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Earlier today I released a post regarding “A Big Victory in Court in Houston,” in which I wrote about how, yesterday, US Magistrate Judge Smith ruled — in Houston Federation of Teachers et al. v. Houston Independent School District — that Houston teacher plaintiffs’ have legitimate claims regarding how their Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS) value-added scores, as used (and abused) in HISD, was a violation of their Fourteenth Amendment due process protections (i.e., no state or in this case organization shall deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process). Hence, on this charge, this case is officially going to trial.

Well, also yesterday, “we” won another court case on which I also served as an expert witness (I served as an expert witness on behalf of the plaintiffs alongside Jesse Rothstein in the court case noted above). As per this case — Texas State Teachers Association v. Texas Education Agency, Mike Morath in his Official Capacity as Commissioner of Education for the State of Texas (although there were three similar cases also filed – see all four referenced below) — The Honorable Lora J. Livingston ruled that the Defendants are to make revisions to 19 Tex. Admin. Code § 150.1001 that most notably include the removal of (A) student learning objectives [SLOs], (B) student portfolios, (C) pre and post test results on district level assessments; or (D) value added data based on student state assessment results. In addition, “The rules do not restrict additional factors a school district may consider…,” and “Under the local appraisal system, there [will be] no required weighting for each measure…,” although districts can chose to weight whatever measures they might choose. “Districts can also adopt an appraisal system that does not provide a single, overall summative rating.” That is, increased local control.

If the Texas Education Agency (TEA) does not adopt the regulations put forth by the court by next October, this case will continue. This does not look likely, however, in that as per a news article released today, here, Texas “Commissioner of Education Mike Morath…agreed to revise the [states’] rules in exchange for the four [below] teacher groups’ suspending their legal challenges.” As noted prior, the terms of this settlement call for the removal of the above-mentioned, state-required, four growth measures when evaluating teachers.

This was also highlighted in a news article, released yesterday, here, with this one more generally about how teachers throughout Texas will no longer be evaluated using their students’ test scores, again, as required by the state.

At the crux of this case, as also highlighted in this particular piece, and to which I testified (quite extensively), was that the value-added measures formerly required/suggested by the state did not constitute teachers’ “observable,” job-related behaviors. See also a prior post about this case here.

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Cases Contributing to this Ruling:

1. Texas State Teachers Association v. Texas Education Agency, Mike Morath, in his Official Capacity as Commissioner of Education for the State of Texas; in the 345th Judicial District Court, Travis County, Texas

2. Texas Classroom Teachers Association v. Mike Morath, Texas Commissioner of Education; in the 419th Judicial District Court, Travis County, Texas

3. Texas American Federation of Teachers v. Mike Morath, Commissioner of Education, in his official capacity, and Texas Education Agency; in the 201st Judicial District Court, Travis County, Texas

4. Association of Texas Professional Educators v. Mike Morath, the Commissioner of Education and the Texas Education Agency; in the 200th District Court of Travis County, Texas.