If you are interested in the subject of teacher evaluation, here is a treat for you. This file contains the affidavits of the experts in the Lederman v. King case, which will be heard in New York Supreme Court in Albany on August 12 at 10 a.m. (If you have trouble with that link, try this one.)
It also contains statements from Sheri Lederman’s superintendent in Great Neck, New York, her principal, her former students, and parents, all testifying to her effectiveness as a teacher. It also includes an affidavit by an economist at AIR attempting to explain New York’s method of calculating teacher effectiveness, defending Sheri Lederman’s rating as ineffective.
Just reading all these affidavits should be enough to earn course credits at any college or university.
If Sheri Lederman should win, her victory will have statewide impact and even national impact.
If she should lose, it is the triumph of an incoherent and punitive status quo.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
That’s the insanity in this whole thing. Here we are trying to deal with facts and teach the truth. As we teachers found out in Florida, these thing don’t matter. Fairness doesn’t matter. What matters is if something is legal or not.
I think the ruling in Florida is going to be the norm. I have become pessimistic since that case. I hope I’m wrong.
It was 2000, when charges for incompetence were put out by the Superintendent of District 2 the NYC DOE. Her ruse to find me guilty of corporal punishment,without the benefit of putting out charges or a hearing, had failed. Lawless acts were the way it was before VAM. The tests were simply a way to legalize the exit strategy they devised for teachers.
it stills the modus operandi in LAUSD http://citywatchla.com/8box-left/6666-lausd-and-utla-complicity-kills-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-la-s-teachers
http://www.perdaily.com/2015/01/were-you-terminated-or-forced-to-retire-from-lausd-based-on-fabricated-charges.html
NYC had a “gotcha” agenda for teachers.
nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
In 2000, despite the FACT and the EVIDENCE that came from 2 years of observation by Harvard and the Univ. of Pittsburgh’s LRDC ( when I was the cohort in nYC for the National Standards research,)
… AND despite the fact that I was the NYS English Council’s “Educator of Excellence (based on that EVIDENCE) and that my practice was celebrated by the LRDC and was chosen to be shown around the nation as best practice that met all the principles of learning,
… AND despite the FACT that my students earned the highest scores on all standardized tests and were accepted to top NYC high schools, Elaine Fink put out the charges…before she went off to become the (failed) superintendent of San Diego schools.
With 2 degrees and the equivalent of 2 more, I was only making 58k. But, I will bet, that despite the arbitration agreement, which stated that all the false and damaging materials would be REMOVED from my employment file, I have been unable, even with a FOIA request, to see that this is true.
Moreover, my folder was filled with decades of awards, and accolades AND rave reviews from principals and educators, for my successful practice in all schools where I taught…. I copied my file (thank god). ALL of that was removed, and I bet, to this day, my history is the one those charlatans put there.
To teach is to lose — because there is NOT A SHRED OF ACCOUNTABILITY at the top, for the way the real practitioners are treated. Read Lorna Stremcha’s “Bravery, Bullies & Blowhards.”
When she ignored the harassment of her principal in a Montana school, he set her up to be raped… and she had to spend her life savings to prove it… when the union failed to defend her. DON’T MISS HER STORY… it is OUR story carried to theEXTREME because there is NOTHING TO STOP the top dogs from going after teachers.
I hope Sherry wins…. I wish I had sued, but you see, it has already cost me 25k in lawyers fees when Ms Fink , herself, with no help, found me was ‘guilty’ of corporal punishment –for allegedly cursing at a girl in front of the class and scaring her. Yeah, Right.
If the union had been there, this critter would not have had the right to cancel my civil rights. http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html
If there was a shred of accountability for the top dogs in the educational workplace, then support for learning would be the goal, not ridden the schools of the experienced professional.
Oh, did I mention, the last time they pulled me out of the school,? I had been returned for a brief time from the rubber room, thanks to that expensive lawyer and his filing of a suit for 4 million dollars (which I never pursued) .
The new principal of the school, (which I had put on the map, ) a woman WHO had been the point-man for the standards research who took MY famous curricula to the researchers when she was director of curricula in the district) DIRECTED A teacher in the school downstairs, (we shared a building) TO WRITE that I had threatened to kill her?
The personal director gave me that piece of crap, and ran away saying “I had nothing to do with this.! That’s when I screamed RANDI!…but the incompetence charges came out after Randi came to the rescue.
yeah
Randi herself, came to my rescue, and I was ‘arbitrated’ INTO RETIREMENT something I did not want, as I was about to reach LONGEVITY PAY. my socials security and pension is minuscule! MY reward for being on of the most celebrated educators in NYC!
Yeah,,,lawless at the top! Enables by a lack of accountability and a complicit media that BLAMES teachers and hides the fact that tens of thousands of experienced teachers bit the dust in the past 2 decades…. so the fails could fail, and be privatized.
Sorry here is the address so you can see what preceded VAM in the nineties in NYC… GO THERE!
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
http://parentadvocates.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=7534
Yes, the Ledermans phrase their case points in terms of violating the State Education Law. Being harassed and mislabeled is not enough. Apparently in order to ensure that the Oligarchs evil plan succeeds, the State gave no one authority to address any of these false ratings. This is no accident. Any relief must involve an enormous financial, emotional, and time investment. Additionally, the State often does not provide any consequences for violation of the law. So there are several incentives to break the law as you see.
I for one am slowly reading through the affidavits and can’t imagine this case being lost. The evidence is glaring and it’s real.
What I want to know is once they win, who will be punished for wasting all the taxpayer dollars and for harassment and termination of all those hard-working, talented teachers?
I also read the post about the “emergencies”. We are truly up against some shameless, slithery creeps.
But I think the Ledermans are doing us a tremendous favor. We need to get our”ball”rolling as well. It’s really about time that someone is fighting back in such a “highly effective” way.
Also, would you be able to post the sections of the Education Law that were violated? I’d like to see how it’s worded.
Susan: The exact words of the statutes at issue are at pages 36 – 40 of the document called REPLY MEMORANDUM OF LAW if you click on the link above.
Thanks for your support
Bruce & Sheri
THANK YOU!!!
I am praying to the Gods of Teacher Effectiveness for Sheri and me.
“If Sheri Lederman should win, her victory will have statewide impact and even national impact.”
This alone is reason enough for the oligarchs behind the RheeForm movement to spend serious money hiring the best legal defense possible to win the case, because trillions of dollars in profits for generations to come are at stake. To reach this money, the RheeFormers must crush and destroy millions of teachers, their families, the children they teach and the parents of those children. In fact, to get at that money, they must strip freedom from the people they are fooling.
In addition, expect even more money to fund the media propaganda in an attempt to destroy Sheri Lederman and her family under a mountain of lies while limiting the public’s access to the facts of that court case.
More evidence that the RheeForm movement is led by a cabal of psychopaths.
Lloyd seems like an honorable guy. Served in the military. Teaches our youth. And then comes a statement like this.
1. He says “trillions of dollars” in profits are at stake. This is reminiscent of anti-war protestors saying the US invaded Iraq because of oil $$ when the total oil revenue for oil exploration companies was $4.34B/yr in Iraq (only two US-based companies even had contracts). So let’s run the numbers. The US spends ~0.5% of its $600B/yr K-12 budget on tests. This means $3B/yr of possible revenues. Companies typically earn 5-15% of revenues as profits so that equates to about $300M/yr. In order for these companies to achieve $2T in profits (trillions), the total industry would have to provide tests for 6000+ years!!!!!!. I guess Lloyd didn’t do well in STEM classes.
2. He next says they must “strip freedom from the people they are fooling”. How exactly is anybody “stripping freedom”? Providing choice to students and parents is, by definition, expanding freedom.
3. Then, he predicts that reformers will spend money to “destroy” the Petitioner even though this has not occurred for many months while the trial has been ongoing. He claims they will produce a “mountain” of lies and restrict information. Say what?
4. He concludes by claiming the movement is led by a “cabal of psychopaths”. Hyperbole maybe?
I have been known to proclaim that protecting ineffective teachers at the expense of disadvantaged students is evil. I do not retract that statement because I believe it’s true. But for Lloyd to make up imaginary facts and then condemn the opposition as psychopaths when they haven’t taken any of the actions he forecasted is …. well just looney.
Brief reply to The Rude:
1. If you are going to attack an idea do that. Do not attack your own analogy and pretend that you have actually proved a point. You have actually proved nothing with your reminiscence.
2. You ask a question here as if that proves your point. Just because you cannot come up with an answer, it does not mean that one does not exist. They call this an appeal to ignorance.
3. You have ineffectively attacked a prediction. Yes, please “say what,” so you can prove a point.
4. Yes, he uses hyperbole to prove his point. He at least has done what you have failed to do, though. And besides, you are no stranger to a hyperbolic phrase or two.
5. Your implied fifth: It is a belittling statement when you call a poster a “looney.” Please just try to stick to the arguments and avoid the personal attacks. It does absolutely nothing toward your credibility nor does it provide you with a sound foundation for what little arguments you offer.
My dear, this is the wrong site to spout opinion based on nothing but the voice in your own head and beliefs based on ideology with no basis in reality.
. People at this site know a thing or two about observable reality (I.E .truth… and many have the IQ points necessary to discern the difference between attitude and accuracy.
Lloyd does not merely SEEM honorable… he has proven himself to be so… it is YOUR honor and honesty which begs the question.
This is for virginaisgp:
To qualify what I meant—“Current expenditures for public elementary and secondary schools are projected to be $619 billion for the 2014–15 school year.”
That means every 10 years on average, the US spends about $6.2 Trillion in public raised funds on K-12 education, and 13% of state tax revenues fund higher education.
“States play a large role in funding higher education through their support of public community colleges, university systems, and vocational education institutions. This support accounts for about 13 percent of state spending, or some $145 billion.”
http://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-where-do-our-state-tax-dollars-go
Now let’s see how much money is on the chopping block for the private-sector corporate Charter schools and virtual schools to get their greedy hands on:
$619 billion (K-12) + $145 billion (higher education) = $764 billion x 10 years = $7.64 trillion. What about a century? $76.4 Trillion—and that is only are current rates that are bound to go up once profit driven corporations have taken over the education of our children. In fact, corporate charters have already gone to court fighting to get more money from public funds to run their schools but one of their claims when they started to war agains6t public education was that they could do a better job at a lower price.
When I said trillions, I meant trillions. I think it is a safe bet that the bean counters for the hedge funds and corporate charter school corporations are already counting the money they plan to get rich off of for as long as they live and beyond. An act of piracy and fraud that will keep making them money for as long as the U.S. is a country.
AH! A true voice for this site… evidence and facts to back opinion.
Love it.
Lloyd, if you are talking about total spending including that on charters, then you are correct. I had interpreted your comment to mean the funds spent on testing since that is what the SAT/PARCC/SBAC entail. The testing portion is not very big.
Technically speaking, if charters acquired 1/2 of the total spending over ten years ($3.8T) and achieved a 10% profit margin (very high for this business), they would still only reap $380B in profits (that’s probably a factor of 20 too high).
Your figures made me gasp… thanks for that… I am not good at offering such facts, and I am copying that to my files.
virginia(?) misses a valid point—when a profit based, opaque industry controlled by a CEO, who earns bonuses on top of the usual bloated annual salary based on increased profits, then wages and other costs, will be drastic cuts to wages and other services that we do not see from a non-profit, transparent, democratically led public school system where administrative costs have consistently been about 10% for administration for decades.
“The average salary for public school teachers in 2012–13 was $56,383 in current dollars (i.e., dollars that are not adjusted for inflation). In constant (i.e., inflation-adjusted) dollars, the average salary decreased 1 percent between 1990–91 and 2012–13.”
For corporate Charter schools that average salary is $41,825—where did the other $14,588 go?
The median for a public school principal is $97,897, but for a corporate Charter school it’s $80,877—where did the other $17,020 go?
The answer has already been provided by the Charlotte Observer:
“Public school districts must account for every dollar they spend. Charter schools operated by for-profit companies often do not have to. … The founder of Bay City Academy in Michigan was convicted of three counts last month related to tax fraud for shuffling money intended for the charter school through his management business and personal accounts to avoid taxes.”
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/education/article17402048.html
To make my point, I’m going to turn to how Apple profits off the iPhone as an example of how it works when you create a work force that survives off of poverty wages because that is where education is headed in the U.S. when the professional highly educated and dedicated teaching force is replaces by temps and class sizes for the working class—but not the 1% at the top of the economic pyramid—-climbs to 50 – 100 students per classroom.
As most know, the cut manufacturing costs and maximize profits, the iPhone is manufactured and assembled overseas in developing countries, and when labor costs in a developing country starts to rise above poverty wages, the U.S. company often moves—for instance from China to Vietnam.
“This is all great news for Apple’s shareholders — it proves CEO Tim Cook is maintaining the company’s vast profit margins and adding to the $13 billion pile of cash it keeps on its balance sheet.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/analysis-iphone-6-plus-costs-prices-and-profits-2014-9
At $649 for the 16 GB model, Apple is generating $442 per phone in profits, excluding outside expenses. While Apple’s spend on marketing, advertising, employees, and other expenses, is unknown (Apple doesn’t break down its cost of sales), the tech giant’s could be generating margins of at least 68% on the iPhone 5.
http://www.thestreet.com/story/11718458/1/heres-how-much-apple-makes-per-iphone-5.html
Tim Cook’s Total Pay as CEO of Apple for 2014 was over $100 Million.
Top 16 NYC Charter school executives earned more than than Chancellor Dennis Walcott. – “While Chancellor Dennis Walcott earns $212,614 for overseeing more than 1,600 public schools, Village Academies Network CEO Deborah Kenny, who founded just two schools, scored $499,146 — tax returns for the 2011-12 school year show.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/education/top-16-nyc-charter-school-execs-out-earn-chancellor-dennis-walcott-article-1.1497717
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Lederman,
Thank you from the bottom of a NYC teacher’s heart.
This could be the case that exposes education “reform” fraud beyond VAM.
Diane, there have been many pleadings filed in this case and, in some cases, the experts submitted two affidavits each (an affidavit and a reply affidavit). Your links above take people to the pleadings and affidavits that were filed mostly last week, as well as some of the earlier pleadings. Here is a link from one of your earlier blog pieces from June; it contains what I believe is the balance of the earlier pleadings and “original” affidavits filed in 2014 and early 2015. https://dianeravitch.net/2015/06/04/the-lederman-case-experts-assess-new-york-states-phony-growth-measure-in-evaluating-teachers/
Hi Diane, is there an alternate link for the affidavits/court documents? I would love to get my “course credits” and learn more about this case but that website seems to be down.
Peter: Here is a new link that should work (the service that we used for the old link has closed)
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ar82ejgnzu9crh5/AAASFHMvkSuFQge7I23a6VVWa?dl=0
If you have questions about the case, feel free to email me.
Bruce H. Lederman
Blederman@aol.com