Attorney Bruce Lederman represented his wife Sheri Lederman in a lawsuit challenging New York’s teacher rating system. Sheri teaches elementary school on Long Island is considered an exemplary teacher by her principal, parents, and former students.
The Ledermans won. The decision is posted here, on the NYC Parents’ blog.
Bruce Lederman writes:
“I am very pleased to attach a 13 page decision by Judge Roger McDonough which concludes that Sheri has “met her high burden and established that Petitioner’s growth score and rating for the school year 2013-2014 are arbitrary and capricious.” The Court declined to make an overall ruling on the rating system in general because of new regulations in effect. However, decision makes (at page 11) important observations that VAM is biased against teachers at both ends of the spectrum, disproportionate effects of small class size, wholly unexplained swings in growths scores, strict use of curve. It is clear that the Judge has serious problems with the Value Added Model (“VAM”) system even though he did not set aside the entire system on account of changes in regulations.
“To my knowledge, this is the first decision to overturn a teacher’s rating system which was based upon the system championed by John King, Jr., when he was chancellor of the New York Board of Regents. Mr. King is now Secretary of Education for the United States, and never wavered from his support of VAM as Chancellor. Indeed the Department of Education never backed down from fighting Sheri’s score, even when confronted with overwhelming evidence of its irrationality.
“The decision should qualify as persuasive authority for other teachers challenging growth scores throughout the County. Court carefully recites all our expert affidavits, and discusses at some length affidavits from Professors Darling-Hammond, Pallas, Amrein-Beardsley, Sean Corcoran and Jesse Rothstein as well as Drs. Burris and Lindell . It is clear that the evidence all of these amazing experts presented was a key factor in winning this case since the Judge repeatedly said both in Court and in the decision that we have a “high burden” to meet in this case. The Court wrote that the court “does not lightly enter into a critical analysis of this matter … [and] is constrained on this record, to conclude that petitioner has met her high burden.”
“I want to particularly thank the experts who contributed their time and expertise.
Bruce H. Lederman, Esq.
D’Agostino, Levine, Landesman & Lederman, LLP
345 Seventh Avenue, 23rd Floor
New York, New York 10001
Direct Tel: (212) 564-1430
Office Tel: (212) 564-9800, ext. 419
Office Fax: (212) 564-9802; Direct Fax: (646) 224-7246
blederman@dagll.com
http://www.dagll.com
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great news!
You may want to take the Lederman’s contact info out of the post, though.
Congratulations. This is an important win. The judge’s limitation in understanding VAM are widely shared. Unfortunately VAM is not yet dead, nor are the cousins, SLOs, SGOs, faux “growth scores.”
The problem for VAMsters and their ilk is that they prefer to work in and out of the shadows.
This brings them squarely into the sunlight.
Which means they actually have to explain and defend VAM and its misuses and abuses.
That is the last thing they want.
After all, for these self-anointed “thought” leaders, it should be obvious that Shakespeare was talking about them in JULIUS CAESAR.
¿😳? To unveil the mystery, I have changed a few words—
“Why, man, VAManiacs doth bestride the narrow world
Like Colossi, and we petty men
Walk under their huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonorable graves.”
Now that that is perfectly clear…
😎
“The VAMpire State Blues”
The VAMpires hate the sunlight
That shines in VAMpire State
And really hate the good fight
From Ledermans of late
“Lesson Learned”
The lesson has been learned
Vergara overturned
And Lederman affirmed
The VAM is being spurned
SomeDAMpoet, your selections today are particularly choice. Perhaps it is time for a chapbook?
I kind of did that with <a href="http://damthology.blogspot.com/"A DAMthology of Deform but it’s getting so long, it’s turning into a novel (a tawdry affair, of course) — and there is a lot of stuff I have yet to include.
Maybe I need a Volume I and II (and III and IV). I sincerely hope the deform stops sometime soon if for no other reason than that I have wasted untold hours on this goofy stuff.
I messed up the link
A DAMthology of Deform
Feel free to pass it around, print, copy, etc.
An important victory that sets a precedent, but the fight is not over: http://alexandramiletta.blogspot.com/2016/05/good-news-about-lederman-lawsuit-on-appr.html
Over at Campbell Brown’s THE 74, a regular contributor named Matt Barnum — whose teaching experience encompasses just two years as TFA temp — was pretty condescending in his discussion of Lederman and her case.
(In addition to being a commenter on THE 74, Barnum is also currently a leader in the Gates-funded astroturf teacher group Educators for Excellence — a group that requires, as a condition of membership, that its members sign a pledge to fight for VAM evaluation of teachers. .. and eliminate all seniority pay increases, or job protections, or privileges — i.e. first crack at choosing the grade level you teach)
In a piece from last November, Barnum can barely conceal his contempt for Sheri Lederman and her lawyer husband, and is quite appalling in the way he downplays the ordeal that VAM has put her through:
https://www.the74million.org/article/the-war-over-evaluating-teachers-where-it-went-right-and-how-it-went-wrong
MATT BARNUM:
“The tale is an ominous one: A 17-year classroom veteran with a doctorate in education and glowing evaluations from her principal and superintendent is unfairly evaluated by a computer, based on an “assembly line statistical rating system” that amounts to a “black box, which no one can or will explain.”
That’s the lament of Sheri Lederman, a fourth-grade teacher in Great Neck, who is now suing the state of New York.
The media loves it. Washington Post blogger Valerie Strauss warns readers, “How can a teacher known for excellence be rated ‘ineffective’? It happens — and not just in New York.”
A Business Insider story claims that the case “exposes a huge flaw in many U.S. schools.”
A piece in the Albany Times-Union says Lederman’s students’ tests are “above average” but somehow she still “fails.”
An Atlantic article explains, “Teachers who received ineffective ratings for two consecutive years could face an expedited dismissal process — a fate that Lederman now fears might soon be her own.”
The message is clear to all teachers: the computer might get you next.
In fact Lederman’s case — along with the push to more rigorously evaluate teachers — is much more complex than many of these articles suggest. … Lederman’s complaint that she was the victim of a Kafkaesque judging system came out of this effort to end the widget effect. The most controversial aspect of the spate of new evaluations is how they incorporate student test scores, which is what Lederman is suing over.
…
The new evaluations seemed to have produced genuine benefits in the form of a focus on quality instruction and feedback to teachers, which often goes unacknowledged. Critics are also generally wrong to suggest that the new regime has been one of “test and punish.”
Lederman’s case is a perfect example. She was not, contrary to a slew of inaccurate news stories, including in the Washington Post and Business Insider, rated “ineffective” overall.
She actually scored “effective,” which means she isn’t in jeopardy of losing her job as a result of the rating.3 Arguably, the system of multiple measures of evaluation worked in her case.
This lack of faith in principals, embedded in the evaluation system, is apparent in the Lederman case. The test score data forced her principal to give Lederman a lower rating than she thought was appropriate based on Lederman’s body of work. If her case shows one thing, it’s not that tests are meaningless or that evaluation reform hasn’t produced benefits. It’s that a policy agenda that hinges on disempowering — rather than empowering — people in schools will likely fall short both politically and practically.
“Barnum is also currently a leader in the Gates-funded astroturf teacher group Educators for Excellence”
What a surprise that a man named Barnum would be leading a circus
Please accept this Award of One Internet. You clearly won it for the day.
Ha! Ha! Ha! Your comments made me laugh so hard! I needed that laugh! Thank you!!! (:
Evaluators in Tennessee were once called on the carpet by an aggressive state department if the observation disagreed with the test scores. When the state moved to a common core like testing system, teachers were told that the test would only count for ten percent of the score. Nothing was said about the practice of giving hassle to the evaluators. Of course this all crashed with the test failure.
Every teacher who is evaluated on the basis of students’ standardized test scores should vigorously oppose the evaluation, citing the authoritative “Statement on Using Value-Added Models for Educational Assessment” made by the American Statistical Association (ASA., Teachers should be vigorously backed-up in this opposition by their unions because the ASA Statement completely shreds the phony foundations of VAM.
A copy of the seven-page ASA Statement should be posted on the union bulletin board at every school site and should be explained to every teacher by their union at individual site faculty meetings so that teachers are aware of what it says about how invalid it is to use standardized test results to evaluate teachers.
Even the anti-public school, anti-union Washington Post newspaper said this about the ASA Statement: “You can be certain that members of the American Statistical Association, the largest organization in the United States representing statisticians and related professionals, know a thing or two about data and measurement. The ASA just slammed the high-stakes ‘value-added method’ (VAM) of evaluating teachers that has been increasingly embraced in states as part of school-reform efforts. VAM purports to be able to take student standardized test scores and measure the ‘value’ a teacher adds to student learning through complicated formulas that can supposedly factor out all of the other influences and emerge with a valid assessment of how effective a particular teacher has been. THESE FORMULAS CAN’T ACTUALLY DO THIS (emphasis added) with sufficient reliability and validity, but school reformers have pushed this approach and now most states use VAM as part of teacher evaluations.”
The ASA Statement points out the following and many other failings of testing-based VAM:
> “VAMs typically measure correlation, not causation: Effects – positive or negative – attributed to a teacher may actually be caused by other factors that are not captured in the model.”
> “Most VAM studies find that teachers account for about 1% to 14% of the variability in test scores, and that the majority of opportunities for quality improvement are found in the system-level conditions.”
“System-level conditions” include everything from overcrowded and underfunded classrooms to district- and site-level management of the schools and to student poverty.
Fight back! Never, never, never give up!
Good. The knuckle dragging reformers were trying to pass off Russian Roulette as science and bring down thousands of years of civilization in their ignorance. A good day for mankind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtUUyQawMb8
I am happy for Sheri, her husband and for the teaching profession as a direct result of this pivotal case.
However, is it not only a matter of time before reform-ish, well funded think tanks finance appeal after appeal and attempt to bring it all the way up to SCOTUS?
Of course we are all better off because of Sheri’s courage and integrity, and now her victory is hers, but it’s also ours.
Still, the fight is very, very far from over, and there is still a lot of heavy lifting to do.
It was easier for the reformers to burn down Rome than it will be for all of us to rebuild it, but it will be a spectacular city one day . . . .
The growing pains of a democracy . . . . . So painful that many have ended up on a hospital bed, but are now leaving it to put their pugilist gloves on once again and get back in the ring.
“VAM on the run” (with apologies to Sir Paul McCartney)
Well, Vergara exploded with a mighty crash
As it fell into the sun,
And the Lederman said to the Cuomo there
I hope you’re having fun.
VAM on the run, VAM on the run.
And the Chetty man and Virginia ham
Were searching every one
For the VAM on the run,
VAM on the run
VAM on the run,
VAM on the run.
Well, the model maker drew a heavy sigh
Seeing VAM was dead and done
And a bell was ringing in the village school
For economists on the run.
VAM on the run,
VAM on the run.
And the Chetty man and Virginia ham
Were searching every one
For the VAM on the run,
VAM on the run
Yeah the VAM on the run,
VAM on the run
VAM on the run
VAM on the run
Well, the night was falling as Reformer world
Began to toppled down.
In the town they’re searching for it everywhere
But it never will be found.
VAM on the run,
VAM on the run.
And the county judge who held a grudge
Will search for evermore
For the VAM on the run,
VAM on the run
VAM on the run
VAM on the run
Congrats Sheri and Bruce!!
Congratulations and thanks. This is tremendously buoying news. In the middle of testing, I needed that. I truly did.
Great news! Thanks to Sheri and Bruce for taking it on!
Texas teachers applaud you!
CONGRATULATIONS! Well done!…I don’t know when nonsense became common place and sensibility abandoned sound teaching; but I do know you made a difference–aha! HUGE! 🙂
Get ready for a ridiculous statement from John King. I can hear him tapping out his response now
Great article!!! I completed my linkage (Battelle for Kids) this week. I cringed as I accepted 100% responsibility for teaching several students who do not care anything about their quality of schoolwork or their learning. Yes, I accepted full responsibility for variables that I have absolutely no control over. This is totally ridiculous!!! This profession does not deserve good people entering into it. As I say frequently, “RUN!!! RUN!!! RUN!!! RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN AWAY FROM THIS ABUSE!!! RUN!!!” My love of children and their learning is not enough anymore. No profession has the right to abuse their people.
I did the Battelle for Kids coercion this week. The goal is so the politicians and statisticians can say later “but you signed off on 100% responsibility” for the VAM execution later. The choice is sign the sham system or walk. We’ve become North Korea.
A series of fortunate events came together to punctuate all the nonsense fostered by business and politicians for far too long. The enormous amount of time, money and wasted educational days resulted in enriching connected corporations, denigrating educators and worst of all damaging children at very sensitive ages.
We are all lucky to have:
-Sheri who was absurdly scored by the state
-Bruce who took on the legal challenge
– a supportive principal and superintendent (now retired)
– a commissioner (who was a puppet of the state)
– an unsupportable rating system (actually I feel for the state’s counsel)
-a judge who did his homework before, during and after the trial
Sheri has empowered many more to say enough!
Congrats to all supportive educators for teaching all of us that one person can impact many lives. We are not just a number!
If you remember under John Kings reign, administrators were threatened of State review if their teacher ratings were not consistent with the VAM scores!
It is very easy to show that the VAM percentile ranks of a cohort of teachers over time is so unstable it mimics a random number generator. Compounding the fact that VAM is largely noise is the rationale that teacher observational scores are correlated to this noise. VAM is not only arbitrary and capricious but the process is rigged to a false metric.
Thank you to this brave teacher and her courageous husband !
Thank you Mr. & Mrs. Lederman for bringing this case to court. It gives me hope that there is still some common sense in this world.
I don’t think the Obama Administration will ever back down from VAM. They invested too much in it to admit error now. Race To The Top cost 4 billion dollars:
“Teachers and leaders now have more information about expectations for their
performance from new systems that describe the competencies and actions
of effective teachers and leaders. State and district leaders are getting better
at some of the most challenging aspects of implementing new evaluation
systems, such as supporting principals to become instructional leaders and
working and communicating with teachers to ensure measures of student
learning are fair and accurate. ”
This is the sunk cost fallacy:
“the idea that a company or organization is more likely to continue with a project if they have already invested a lot of money, time, or effort in it, even when continuing is not the best thing to do”
In my opinion, one sees this a lot in ed reform 🙂
A chapter in this story that must not be forgotten — the settlement offer.
First, here’s the story of the initial filing in October 2014:
https://dianeravitch.net/2014/10/27/top-performing-teacher-challenges-new-yorks-teacher-evaluation-model-which-finds-her-ineffective/
The trial that went overwhelmingly in the Ledermans’ favor, as you can read Alexandra Milleta’s first-hand account here:
http://alexandramiletta.blogspot.com/2015/08/its-all-about-bell-curve-sheri.html?m=1
Knowing that the trial went disastrously against the efficacy and existence of VAM, the state and its corporate reform allies then offered Sheri and Bruce a deal. Her rating — this year at least — would be changed to a positive one. In addition, they made a vague promise that the VAM system would be “changed” or “improved” in response to the issues raised in her lawsuit, provided the Lederman’s drop it.
The latter was not guaranteed in any way, so what the settlement deal boiled really down to was that Lederman would benefit, but no other teacher would. Had they taken the deal, there would be not yesterday’s court verdict and precedent striking down VAM, so the rest of the teachers in New York State and nationwide would still be subject to this nonsense, and would not have this court precedent with which to defend themselves.
This chapter of the attempts to buy off the Lederman’s with a settlement was covered here on this blog:
https://dianeravitch.net/2016/02/06/amrein-beardsley-sheri-lederman-rejects-new-yorks-offer-to-settle-her-lawsuit/
Apparently the corporate reformers — including current Ed. Secretary John King, who is the first listed defendant in the the Leaderman lawsuit — project their own corrupt nature on everyone else. They seem to forget or fail to understand that not all people will act only for their own selfish interests … “I got mine. Screw everyone else.” is thankfully not the guiding principle of the Ledermans’ or of other people. Instead, Lederman and her husband took it to court regardless of the expense and effort this required.
For another good account of the court arguments, go here:
http://badassteachers.blogspot.com/2015/08/ny-bats-reflections-of-lederman-v.html
Lederman could have taken that settlement offer, then safely continued on in her job … but in doing so, she would have thrown every other teacher in her position — both in New York state and in the rest of the country — under the bus … as the atrocious VAM system would continue unabated by this defeat in the courts.
She didn’t, and it won’t.
Bravo to the Ledermans for their stealth and willingness to pay it forward with their groundbreaking decision!
Jack thanks for raising this important point – I did refer to it in my most recent blog post (link above) – and I can say confidently that it was Sheri’s intent all along to set a legal precedent with this case. That she endured all the vitriol on the internet is a testament to her strength and character. We have not heard the last of Lederman v. King!
The most intricate computer model, based on faulty assumptions, is a precise journey in the wrong direction.
Did the Lederman’s get their court costs reimbursed?
Surely, both of them (and particularly Bruce) must have spent a great deal of time and money putting this case together. Bruce should be reimbursed for all his hours at whatever his normal lawyer’s fee is. And Sheri should also be reimbursed (but not at teacher’s hourly fees, since then she’d only get a couple hundred dollars for each hundred hours of work)
They both deserve a huge amount of credit for challenging what is clearly little more than a cruel joke for an “evaluation system” — and for not succumbing when the state’s lawyers tried to bribe them to “settle”.
If I washed my floor, and it was filthy, and now it is sparkly clean, I was effective, right? If I washed it again moments later, and there wasn’t any dirt to pick up, was my work washing the floor ineffective? I don’t think so. If a kid who always does well, does well (that is, doesn’t improve, just does as well, and will always do well), and you’re teaching a class of those kids….you’re ineffective. Amazing logic.
Shame on all the people who push and stand behind VAM.
You know what is interesting? It is NEVER poor people pushing for the reforms. NEVER. Even the parent trigger didn’t work – because the parents educated themselves, and/or realized they were duped. Those sneaky reformers love it when they have other people do their evil deeds.
Scratch a reformer and you find someone who either has money and wants more, or is paid to do the devil’s dirty work without conscience. But, you know, its all about the kids.
We’re waking up.
Well put!!!!
“Never the poor”
Never the poor
Who need reform
Only the boor
Who rents the dorm