Latest News and Comment from Education

Thursday, January 13, 2011

HechingerEd Blog | A closer look at Justice Kern’s ruling in NYC value-added case

HechingerEd Blog | A closer look at Justice Kern’s ruling in NYC value-added case

A closer look at ruling in NYC value-added case

Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court (photo by Beyond My Ken)

On Monday, January 10th, Justice Cynthia Kern ruled that the decision by the NYC Department of Education to publicly release Teacher Data Reports (TDRs) with individual teachers’ names attached was not “arbitrary and capricious.” That the chips fell this way isn’t terribly surprising.

Kern’s ruling is interesting more for what it doesn’t say than for what it does. And the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) has already appealed, so her ruling almost certainly won’t be the final word on this subject. As I wrote last month, “regardless of what Judge Cynthia Kern decides, it’s safe to say that the current teacher-