Steven Greenhut on Kids Triumphing Over Teachers Unions

If the ruling is upheld, the legislature will need to defy the CTA and revisit teacher dismissal laws.

Education reformers and their teachers union foes seemed equally stunned on Tuesday by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu's ruling that found California's teacher tenure system—which makes it nearly impossible for public schools to fire teachers—to be an affront to the equal protection clause in the state constitution.

This may be just the first step in a long legal process that pits a group of poor kids and reformers against the state, the powerful California Teachers Association, and its allies in the legislature, but this was big national news—and the latest volley in an ongoing debate about education reform, writes Steven Greenhut.

If the ruling is upheld, the legislature will need to defy the CTA and revisit teacher dismissal laws. But real change needs to come from the grassroots, argues Greenhut with the public demanding that the state start putting the education of kids above the job security demanded by the unions representing those kids' teachers.