Benjamin Michael Superfine

The Politics of Accountability: The Rise and Fall of Goals 2000

In 1994, Congress reauthorized Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and passed the Goals 2000: Education America Act. Together, these two laws were supposed to support the development and implementation of standards‐based, systemic reform initiatives in the states. Despite these high hopes, Goals 2000 and Title I faced a number of problems after they were passed, particularly in regard to the implementation of their accountability provisions. Similar problems appear to be surfacing in the course of the implementation of No Child Left Behind, the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Accordingly, this article examines the political and implementation problems of the 1994 statutes and the relationship between these problems.

The Evolving Role of the Courts in Educational Policy: The Tension Between Judicial, Scientific, and Democratic Decision Making in Kitzmiller v. Dover

In Kitzmiller v. Dover (2005), a court defined science to decide the legitimacy of teaching intelligent design to high school biology students. This study analyzes Kitzmiller in light of the complex and interrelated tensions between judicial, scientific, and democratic decision making that lie at the heart of modern educational governance. This study particularly explores how these tensions become more acute where the meaning of science itself is contested and examines how these tensions can be structured and balanced in a nuanced way in the institutional setting of the courts. Based on this examination, this study highlights major issues that bear upon an analysis of when it is appropriate for governmental entities to define science for educational policy purposes.

The Expanding Federal Role in Teacher Workforce Policy.

This article examines the recent expansion of the federal role into teacher workforce policy, primarily as embodied by the Race to the Top Fund of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Such recent federal teacher workforce policy reflects an important expansion of the federal role into a policy domain that deserves more attention. The financial incentives and governance arrangements structuring federal-state relationships under these policies have proven effective at facilitating the enactment of state-level reforms. However, these policies ultimately pay too little attention to fundamental governance questions that must be addressed for efficacious teacher workforce development.

Court-Driven Reform and Equal Educational Opportunity: Centralization, Decentralization, and the Shifting Judicial Role

Judicial decisions focusing on equal educational opportunity involve significant issues of educational governance and often involve explicit questions about the extent to which authority to make educational decisions should be centralized or decentralized across various institutions and entities. This review aims at clarifying scholars’ understanding of court-driven reform of educational governance to leverage equal educational opportunities across the major fields of school desegregation, school finance reform, and school choice. Issues of centralization and decentralization have particularly emerged in courts’ approaches to these fields with respect to both the judicial process and the substance of the policies themselves. An examination of these issues reveals a movement toward the decentralization of authority away from the courts that, at times, has reflected a growing judicial awareness of the courts’ strengths and weaknesses. Based on this examination, a more effective role for the courts in reforms aimed at promoting equal educational opportunity is considered.

Deciding Who Decides Questions at the Intersection of School Finance Reform Litigation and Standards-Based Accountability Policies

Courts hearing school finance reform cases have recently begun to consider several issues related to standards-based accountability policies. This convergence of school finance reform litigation and standards-based accountability policies represents a chance for the courts to reallocate decision-making authority for each type of reform across the governmental branches. Using an institutional choice approach, this study analyzes how judges in two school finance cases reallocated governmental decision-making authority. This study further highlights the historical and legal factors underlying this reallocation and suggests that this reallocation may represent a desirable new approach for dealing with educational policy problems in an evenhanded way.

Interest Groups, the Courts, and Educational Equality: A Policy Regimes Approach to Vergara v. California

In Vergara v. California (2014), a trial-level court ruled that California laws governing teacher tenure and dismissal were unconstitutional. This study analyzes Vergara in light of the shifting use of the courts to promote equal educational opportunities and the changing power bases of educational interest groups, including educational advocacy groups and teacher unions. This study particularly uses policy regimes theory to analyze the relationship between political interests, ideas, and institutions and highlights how the case represents an inversion of how educational interest groups have traditionally used the courts as vehicles for effecting education reform. Grounded in this analysis, this study explores legal and policy implications for both courts and reformers acting in this new context.

Science and Politics in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association

In March 2017, the Supreme Court decided Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association and upheld the constitutionality of agency fees for nonunion teachers. We examine how Friedrichs reflects a host of issues grouped around a patchwork of ideological commitments regarding teachers unions and public-sector unions more generally, partisan politics, and empirically oriented claims about the impact of teachers unions on students’ educational opportunities. We particularly argue that the case reflects a tension between judicial, scientific, and democratic decision-making, and that courts and reformers should be sensitive to this tension as they consider similar cases moving forward.

Causal Stories in Vergara v. California

In 2012, families in California filed a lawsuit alleging that five state statutes governing teacher tenure, dismissal, and seniority together violate the state constitution’s requirements for equal protection. Central to the case were competing narratives about the relationship between these statutes, the work of teachers, and the achievement of students. This article analyzes those narratives utilizing the trial court transcripts and judicial opinions in Vergara v. California. We find that despite reaching divergent rulings, the trial and appellate courts provided highly typified accounts of the case—ones that emphasized individual agency and dismissed or deemphasized the importance of the social and political context of schooling. These findings are important for understanding how complex policy debates become transformed within legal proceedings and for understanding the capacity of courts to engage complex evidence and narratives—a major issue given that courts remain an important venue for school reform.

District stressors and teacher evaluation ratings

Purpose Federal and state policymakers in the USA have sought to better differentiate the performance of K-12 teachers by enacting more rigorous evaluation policies. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether these policies are working as intended and explore whether district stressors such as funding, enrollment, and governance are associated with outcomes. Design/methodology/approach The authors examined teacher evaluation ratings from 687 districts in Michigan to identify the relationship between district stressors and two outcomes of interest to policymakers: frequency of high ratings and variation of ratings within districts. A qualitative index of variation was used to measure variation of the categorical rating variable. Findings About 97 percent of teachers in Michigan are rated effective or highly effective, and variation measures indicate overwhelming use of only two ratings. Charter school districts have fewer teachers rated highly than traditional districts, and districts with higher fund balances have more teachers rated highly. Districts with increasing fund balances have higher variation. Practical implications The findings suggest that district stressors presumably unrelated to teacher performance may influence teacher evaluation ratings. State teacher evaluation reforms that give districts considerable discretion in designing their teacher evaluation models may not be sufficient for differentiating the performance of teachers. Originality/value This research is important as policymakers refine state systems of support for teacher evaluation and provides new evidence that current enactment of teacher evaluation reform may be limiting the value of evaluation ratings for use in personnel decisions.

Judging Teacher Evaluation: The Legal Implications of High-Stakes Teacher Evaluation Policy

New teacher evaluation policies involve several legal issues. In this chapter, I discuss the litigation already generated by these policies and major legal questions they raise. In doing so, I provide a map of some of the legal terrain implicated by teacher evaluation policies and show how this litigation highlights fundamental policy questions implicated by these policies. While much of this litigation is unsettled, it can protect teachers against what they perceive to be the undesirable and unfair effects of teacher evaluation systems. But at the same time, it can be used to attack other education policies and leverage reform. As a broader examination of such litigation reveals, such litigation also highlights underlying policy questions about balancing teachers’ rights and accountability, the place of teacher unions in education policy, and the role of the courts in education policy.