A federal judge in Florida has dismissed a lawsuit filed against the Florida Department of Education by teachers in the state, who said the department had violated teachers’ constitutional rights by basing teacher evaluations and pay on standardized test scores, the Bradenton Herald reports.
US District Judge Mark Walker acknowledged on May 6 that Florida’s contentious teacher evaluation law is unfair, but he still ruled that there was no legal reason to overturn it. So, in an 18-page ruling, he upheld the law and dismissed the lawsuit.
The National Education Association zoomed in on the part of the ruling that said the law was unfair:
FCAT [Florida’s Comprehensive Assessment Test] VAM [value-added measure evaluation system] has been applied to teachers whose students are tested in a subject that teacher does not teach and to teachers who are measured on students they have never taught. … To make matters worse, the legislature has mandated that teacher ratings be used to make important employment decisions such as pay, promotion, assignment, and retention.
“This case, however, is not about the fairness of the evaluation system,” Judge Walker continued. “The standard of review is not whether the evaluation policies are good or bad, wise or unwise; but whether the evaluation policies are rational within the meaning of the law.”
