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The recent legal challenges in both California and New York have brought teacher quality issues to the forefront of the American consciousness in unprecedented fashion.

In California, Vergara v. California spread through the media like wildfire due to the one-two punch of Judge Rolf M. Treu’s strong ruling along with the particularly egregious teacher employment practices that have ensnared the Golden State.

Now the stage is set in New York, where two separate but aligning lawsuits have been filed challenging some of the same tenets in Vergara, such as a lax tenure system and ‘last-in-first-out’ retention policies.

To break it all down, Fordham’s Michael Petrilli and AEI’s Michael McShane discussed what these lawsuits involve, and their implications.

Credit where it’s due: Petrilli and McShane engaged in an extensive, thought-out conversation, breaking down the issues and defining what’s exactly at stake in these legal challenges. If anyone were looking for a refresher, they’d find it here.

If the vitriolic attacks on Campbell Brown and other proponents of reform are any judge, substantive conversation can often get lost in the Twitterverse.

Petrilli said to have “never actually heard,” the teacher unions mount a credible defense for ‘last-in-first-out’ as the sole determinant for retaining teachers in times of economic downturn. The discussion then branched out to what policies such as tenure are actually trying to accomplish, and what’s going to create good teachers in the classroom.

One primary source of agreement came on the point that the conversation should be more about the policies in question. That’s what happened in Vergara, but has yet to be fully realized in New York.

New York students and teachers deserve a system that rewards success. Job security for America’s most important profession cannot be a rubber-stamp process, where 97 percent of eligible teachers in New York City, for instance, were granted tenure in 2011-12.

The 2014 predictions for proficiency rates in math and reading among NYC students grade 3-8 are abysmal. Every step must be taken to improve student achievement, and these bold, judicial actions are just one piece of the puzzle.

Diane Ravitch has had it with celebrities openly discussing education policy because they don’t know anything about schools (read: express an alternate viewpoint).

Ugh, how awful must it be for public figures to talk about things in a free and open society. Kudos to Ravitch for bringing this horridness to our attention.

Ravitch has taken a similar position in the past with respect to celebrities nosing around issues related to our nation’s schools. For example, take when Ravitch called Matt Damon, “A Hero of American Education,” following Damon’s public appearances in support of status quo conditions.

In fact, so adamant was Ravitch about how celebrities shouldn’t comment on education that she vehemently defended Damon against the perceived hypocrisy of him exercising school choice with his own kids while advocating for a system that locks other kids into schools solely based on zip code.

At the end of the same August 12, 2013 blog post, Ravitch went so far as to say, “[Damon] is not only a hero on the big screen, he is a hero to millions of parents and teachers who need him.” Wow, sure told him off!

More recently, Ravitch took a similar anti-celebrity stance when discussing comedian Louis C.K.’s dabbling into the education debate, when C.K. publicly criticized the Common Core.

Wrote Ravitch, “Louis C.K. Takes Aim At Common Core – And We’re All Smarter For It.”

The absolute nerve of Louis C.K. talking about standards and testing prompted Ravitch to eagerly thank him for having such a positive impact on the national conversation surrounding Common Core:

“The standards and tests can be improved, but only if their advocates are willing to listen and think critically,” Ravtich wrote critically.

“Louis C.K. may have made that possible. Thanks, Louis.”

As anyone can plainly see, Diane Ravitch has consistently denounced any attempt by a celebrity to talk about education policy in an open forum.

Sort of.

In a new analysis intended as a conversation starter about the impact of charter school laws, the Democrats for Education Reform (DFER) found little ties between the strength of a charter law according to The Center for Education Reform’s own rankings and student learning.

To be fair, and as DFER points out in the conclusions section, charter student success is based on a number of variables, and it’s this type of positive customization and versatility that makes a charter school a charter school. This does not take away, however, from the importance of having a strong charter school law on the books.

Though the analysis isn’t meant to illustrate cause and effect, The Center for Education Reform still cautions against drawing any inferences when charter student performance is based on the very questionable results produced by the 2013 national CREDO study.

CER noted in 2013 that the national CREDO study is fraught with unreliable methodology that leads to equally unreliable conclusions.

The initial effects of having a strong charter law are twofold. Not only does a law with multiple, independent authorizers, no cap and equitable funding allow for more educational options to flourish, but in so doing creates an environment in which charter educators, leaders and parents are a welcomed part of public education.

This relationship is exemplified by the 335 additional charter campuses created during the 2012-13 school year in states rated ‘A’ or ‘B’, on the law rankings, contrasted with the 13 campuses in states rated ‘D’ or ‘F.’

The removal of oversight mechanisms — whether in the form of a politicized state commission or an ill-equipped local school district — that lack a vested interest in the success of charter schools go a long way in attracting excellent charter models.

As Kara Kerwin wrote in the charter school ‘wonk-a-thon’ earlier this year, the varied nature of charter success helps explain the proven stories found in places such as Boston, where charter schools may not be bolstered by a strong law but still produce learning gains in the face of legislative adversity. This begs the question of how much more the Massachusetts charter sector could do without policy inhibitions, such as a restrictive cap.

But the main takeaway from Kerwin’s ‘wonk-a-thon’ post is that ‘more’ is the operative word for building a successful charter sector. This means more children sitting in more seats in more schools made available by more choices. Strong laws help make that happen.