Teacher Takes Her Low Evaluation to Court...and Wins

From the Washington Post's The Answer Sheet via Carol Burris, the executive director of the Network for Public Education, a nonprofit advocacy group.

 Sheri Lederman, the beloved fourth-grade teacher from Great Neck, New York, was victorious in her battle to have her 2013-14 VAM score of “ineffective” rating vacated and set aside by the Supreme Court of New York State.  Justice Roger D. McDonough, who heard the case, recognized that score for what it was — “arbitrary” and “capricious.”

In his ruling, McDonough cited affidavits submitted by Linda Darling Hammond of Stanford University, Aaron Pallas of Columbia University, Audrey Amrien-Beardsley of Arizona State University, Sean Corcoran of New York University, Jesse Rothstein of University of California at Berkeley, clinical school psychologist Brad Lindell, and me.  Each of us used research and data to demonstrate that the VAM system was indeed arbitrary and capricious, and therefore an abuse of discretion by the New York State Education Department. In his ruling, the judge characterized that evidence as “overwhelming.”

The defendant was John B. King, the former New York State education commissioner and present U.S. Department of Education Secretary, who did not appear in court to defend the system he commissioned and defended as valid, reliable and fair when he was working in New York.