LOS ANGELES – The California Supreme court upheld the state’s teacher tenure laws in a closely followed lawsuit with one sentence: “The petition for review is denied.”

Nine students who sued the state with the help of the education reform organization Students Matter argued that the state’s teacher tenure laws, which are heavily influenced by teachers unions, are harming student learning, particularly in schools with minority and low-income students, NPR reports.

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In 2014, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Rolf Treau ruled California tenure laws unconstitutional in the case of Vergara vs. California because they make it virtually impossible to fire teachers who attain the union job protection. Teacher tenure laws are widely blamed for keeping bad teachers in classrooms across the country, as well as the creation of “rubber rooms” where district officials send protected educators who are too dangerous to be near students.

After testimony about Los Angeles schools during the 2014 trial, Treau said the damage to students by subpar tenured teachers who belittle or ignore them “shocks the conscious,” but an appeals court in April reversed his ruling, claiming that it’s the legislature’s task to set education policy, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The appeals court noted in the 3-0 decision that staffing decisions like sending bad teachers to schools with poor and minority students has a “deleterious impact,” but found that the plaintiffs did not prove a link between that result and the state’s teacher tenure law, according to the Associated Press.

The students backed by Students Matter appealed the appeals court ruling to the state’s Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case on Monday in a 4-3 decision.

Students Matter posted a statement about the ruling on its website.

“This decision falls short of the binding mandate for change that California voters, students, parents and educators had hoped for, but the issues at the heart of Vergara are not going away – and neither are we,” the statement read.

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“We have all seen the evidence of the hard caused by the challenged laws – evidence that two courts have called ‘extremely troubling’ and said ‘shocks the conscience.’ No longer can we hide behind a veil of ignorance in choosing to do nothing to protect California students. We know the problem, and we know how to fix it,” the statement continued.

“While today may be the end of our legal battle in Vergara, it’s clear that our fight has changed the conversation around teacher quality in California – and that conversation will continue. We’re moving forward, not back.

“The Supreme Court’s decision places the responsibility for improving the state’s teacher retention, evaluation and dismissal laws squarely with the California Legislature. And that’s where we intend to take this fight.”

Teacher union bosses, of course, applauded the Supreme Court’s decision. American Federation of Teachers president Rhonda Weingarten used the ruling as an opportunity to repeat the tired and disproven line that the real problem facing public education isn’t union tenure protections that make it impossible to fire terrible teachers, it’s taxpayers who are reluctant to turn over more money to the massively wasteful government education system.

“It is now well past time that we move beyond damaging lawsuits like Vergara that demonize educators and begin to work with teachers to address the real issued caused by the massive underinvestment in public education in this country,” she groaned in a prepared statement.