Another Lawsuit in Rochester, New York
Following my most recent post, it seems, again, and as per another post in Diane Ravitch’s blog, that the Rochester, New York Teachers Association is also now “suing the state over its teacher evaluation system, alleging that it does not take into account the impact of poverty on classroom performance.”
As per the original post, “The Rochester Teachers Association today filed a lawsuit alleging that the Regents and State Education Department failed to adequately account for the effects of severe poverty and, as a result, unfairly penalized Rochester teachers on their APPR (Annual Professional Performance Review) evaluations.
The suit, filed in state Supreme Court in Albany by New York State United Teachers on behalf of the RTA and more than 100 Rochester teachers, argues the State Education Department did not adequately account for student poverty in setting student growth scores on state tests in grades 4-8 math and English language arts. In addition, SED imposed rules for Student Learning Objectives and implemented evaluations in a way that made it more difficult for teachers of economically disadvantaged students to achieve a score of “effective” or better. As a result, the lawsuit alleges the Regents and SED violated teachers’ rights to fair evaluations and equal protection under the law.
SED computes a growth score based on student performance on state standardized