ASU Regents’ Professor Emeritus David Berliner at Vergara v. California
As you (hopefully) recall from a prior post, nine “students” from the Los Angeles School District are currently suing the state of California “arguing that their right to a good education is [being] violated by job protections that make it too difficult to fire bad [teachers].” This case is called Vergara v. California, and it is meant to challenge “the laws that handcuff schools from giving every student an equal opportunity to learn from effective teachers.” Behind these nine students stand a Silicon Valley technology magnate (David Welch), who is financing the case and an all-star cast of lawyers, and Students Matter, the organization founded by said Welch.
This past Tuesday (March 18, 2014 – “Vergara Trial Day 28“), David C. Berliner, Regents’ Professor Emeritus here at Arizona State University (ASU), who also just happens to be my forever mentor and academic luminary, took the stand. He spoke, primarily, about the out-of-school factors that impact student performance in schools and how this impactsand biases all estimates based on test scores (often regardless of the controls uses – see a most recent post about this evidence of bias here).
As per a recent post by Diane Ravitch (thanks to an insider at the trial) Berliner said:
“The public and politicians and parents overrate the in-school effects on their children and underrate the power of out-of-school effects on their children.” He noted that in-school