The National Education Association is supporting Tennessee local unions in challenging the constitutionality of a teacher evaluation system that judges teachers by the test scores of students they have not taught.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 5, 2015
CONTACT: Staci Maiers, NEA Communications, 202-270-5333 cell, smaiers@nea.org
Amanda Chaney, TEA Communications, 615-242-8392, achaney@tnea.org
NEA SUPPORTS TEACHERS CHALLENGING CONSTITUTIONALITY OF EVALUATIONS
***Tennessee students suffer because of state’s arbitrary, irrational teacher evaluation systems***
WASHINGTON—Two accomplished teachers will file a lawsuit today in Nashville, Tennessee, to challenge the evaluation of most teachers in the state based on the standardized test scores of students in courses they did not teach. The teachers are joined by their representatives from the Tennessee Education Association and the Metropolitan Nashville and Anderson County Education Associations in the lawsuit, which is being prosecuted by the National Education Association and TEA. The lawsuit argues that these arbitrary, irrational and unfair policies violate the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“Students in Tennessee are being shortchanged because of the state’s arbitrary and irrational evaluation system that provides no meaningful feedback on their instruction,” said NEA President Lily Eskelsen García. “This unfair broken system conditions the teacher’s employment on the basis of standardized test scores for courses they do not teach, including some from students they do not teach at all. The system is senseless and indefensible but, worst of all, it doesn’t help kids.”
More than half of Tennessee teachers are being evaluated in the same arbitrary and irrational manner. While most teachers do not teach courses that use standardized tests, a Tennessee statue still requires that all teachers be evaluated substantially on the basis of student growth estimates calculated from student test scores using the state’s value-added model.
“The National Education Association is proud to support our members and the Tennessee Education Association in this constitutional challenge,” said Eskelsen García, who is a former Utah Teacher of the Year now heading the nation’s largest teachers’ union. “The use of such arbitrary measures to make employment decisions with high-stakes consequences reflects a national obsession with standardized testing run amok.”
Tennessee is not the only place where teacher evaluations and high-stakes decisions are being made based on faulty or no data.
In 2011, the Florida legislature passed SB 736, which required a significant proportion of every teacher’s annual evaluation to be based on a value-added model that only measures student growth on the state’s standardized reading and math tests. After seven accomplished teachers, with the support of NEA and the Florida Education Association, filed a federal lawsuit challenging Florida’s deeply flawed teacher evaluation system, Florida Gov. Rick Scott signed SB 1664, which requires teacher evaluations to be based on students they actually teach. Florida continues, however, to evaluate teachers based on their students’ scores on tests unrelated to the instruction they provide, which is an issue that the teachers, with the support of NEA and FEA, continue to press in that litigation.
“If we’re serious about every child’s future, let’s get serious about doing what works,” added Eskelsen García. “We need to end these arbitrary evaluation systems, which fail our students by undermining our public schools.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
GOOD. It’s about time. All this testing and standards are repressive and wrong. Politicians and big money are the culprits.
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Every test measures students based on prior knowledge. If a student enters high school algebra with third grade skills in fractions, the teacher can attempt a heroic effort, spend much time, dedication, and expense to bring that student up four or five grade levels – yet still not enough “value add” to affect the outcome of the standardized test. The student’s success does not even register on the assessment. A good to great teacher is branded “ineffective”.
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They will use the ruling from a similar case in Florida where a judge ruled that teachers being evaluated on the scores of students they never taught was unfair but not illegal.
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This is good news. I wonder why it has taken so long.
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As a music educator and former school administrator it is ABOUT TIME that teachers fought back on the arbitrary use of standardized tests to rate teachers of non-tested subject areas. Music and arts educators INVENTED authentic assessment! What the heck is wrong with policy makers that they would simply use a set of test scores to rate ALL teachers even if they didn’t have those same children in their classroom? Is this now “guilt by association.” Hasn’t enough damage been done already? Must we continue to play this foolish game to some conclusion and risk further damage to our most important commodity; namely, children?
This whole ridiculous reform movement is going to fail big time. When it does, a whole generation of kids will have been harmed along with thousands of outstanding teachers who were victimized by an unfair, unjust and unsustainable system. This is a crime.
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This is reminding me of “Weekend at Bernie’s”. Common Core is effectively dead, yet the edu-fakers keep propping it up, dressing it up, and waving its lifeless limbs in their feeble attempts to maintain the illusion that it is still alive and grinning.
The BIG-FAIL will come when the LAST NAIL is driven into the coffin: the PARCC and SBAC testing disaster of 2015. Unfortunately, the damage done will take some time to erase. The history books will not treat kindly those who used children as their pawns.
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Evaluation through osmosis? The department of education might as well call the psychic hotline, since they have clearly spurned reasonable and rational science. God pity their souls as they mock and destroy the foundation of civilized thought.
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As a native Tennesseean, I am not surprised. The place is not always as backwards as non-Southerners sometimes suppose, but it sometimes has this weird medieval witch-hunty streak that hasn’t caught up to modern ideas about justice. Old habits die hard!
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Reblogged this on Mrs. Jennifer Cimini, M.Ed. and commented:
“If we’re serious about every child’s future, let’s get serious about doing what works,” added Eskelsen García. “We need to end these arbitrary evaluation systems, which fail our students by undermining our public schools.”
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