funding.
FURTHER: It is an ongoing assault; e.g. this earlier MinnPost item. Coming to mind is a domino theory; by going after individual state court systems and touting individual state constitutions; get one domino to fall and perhaps break the entire union. It's rehashed Scott Walkerism, and stinks as such.