In 2012, families in California filed a lawsuit alleging that five state statutes governing teacher tenure, dismissal, and seniority together violate the state constitution’s requirements for equal protection. Central to the case were competing narratives about the relationship between these statutes, the work of teachers, and the achievement of students. This article analyzes those narratives utilizing the trial court transcripts and judicial opinions in Vergara v. California. We find that despite reaching divergent rulings, the trial and appellate courts provided highly typified accounts of the case—ones that emphasized individual agency and dismissed or deemphasized the importance of the social and political context of schooling. These findings are important for understanding how complex policy debates become transformed within legal proceedings and for understanding the capacity of courts to engage complex evidence and narratives—a major issue given that courts remain an important venue for school reform.
American Educational Research Association. (2015). AERA statement on use of value-added models (VAM) for the evaluation of and educator preparation programs. Educational Researcher, 44, 448-452.
BakerB. D.OluwoleJ.GreenP. C. (2013). The legal consequences of mandating high stakes decisions based on low quality information: Teacher evaluation in the Race to the Top era. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 21(5), 1-71.
4.
BennettW. I.FeldmanM. S. (1981). Reconstructing reality in the courtroom. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
5.
BlumenthalJ. A. (2002). Law and social science in the twenty-first century. Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, 12, 1-53.
BraceyG. W.MolnarA. (2003). Recruiting, preparing and retaining high quality teachers: An empirical synthesis. Tempe: Education Policy Studies Laboratory, Arizona State University.
8.
BrooksP.GewirtzP. D. (1996). Law’s stories: Narrative and rhetoric in the law. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
9.
BrownD. K. (1998). Plain meaning, practical reason, and culpability: Toward a theory of jury interpretation of criminal statutes. Michigan Law Review, 96, 1199-1268.
10.
BulkleyK.E.GottliebJ.J. (2017). Policy images of teachers: How influential actors construct images of teachers. Teachers College Record, 119(4), 1-34.
11.
ChayesA. (1976). The role of the judge in public law litigation. Harvard Law Review, 89, 1281-1316.
12.
CheslerM. A.SandersJ.KalmussD. S. (1988). Social science in court: Mobilizing experts in the school desegregation cases. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
13.
Cochran-SmithM. (2001). The outcomes question in teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 175, 527-546.
14.
CohenD. K.RaudenbushS. W.BallD. L. (2003). Resources, instruction, and research. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 25, 119-142.
15.
ColeD. (2016). Engines of liberty: The power of citizen activists to make constitutional law. New York, NY: Basic Books.
16.
ConleyR. (2015). Confronting the death penalty: How language influences jurors in capital cases. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
17.
Cook v. Stewart, 2014 WL 2959248 (N. D. Fl. Gainesville, May 6, 2014).
18.
CorcoranS. P. (2007). Long-run trends in the quality of teachers: Evidence and implications for policy. Education, 2, 395-407.
19.
Darling-HammondL. (2000). Teacher quality and student achievement: A review of state policy evidence. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 8(1). Retrieved from https://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/392
20.
Doe v. Antioch, Case No. MSN15-1127 (S.C. of California, Contra Costa County, 2016)
21.
DunnJ.WestM. (2008). Calculated justice: Education research and the courts. In HessF.McDonnellL. (Eds.), When research matters: How scholarship influences education policy (pp. 155-176). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
22.
EdelmanL. B.SuchmanM. C. (1997). The legal environments of organizations. Annual Review of Sociology, 23, 479-515.
23.
EdmondG. (2007). Supersizing Daubert: Science for litigation and its implications for legal practice and scientific research. Villanova Law Review, 52, 857-924.
EnrichP. (1995). Leaving equality behind: New directions in school finance reform. Vanderbilt Law Review, 48, 101-194.
26.
EspelandW. N. (1998). The struggle for water: Politics, rationality, and identity in the American Southwest. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
27.
EspelandW. N.StevensM. L. (2008). A sociology of quantification. European Journal of Sociology, 49, 401-436.
28.
EwickP.KaganR. A.SaratA. (Eds.). (1999). Social science, social policy & the law. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
29.
Forslund v. Minnesota, 62-CV-16-2161 (MN Dist. Ct. 2016).
30.
FourcadeM. (2011). Cents and sensibility: Economic valuation and the nature of “nature.”American Journal of Sociology, 116, 1721-1777.
31.
GierschJ. (2014). Aiming for giants charter school legislation and the power of teacher unions. Education and Urban Society, 46, 653-671.
32.
GlaserB.StraussA. (1967). The discovering of grounded theory. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine.
GoeL. (2007). The link between teacher quality and student outcomes: A research synthesis. Washington, DC: National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality.
35.
GolanT. (2004). Laws of men and laws of nature: The history of scientific expert testimony in England and America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
36.
GoldmanS.JahnigeT. P. (1976). The federal courts as a political system (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Harper & Row.
37.
GoodwinC. (1994). Professional vision. American Anthropologist, 96, 606-633.
38.
GordonR. W. (1984). Critical legal histories. Stanford Law Review, 36, 57-125.
39.
GreenP. C.BakerB. D.OluwoleJ. (2012). The legal and policy implications of value-added teacher evaluation policies. Brigham Young University Education and Law Journal, 2012, Article 2.
40.
Grutter v. Bollinger 539 U.S. 306 (2003).
41.
HackingI. (1990). The taming of chance. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
42.
HanushekE. A.RivkinS. G. (2012). The distribution of teacher quality and implications for policy. Annual Review of Economics, 4, 131-157.
43.
HarrisD. (2011). Value-added measures in education: What every educator needs to know. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.
44.
HarrisS. (2001). Fragmented narratives and multiple tellers: Witness and defendant accounts in trials. Discourse Studies, 3, 53-74.
45.
Harris v. Quinn, 573 U.S. (2014).
46.
HarrisonC.Cohen-VogelL. (2012). The politics of teacher reform in Florida: Analyzing causal narratives surrounding state adoption of performance-based evaluations, performance pay, and tenure elimination. Peabody Journal of Education, 87, 517-534.
47.
HeiseM. (2002). The past, present, and future of empirical legal scholarship: Judicial decision making and the new empiricism. University of Illinois Law Review, 2002, 819-850.
48.
HoffmannJ. L. (1995). Where’s the buck? Juror misperception of sentencing responsibility in death penalty cases. Indiana Law Journal, 70, 1137-1160.
49.
HoschH. M.BeckE.McIntyreP. (1980). Influence of expert testimony regarding eyewitness accuracy on jury decisions. Law and Human Behavior, 4, 287-296.
50.
HuttE. L.TangA. (2013). The new education malpractice litiation. Virginia Law Review, 99, 420-491.
51.
Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31, 585 U.S. (2018)
52.
JasanoffS. (1995). Science at the bar. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
53.
KaganR. A. (2003). Adversarial legalism: The American way of law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
54.
KaneT. J.RockoffJ. E.StaigerD. O. (2008). What does certification tell us about teacher effectiveness? Evidence from New York City. Economics of Education Review, 27, 615-631.
55.
KennedyM. (2010). Teacher assessment and the quest for teacher quality: A handbook. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
56.
KingdonJ. W. (1984). Agendas, alternatives, and public policies. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.
57.
KomesarN. (1994). Imperfect alternatives: Choosing institutions in law, economics, and public policy. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
58.
KoskiW. S. (2012). Teacher collective bargaining, teacher quality, and the teacher quality gap: Toward a policy analytic framework. Harvard Law & Policy Review, 6, 67-90.
59.
KramerL. D. (2006). Popular constitutionalism, circa 2004. California Law Review, 92, 959-1011.
60.
KraussD. A.SalesB. D. (2001). The effects of clinical and scientific expert testimony on juror decision making. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 7, 267-310.
61.
Larry P. v. Riles, 495 F. Supp. 926 (N.D. Cal. 1979).
LempertR.SandersJ. (1986). An introduction to law and social science. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
64.
LevinsonS. (1996). The rhetoric of the judicial opinion. In BrooksP.GewirtzP. D. (Eds.) Law’s stories: Narrative and rhetoric in the law. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press (pp. 187-205).
65.
Los Angeles Dept. of Water and Power v. Manhart, 435 U.S. 702 (1978).
66.
MalinM. H. (2012). Sifting through the wreckage of the tsunami that hit public sector collective bargaining. Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal, 16, 533-557.
67.
Martinez v. State of New Mexico, complaint (N.M. Dist. Ct. filed April1, 2014).
68.
MayrowetzD.LaphamJ. F. (2008). “But we’re in a court of law. We’re not in a legislature.” The promise and pitfalls of educational policy reform through the judicial branch. Educational Policy, 22, 379-421.
69.
McGuinnP. (2010). Creating cover and constructing capacity: Assessing the origins, evolution, and impact of Race to the Top. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute.
70.
McGuinnP. (2012). Stimulating reform: Race to the Top, competitive grants, and the Obama education agenda. Educational Policy, 26, 136-159.
71.
MillsM. R. (2007). Stories of politics and policy: Florida’s higher education governance reorganization. The Journal of Higher Education, 78, 162-187.
72.
National Council on Teacher Quality. (2013). State of the states 2013: Connect the dots: Using evaluations of teacher effectiveness to inform policy and practice. Washington, DC: Author.
73.
National Research Council. (2010). Getting value out of value-added: Report of a workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.
74.
ParisM. (2010). Framing equal opportunity: Law and the politics of school finance reform. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
75.
PhillipsS.GrattetR. (2000). Judicial rhetoric, meaning-making, and the institutionalization of hate crime law. Law & Society Review, 34, 567-606.
76.
PorterT. M. (1995). Trust in numbers : The pursuit of objectivity in science and public life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
77.
PosseltJ. R. (2016). Inside graduate admissions: Merit, diversity, and faculty gatekeeping. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
78.
PostR. C. (2003). Fashioning the legal constitution: Culture, courts, and law. Harvard Law Review, 117, 4-112.
79.
PullinD. (2013). Legal issues in the use of student test scores and value-added models to determine educational quality. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 21. Retrieved from http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/1160
80.
RebellM. A.BlockA. R. (1982). Educational policy making and the courts: An empirical study of judicial activism. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
81.
RiveraL. A. (2011). Ivies, extracurriculars, and exclusion: Elite employers’ use of educational credentials. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 29, 71-90.
82.
RochefortD. A.CobbR. W. (Eds.). (1994). The politics of problem definition: Shaping the policy agenda. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
83.
RyanJ. E. (2007). Standards, testing, and school finance litigation. Texas Law Review, 86, 1223-1262.
84.
SabelC. F.SimonW. H. (2004). Destabilization rights: How public law litigation succeeds. Harvard Law Review, 117, 1015-1101.
SeveranceL. J.LoftusE. F. (1982). Improving the ability of jurors to comprehend and apply criminal jury instructions. Law & Society Review, 17, 153-197.
87.
StoneD. A. (1989). Causal stories and the formation of policy agendas. Political Science Quarterly, 104(2), 281-300.
88.
StoneD. A. (2011). Policy paradox: The art of political decision making. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.
89.
StraussA.CorbinJ. (1990). Basics of qualitative research: Grounded theory procedure and techniques. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.
90.
SuperfineB.M. (2009). Deciding who decides questions of at the intersection of school finance reform litigation and standards-based accountability policies. Educational Policy, 23(3), 480-514.
91.
SuperfineB. M. (2013). Equality in education law and policy: 1954-2010. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
92.
SuperfineB. M.GottliebJ. J. (2014). Teacher evaluation and collective bargaining: The new frontier of civil rights law. Michigan State Law Review, 2014(3), 737-788.
93.
SuperfineB. M.GottliebJ. J.SmylieM. A. (2012). The expanding federal role in teacher workforce policy. Educational Policy, 26(1), 58-78.
94.
SuperfineB. M.ThompsonA. (2016). Interest groups, the courts, and educational equality: A policy regimes approach to Vergara v. California. American Educational Research Journal, 53(3), 573-604.
95.
Trial Tr. Vergara v. California. No. BC484642 (S.C. County of Los Angeles 2014).
96.
Urbanski v. King complaint N.Y. sup. Ct., filed March10, 2014.
97.
VaughanD. (1999). Boundary work: Levels of analysis, the macro-micro link, and the social control of organizations. In EwickP.KaganR.SaratA. (Eds.), Social science, social policy, and the law (pp. 291-321). New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
98.
Vergara v. California, No. BC484642 (S.C. County of Los Angeles 2014).
99.
Vergara v. California 246 Cal. App. 4th 619 (Cal. App. 2d Dist. 2016).
100.
WaldP. M. (1995). The rhetoric of results and the results of rhetoric: Judicial writings. The University of Chicago Law Review, 62, 1371-1419.
101.
WeisbergD.SextonS.MulhernJ.KeelingD.SchunckJ.PalciscoA.MorganK. (2009). The widget effect: Our national failure to acknowledge and act on differences in teacher effectiveness. New York, NY: New Teacher Project.
102.
WelnerK. G. (2012). Scholars as policy actors: Research, public discourse, and the zone of judicial constraints. American Educational Research Journal, 49(1), 7-29.
103.
WelnerK. G.KupermintzH. (2004). Rethinking expert testimony in education rights litigation. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 26, 127-142.
104.
WilsonP. (2000). Deficit reduction as causal story: Strategic politics and welfare state retrenchment. The Social Science Journal, 37, 97-112.
105.
WiseA. E. (1968). Rich schools, poor schools: The promise of equal educational opportunity. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
106.
WittJ. F. (2004). The accidental republic: Crippled workingmen, destitute widows, and the remaking of American law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
