Judge Denies Teachers Union Request To Stop City From Releasing Data Reports

By: Lindsey Christ

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A judge has denied the teachers' union petition to stop the city from releasing teacher reports cards with the names and ratings of thousands of city teachers.

The United Federation of Teachers had argued the methodology behind the grades is flawed, citing problems with the information on hundreds of individual teacher report cards, and said the grades should not be publicized.

The city disagreed, countering that of the 12,000 report cards, less than one percent of teachers found errors.

Judge Cynthia Kern sided with the city, saying the scores are statistical data related to city employees' work performance, and the law does not consider that type of information private.

She wrote, "Educational issues, including the value of standardized testing and the search for a way to objectively evaluate teachers’ job performance have been of particular interest to policymakers and the public recently.... Although the teachers have an interest in these possibly flawed statistics remaining private, it was not arbitrary and capricious for the DOE to find that the privacy interest at issue is outweighed by the public’s interest in disclosure."

For two years, the city has been giving fourth- through eighth-grade English and math teachers a score from 0 to 100, based on how much their students improve on standardized tests. It is called a "value-added score," since it is supposed to calculate the value teachers add to their students' learning.

City lawyers say taxpayers have the right to know how teachers are performing.

Several media organizations, including NY1, requested the teachers' scores under the Freedom of Information Law.

Kern said whether the scores are accurate does not matter under the Freedom of Information Law. She was careful to write that just because the court ruled the city could release the names and scores, it was not ruling whether the scores were accurate, reliable or even valuable information.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew said in a statement that his union will appeal "as soon as possible."

The city says that it will respect the union’s decision to appeal and not release the data until a final decision is reached by the New York Appellate Court.