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The city will release years-old ratings for more than 12,000 teachers after the state’s top court declined to consider the UFT’s plea to keep the ratings private.

In August, the state’s second-highest court ruled that the scores are a matter of public interest and should be released, confirming a lower-court judge’s ruling. The union immediately asked the highest court, the Court of Appeals, to hear the case and was rejected for the first time in November. Today’s second rejection means the union is out of options and the city will release the ratings alongside the names of the teachers who received them.

The protracted legal battle began when several city news organizations filed a Freedom of Information Law request to release the city’s Teacher Data Reports, which calculated “value-added” scores for some teachers. The union charged that the scores should stay under wraps because they were rife with errors and statistically unreliable — a charge that an independent analysis supported. But the courts ruled that the ratings are a matter of public interest.

A spokesman for the Department of Education, Matthew Mittenthal, said the FOIL requests would be fulfilled within weeks — but he indicated that the department was not completely happy about it. Ex-Chancellor Joel Klein, who created the reports in 2008, supported their release. But Chancellor Dennis Walcott had expressed concern about seeing teachers’ names and ratings in print. (more…)

The UFT is going to plan B in its latest legal appeal to keep Teacher Data Reports under wraps.

The fight over a Freedom of Information Law request by several city news organizations to release the reports, which calculated “value-added” scores for some teachers, is still making its way through the courts, even though the city has said it will not produce new reports.

The union sued to stop the city from releasing the scores, with teachers’ names, to the news organizations. But in August, confirming a lower-court judge’s ruling, the state’s second-highest court ruled that the scores are a matter of public interest and should be released. To appeal that ruling, the union had to follow a complicated set of legal procedures.

Here’s how we described the steps at the time:

Because the four judges on the Appellate Court ruled unanimously against the union, there’s no guarantee that the Court of Appeals will hear the case. Instead, the Appellate Court has to give permission. Within days, the union will ask the appellate court for permission to have the case heard in the Court of Appeals. If permission isn’t granted, the union can also ask the Court of Appeals itself.

The second scenario — that the Appellate Court would not refer the case to the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court — played out today. Now the union must convince the Court of Appeals to hear the potentially precedent-setting case, which UFT President Michael Mulgrew said it would try to do quickly. (more…)

With the city’s Teacher Data Reports now in the past, the teachers union is set to move forward on negotiations that will build on a pilot program that’s in place in 33 schools.

The controversial reports, which assigned ratings to about 10,000 teachers based on their students’ test scores, were championed by former chancellor Joel Klein. Klein said he would release the scores to the public after news organizations filed a Freedom of Information request for them — a move that the United Federation of Teachers quickly opposed in court.

But in his first major reversal from one of Klein’s policies, Chancellor Dennis Walcott has said he does not think the ratings, which the UFT agreed to in part on grounds that they would remain internal, should be made public. Yesterday, Department of Education officials told the New York Times that they would no longer calculate teachers’ ratings according to the TDR algorithm because the state is rolling out a different model.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew told GothamSchools today that doing away with the TDRs wasn’t necessarily a precondition for the UFT to work with the city on a new teacher evaluation model, required under state law. But he said their disappearance would clear the way for negotiations.

“I really do appreciate that Dennis has taken that position, unlike previous chancellors,” Mulgrew said. “But it does help that we have a better relationship and we’re working together. That helps getting to any deal.” (more…)

The city’s plan to release teachers’ rating data to news organizations threatens public employees across the state.

That’s one argument the United Federation of Teachers is making as it moves toward its final attempt to prevent teachers’ individual ratings from going to press. Last week, the state’s Appellate Court echoed a low-level judge in ruling that the ratings, known as Teacher Data Reports, are public information and should be released.

Today, the union asked the Appellate Court for permission to take the case to the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. If the Appellate Court doesn’t grant permission, the union can also ask the Court of Appeals itself. The Court of Appeals doesn’t accept every case brought before it, and if it declines to hear this one, the Appellate Court’s decision would stand and the union would be out of options.

The Court of Appeals is more likely to take on cases that are potentially precedent-setting. Today’s filing stresses the “considerable violence to the limited but real privacy protections public employees possess” that the release of Teacher Data Reports could inflict, in addition to noting, as the union has done repeatedly, flaws in the reports themselves.

“In finding that the subjective, evaluative, and pre-decisional information contained in the inaptly named Teacher Data Reports, or ‘TDRs,’ is not exempt from public disclosure under FOIL, this Court has significantly narrowed the rights not only of new York City teachers but of all public employees in the State of New York,” the filing begins.

The UFT’s complete filing is below. (more…)

The city can release teacher ratings data to news organizations, the state’s second-highest court ruled today in another serious blow to the union’s effort to keep individual teachers’ scores out of the press.

The release won’t happen right away while the legal fight continues, Department of Education officials said.

But the union is running out of chances to stop the ratings from being published. In December, a State Supreme Court judge ruled that the city could release Teacher Data Reports for at least 12,000 teachers who have them. After the Appellate Court ruling today, the union’s last hope is the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals.

The union is already working on its appeal, UFT President Michael Mulgrew announced moments after the Appellate Court ruling.

Because the four judges on the Appellate Court ruled unanimously against the union, there’s no guarantee that the Court of Appeals will hear the case. Instead, the Appellate Court has to give permission. Within days, the union will ask the appellate court for permission to have the case heard in the Court of Appeals. If permission isn’t granted, the union can also ask the Court of Appeals itself. If the Court of Appeals declines to hear the case, then the Appellate Court’s decision would stand and the union would be out of options. (more…)

Under pressure from the Bloomberg administration to make tenure tougher to receive, principals and superintendents are withholding job protections from some young teachers.

Instead of simply granting or denying tenure at the end of a teacher’s third year, they are extending the probationary period for some teachers by another year.

In 2006, just 30 teachers had their probation extended. As the city has moved to toughen all teacher evaluations, that number has risen steadily, to 465 last year. Reports from teachers and principals suggest the trend is likely to continue when official numbers about the past year’s tenure decisions is released in the near future.

The reports suggest that many superintendents, who make final tenure decisions based on principals’ recommendations, are responding to a directive that teachers who score low on a new rubric not get tenure. The city urged that teachers who scored in the “ineffective” range be denied tenure and teachers who fell in the “developing” range have their probations extended.

A low score on the city’s Teacher Data Report was particularly influential, even if other information, such as classroom observations, contradicted it, principals said. The reports, which only some teachers receive, use value-added formulas to estimate teachers’ effectiveness at increasing students’ test scores, and teachers with low scores are “red-flagged” in the city’s tenure system.

Of the nine teachers Principal Joe Lisa had up for tenure this year at IS 61 in Queens, six taught in subjects without data reports and received tenure. Three math teachers had their probationary periods extended. One in particular seemed to be a shoo-in, Lisa said. But his superintendent rejected the idea of giving her tenure this year. (more…)

The teachers union and the city are heading back to court today, for the second round in an ongoing battle over the public release of teacher ratings.

Last December, a state judge ruled that that the city could release controversial teacher evaluations. Today, the union seeks to reverse that decision in Appellate Court.

The stakes are high for the city, which could use the release of teacher ratings as a key engine for galvanizing public support in favor of doing away with seniority layoffs. But the union, which wants to maintain “last in, first out” layoff rules, says that the evaluations are too inaccurate to be used for such high-stakes decisions.

The “value-added” evaluations, which grade teachers by comparing their students’ test scores to forecasted scores, were created as an internal assessment, designed to help teachers gauge their own performance. But the Department of Education announced it would release the ratings publicly after several news organizations filed Freedom of Information Law requests for them. This decision prompted a UFT lawsuit. (more…)

As expected, the city teachers union today formally appealed the State Supreme Court ruling that would allow the city to make public teachers’ names and performance ratings.

On Monday, Justice Cynthia Kern ruled that the city must respond to media outlets’ Freedom of Information Law requests for Teacher Data Reports with individual teachers’ names attached. The union had sued to stop the release, arguing that releasing individuals’ performance ratings would illegally invade teachers’ privacy. The union also argues that the ratings are too flawed to be made public.

In its brief appeal, the union argues that the lower court erred in its interpretation of the law, saying that the judge should have determined whether the city could legally deny the media organizations’ request.

In the original decision, Kern ruled that the city had not acted in an arbitrary or capricious manner when it decided to release the teacher rankings, but explicitly did not make a judgement on whether the city could legally have chosen not to make the ratings public under the Freedom of Information Law.

In a statement released to reporters when the decision was handed down on Monday, city lawyer Jesse Levine said that the city would respect the union’s appeal and will not release the ratings before a second court has ruled. (more…)

The city teachers union today formally asked the comptroller and special commissioner of investigation to examine the accuracy of the Department of Education’s teacher ratings.

The move comes after an ongoing back-and-forth between the union and the city over how city officials ensure the accuracy of the data that determine the ratings. Yesterday, the union called a press conference to share stories of teachers who discovered that their data reports rate their effectiveness based on students and subjects they had never taught.

The feud over the ratings began in October, when city officials announced that they intended to release the teacher rankings to reporters. Union officials began collecting examples of errors on the reports, and then sued to block the release, arguing that the reports were too riddled with inaccurate information to be released.

Teachers union President Michael Mulgrew said Sunday that his staff has documented at least 200 cases in which teachers’ reports include errors. In its court filings, the union gave nearly 20 examples of reports, with teachers’ names redacted, that the union claims reflect errors.

But city officials countered today in a letter to Mulgrew that because there were no names attached to the examples the union cited, they have been unable to verify the letters. The letter, signed by Deputy Chancellors Shael Polakow-Suransky and John White, asked the union to share the details of those cases. (more…)

Calling the city’s reports on teacher effectiveness “misleading and grossly flawed,” lawyers for the teachers union argued that the city has no right to release them with teachers’ names attached.

Attorneys representing the city’s Department of Education, United Federation of Teachers, and several city news outlets made their arguments for-and-against the information’s release in New York’s Supreme Court today. Over the summer, several reporters asked for teachers’ effectiveness scores with names included under the Freedom of Information Law. Though the city initially planned to give reporters the scores, it left the decision in the court’s hands after the union sued to prevent the release of teachers’ names.

Contained in documents called Teacher Data Reports, the scores measure how a teachers’ students performed on state math and reading tests against how a model predicted their students would perform. Though the city and union have agreed to include these scores as a factor in teacher evaluations, they’ve become a lightning rod for criticism as some academics have questioned their reliability.

Arguing before Justice Cynthia Kern, a lawyer for the union said the scores with teachers’ names attached are exempt from disclosure under Freedom of Information law because they are intra-agency documents and because they have the potential to harm teachers, impinging on their right to privacy. (more…)