LOS ANGELES – The history-making Vergara v. California trial has entered its “The Empire Strikes Back” phase.

This week, defense attorneys representing the state of California and the state’s two major teachers unions introduced witnesses who claim teacher tenure, seniority protections and complex dismissal laws are not responsible for keeping ineffective educators in the classroom.

One of the defense’s key witnesses was Robert Fraisse, a 40-year educator who served as superintendent for three California school districts during his career.

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During his day-long testimony on Wednesday, Fraisse claimed that competent administrators can determine whether a teacher deserves the bulletproof job protection known as tenure by the end of the educator’s second year on the job.

That seems to contradict common sense.

It certainly contradicts the standard practices of most states. EdSource.org notes, “California is one of only a few states that grant tenure after two years of teaching; in most states it is three to five years.”

Fraisse also said that basing teacher layoffs on seniority rather than classroom performance is the height of fairness.

“I have not seen a better or more objective system than seniority,” Fraisse testified, according to LASchoolReport.com.

That bewildering statement can only be understood by hearing Fraisse’s views on using students’ standardized test scores to ascertain a teacher’s effectiveness in the classroom. In short, the former superintendent doesn’t think test scores can shed light on a teacher’s performance because schools are places of collaboration among all teachers.

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Fraisse described the “kumbaya” philosophy of one of his former districts: “The principle was that every student belonged to every teacher in school; there was mutual responsibility for success of all students, and all teachers owned all kids.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs in the case have argued that student test scores can produce “value-added” metrics which can help identify “the worst-performing teachers and document the harm they cause students they teach,” according to EdSource.org.

During his testimony, Fraisse also explained that his districts weeded out chronically low-performing educators through the use of persuasion – with help from the teachers union – and “small” financial settlements. Such practices allowed the districts to avoid getting tangled up in the red tape of teacher tenure protections, Fraisse said.

However, on cross-examination, the former superintendent conceded that he didn’t know if those low-performers left the teaching profession after resigning their jobs, or if they slinked over to another district to inflict a different community of students with their incompetence, EdSource.org reports.

That’s significant because if the teachers had been formally fired by Fraisse, they would have had a much more difficult time finding new employment.

Writer Stephen Frank noted that Fraisse’s testimony made him sound “more like a union official than a professional educator.”

Fraisse’s answers showed “a total disrespect for the rights of students, of all colors … to get a quality education,” Frank concluded.

The defense attorneys are expected to call more witnesses over the next couple of weeks to refute the plaintiffs’ assertions that teacher tenure, seniority and dismissal laws are keeping ineffective educators in California classrooms to the detriment of all students, but particularly minority students who are trapped in school districts that have a disproportionate number of lousy teachers.