LOS ANGELES – Monday marked the beginning of Vergara vs. California, the much-anticipated court case that puts California’s teacher protection laws on trial.

After opening statements, attorneys for the plaintiffs (a group of K-12 students) questioned witnesses who testified that California’s tenure laws, teacher dismissal laws and “last in, first out” layoff policies have the effect of keeping subpar educators in the classroom, thus jeopardizing students’ constitutional right to a quality education, LATimes.com reports.

Chief among those witnesses was John Deasy, who serves as superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. The district employs more than 31,000 teachers, so Deasy is well-versed on just how difficult and expensive firing an ineffective educator can be.

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Deasy testified that LAUSD administrators essentially have 13 months to decide whether or not a beginning teacher should be awarded tenure. The superintendent added that administrators not only have to assess the teacher’s classroom competence in that time span, but they also have to provide evidence that the educator has shown growth while on the job, according to NeonTommy.com.

Determining both competence and growth in just 13 months is virtually impossible to do, Deasy said.

“In the very best of circumstances, we have one year of data from the pupils with which the teachers worked with,” Deasy said, according to NeonTommy.com. “There is no way this is a sufficient amount of time to make, in my opinion, an incredibly important judgment.”

He also testified that firing an incompetent teacher is brutally difficult and expensive.

Said Deasy: “It is documented that principals need days and days away from the district in preparation for a dismissal hearing or days like today where they have to testify. There are interviews I’ve conducted with principals and administrators that talk about personal and professional difficulty in moving through this process and in more than one occasion with a principal that would think twice before going through this process again.”

The entire process can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, money most cash-strapped school districts simply can’t afford to gamble on such a convoluted and uncertain process.

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The nine plaintiffs in the case – all of them school children – are being represented by a pair of “superstar” attorneys. If they succeed, their lawsuit not only free California schools from the stifling work rules, but could inspire activists in other states to take similar actions.

The defense – which includes the state’s two major teacher unions – “argued in their statements that the statutes in question shouldn’t be judged on their constitutionality, but instead be dealt with in the legislative branch,” according to NeonTommy.com.

That’s a perfectly logical position for the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers, considering that they effectively control the majority of lawmakers in the state Legislature.

But’s that’s as far as the logic goes. All laws in all states – as well as federal statutes – are subject to judicial constitutional review.

Deasy’s testimony was scheduled to resume on Tuesday. The trial is expected to last several weeks, according to PRNewswire.