The guarantee of a free and appropriate public education is a cornerstone of equal opportunity. Morrison & Foerster lawyers are profoundly engaged in making this guarantee meaningful for children of all incomes, talents, and abilities. We keep an eye out for those who are falling through the cracks of overstrained systems, and are proud to advocate for these children at every level - from administrative hearings to class action lawsuits - hoping to win for them the opportunity to fulfill their potential. To learn more about our education work, click
here.
Standing Up for Equal Educational Opportunity
Sharail Reed's struggling middle school in Los Angeles lost 40% of its teachers in 2009 due to state budget cuts. Poor inner-city schools like Sharail's are typically hardest hit by layoffs, because these schools are staffed by the most recently hired teachers. When a new round of layoffs was about to compound the damage, MoFo lawyers joined the ACLU of Southern California and the Public Counsel Law Center to file a lawsuit,
Reed v. State of California. The suit's goal was to stop further layoffs at Sharail's school and two others where the cuts already had decimated the teaching corps.
We quickly won a preliminary injunction against the anticipated new layoffs, with the trial court finding that "high teacher turnover devastates educational opportunity” and that the cuts violated our clients' constitutional right to equal educational opportunity. A settlement was later reached that protected children in dozens of vulnerable schools from teacher layoffs for two years. While that settlement was vacated on appeal and the case is ongoing, we hope that newly-adopted school funding measures will prevent similar layoffs from undermining public education in the future.