GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Five news organizations have joined the lawsuit over whether the city can release teachers’ effectiveness scores, arguing that they have a right to see the data.

Lawyers for the New York Times, Daily News, New York Post, the Wall Street Journal, and NY1 have decided to intervene in the case, according to a spokeswoman for the city’s law department. They will file their own papers, but are taking the same position as the city’s lawyers, arguing that the data is not protected under the Freedom of Information law.

Reporters at each of the news organizations submitted requests for the data and the city planned to release the reports until last month when the teachers union sued to stop them.

In its lawsuit, the union’s lawyers wrote that the Department of Education should have denied reporters’ FOIL requests because the teachers’ ratings are exempt from disclosure. The suit also said that making the scores public would amount to an invasion of teachers’ privacy. (more…)