From Yahoo News, we learn that "Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed two bills making it tougher for teachers who commit sex crimes to remain in California's public schools."

The first law "allows the state to revoke licenses from teachers who plead no contest to certain sex crimes or drug offenses without waiting for a discretionary review that can sometimes take two or three years."

A no-contest plea followed by three years of employment in the same population in which you committed a crime? What a policy.

The new law also makes it easier for school officials to find out if a job applicant has a criminal record.

Under the second new law, "the credentialing commission will be able to revoke teachers' licenses automatically if a previous criminal conviction has limited their contact with children. The commission also will be able to suspend them automatically if they have had their license revoked in another state for misconduct. Those teachers had been allowed to remain in the classroom while the commission investigates their cases"

Nobody has a right to a job as a teacher, especially when student attendance at public schools is (in effect) compulsory. So it's time that these two laws took effect.

But there was a bump along the way. What was that? You may have guessed it: the state's largest teacher union opposed both laws. An alternate headline, which I didn't include here, writes itself.