A judge has ruled that New York City’s Department of Education can release performance ratings for 12,000 teachers. Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Kern in Manhattan (See Profile) issued a ruling yesterday finding that a decision to release the ratings with the teachers’ names attached was not arbitrary or capricious under the law. She denied a petition by the United Federation of Teachers to keep the names private.
“This information is of interest to parents, students, taxpayers and the public generally. 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,” the judge wrote in Mulgrew v. Board of Education, 113813/10.
