Bruce Lederman is suing the state of New York on behalf of his wife Sheri Lederman, a fourth grade teacher in the public schools of Great Neck, Néw York. The Ledermans contend that the state teacher evaluation system is irrational, and Bruce collected affidavits from leading scholars to support his claim, as well as laudatory statements from students, parents, and Sheri’s principal and superintendent.
Alexandra Milletta, a teacher educator and high school classmate of Sheri’s, attended the trial and reported her impressions on her blog.
She wrote:
“What I witnessed was a masterful take down of the we-need-objectivity rhetoric that is plaguing education. So I should begin by saying that I am hopeful, because it seems someone with the power to make a difference gets it. Judge McDonough gets that it’s all about the bell curve, and the bell curve is biased and subjective….
“As you may notice, we’ve come a long way from getting a 91 out of 100 on a test and knowing that was an A-. Testing today is obtuse and confusing by design. In New York State, we boil it down to a ranking from one to four. That’s right, there’s even jargon for “ones and twos” that is particularly heinous when you learn that politicians have interests in making more than 50% of students fall in those “failing” categories. Today the state released the test score results for students in grades 3-8 and their so-called “proficiency” is reported as below 40% achieving the passing levels. By design the public is meant to read this as miserable failure.
“The political narrative of public education failure extends next to the teachers, who must demonstrate student learning based on these faulty tests, even if they don’t teach the subjects tested, and even if they teach students who face hurdles and hardships that have a tremendous impact on their ability to do well on the tests. In Sheri’s case, her rating plunged from 13 out of 20 points to 1 out of 20 points on student growth measures. Yet her students perform exceedingly well on the exams; once you are a “four” you can’t go up to a “four plus” because you’ve hit the ceiling. In fact, one wrong answer could unreasonably mark you as a “three” and you would never know. Similarly, the teacher receives a student growth score that is also based on a comparison to other teachers. When it emerged in the hearing today that the model, also known as VAM, or value-added, pre-determined that 7% of the teachers would be rated “ineffective” Judge McDonough caught on to the injustice that lies at the heart of the bell curve logic: where you rank in the ratings is SUBJECTIVE…..
The State’s representative, Colleen Galligan, tried to defend the indefensible:
“The lame explanation from Colleen Galligan was that the model may not be perfect but the state tries to compare each student to similar students. The goal, she offered, is to find outliers in the teaching pool who consistently have a pattern of ineffectiveness, to either give them additional training or fire them. At this point Judge McDonough offered her a chance to explain the dramatic drop in Sheri’s score. “On its face it must mean students bombed the test (speaking as one who has bombed tests)” and this produced laughter in the courtroom. For who hasn’t bombed at least one test in their life? Who has not experienced that dread and fear of being labeled a failure? Then Judge McDonough asked rhetorically, “Did they learn nothing?” The only answer she could come up with, was that in this case Dr. Lederman’s students, although admittedly performing well compared to other students, did worse than 98% of students across the state in growth. At this point it was pretty clear to everyone present that this made absolutely no sense whatsoever.”
Alexandra believes and hopes that this trial may be the beginning of the end for VAM and other misuses of test scores to rank and rate teachers.
Peter Greene did not attend the trial, but he cut to the chase: “God Bless Sheri Lederman!” I would add to that “God Bless Bruce Lederman” for fighting for his wife and her professional reputation. Together, the Ledermans are fighting for all teachers.
Peter read Alexandra Miletta’s post, cited above. He writes:
“The New York teacher is in court this week, standing up for herself and for every teacher who suffers under New York’s cockamamie evaluation system. If she wins, there will be shockwaves felt all across America where teachers are evaluated based on VAM-soaked idiocy….
“Talking about the curve is the best way to help civilians understand why these teacher eval systems are giant heaps of baloney. If you’re old enough, you remember curves because they suck– get yourself in a class with the smart kids who all score 100% on a test and suddenly missed-one-question 95% is a C. Of course, younger civilians may not have such memories of the curve because over the past few decades most teachers have come to understand that curving is not a Best Practice.
“Evaluating teachers on the curve means that even if the VAM-sauce score actually meant something, the teacher evaluation itself will not mean jack. In a system in which every single teacher is above the bar in excellence, those teachers who are the least above the bar will be labeled failures.”
Maybe one thoughtful judge will put the VAMMERS in their place: out of the classroom.
Diane Ravitch's blog 