## Facts

- Florida’s Student Success Act required that at least 50% of a teacher’s performance evaluation be based on student learning growth measured by statewide assessments.
- The Florida Commissioner of Education approved an FCAT value-added model (FCAT VAM) using student English and math test scores and multiple predictor variables to estimate teacher and schoolwide effects.
- School districts implemented evaluation systems using FCAT VAM and other test-based measures to satisfy the statutory 50% testing component.
- Because only certain grades and subjects were tested, teachers fell into categories: those teaching FCAT-tested subjects and grades and those teaching non-tested subjects or grades.
- For teachers without direct FCAT-tested students, some districts used schoolwide FCAT results or test scores from students or subjects the teacher did not teach as part of the teacher’s evaluation.
- Teachers and teachers’ associations sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging the evaluation policies were arbitrary because they relied on irrelevant test scores and affected pay, tenure-related consequences, and retention.
- The district court dismissed the facial challenge, allowed as-applied challenges to district policies, and then granted summary judgment to defendants under rational-basis review.
- Plaintiffs appealed, challenging both justiciability (standing/mootness) and the merits under the Fourteenth Amendment.

## Issues

1. Whether the challenged teacher-evaluation policies violate the Equal Protection Clause because using test scores from students or subjects a teacher did not teach is arbitrary under rational-basis review.
2. Whether the same policies violate substantive due process by imposing significant employment consequences based on allegedly irrelevant or inaccurate measures.
3. Whether plaintiffs had Article III standing and whether subsequent legal or policy changes mooted the claims.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the defendants.
- The court held plaintiffs had standing and the case was not moot.
- On the merits, the court held the evaluation policies satisfied rational-basis review and therefore did not violate equal protection or substantive due process.
- The court accepted Florida’s interests in improving education and increasing student achievement as legitimate governmental purposes.
- The court concluded it was rational for policymakers to believe that schoolwide test performance and value-added measures could relate to individual teacher effectiveness, even for teachers not directly tied to tested students or subjects.

## Legal Principles

- When no suspect class or fundamental right is implicated, education-related employment evaluation policies are reviewed under rational-basis scrutiny.
- A policy survives rational-basis review if any reasonably conceivable set of facts could provide a rational justification; challengers must negate every conceivable basis that might support it.
- Equal protection and substantive due process challenges to the substantive rationality of an employment evaluation scheme generally fail where the policy is rationally related to a legitimate governmental purpose, even if it is imprecise or produces arguable unfairness in particular applications.
- Use of student test-score growth measures, including schoolwide measures for teachers without tested students, can be constitutionally permissible if rationally connected to the goal of improving student achievement.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit upheld Florida school districts’ implementation of teacher evaluations that substantially relied on test-score growth measures, concluding that, despite potential mismatch for some teachers, the system was rationally related to legitimate educational objectives and therefore did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment.


Cook v. Bennett, 792 F.3d 1294 (11th Cir. 2015)