A second group has filed a lawsuit challenging New York's education laws over teacher tenure, claiming the laws violate the state's consitutional right to provide "a sound basic education." The lawsuit, Wright v. New York was filed with the state Supreme Court in Albany on Monday.

Wright v. New York was filed by seven parents with children in public school and is part of the Partnership for Educational Justice, headed by former CNN anchor Campbell Brown.

At a press conference at New York City Hall, WNYC radio reported Brown teared up while she announced the suit on the steps and said, "I am so inspired by what these people are doing. This is not going to be easy, and they are so incredibly brave to be taking this on."

The plaintiffs in the previous lawsuit, Davis v. State of New York, et al, are 11 New York public school students.

This lawsuits follows on the heels of a landmark court decision in California in June finding tenure laws there unconstitutional.

Monday's lawsuit claims three years is not sufficient time to judge if a teacher deserves tenure, and the legal proceedings to fire a teacher are so complex and expensive that few are fired. The suit claims "the current dismissal and disciplinary laws for tenured teachers make it nearly impossible to remove ineffective teachers from the classroom once they are prematurely tenured."

But a review of New York State United Teachers records shows the median length of time in a dismissal action is just over three months, from when a teacher is served with charges until either party reaches a settlement or rests their case before an arbiter.

During the period 2012-13, of 356 cases, 92.3 percent have been resolved, with 7.7 percent pending. Of those cases resolved, 329, there were resolutions over misconduct and competency -- 167 resigned, retired or were terminated, 118 were fined, 31 were suspended, seven were withdrawn, five received professional development and one died.

During the Bloomberg administration, the UFT negotiated with the Department of Education an expedited 3020-a process with a maximum time limit of three days per case, but the DoE often chooses not to expedite this way.

In a report on a June 11 Delegate Assembly meeting, Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, told delegates that corporate reformers were attacking tenure as a way to privatize public education and have announced similar lawsuits in other states, including New York. He said the California court ruling was based on weak and faulty arguments and is going to be appealed. Mulgrew said the UFT knows the real challenges facing public schools are the high rates of poverty among students and turnover among teachers.