From EdSource: The California Department of Education [CDE] has threatened to sue two prominent Stanford University education professors to prevent them from testifying in a lawsuit against the department — actions the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California calls an attempt to muzzle them. The ACLU, in turn, is threatening a lawsuit of its own — against CDE for infringing their and other researchers’ First Amendment rights. Observers say the dispute has the potential to limit who conducts education research in California and what they are able to study because CDE controls the sharing of data that is not available to the public.
At issue is a restriction that CDE requires researchers to sign as a condition for their gaining access to nonpublic K-12 data. The clause, which CDE is interpreting broadly, prohibits the researcher from participating in any litigation against the department, even in cases unrelated to the research they were doing through CDE. “It keeps education researchers from weighing in on the side of parties who are adverse to the California Department of Education. So it’s really skewing the information and expertise that can come into courts,” said Alyssa Morones, an ACLU attorney involved with the case. “Individuals and students seeking to vindicate their rights no longer will have access to these education experts, and the court can no longer hear what they have to say.”
Professors Sean Reardon and Thomas Dee had signed separate and unrelated data-partnership agreements with the department, and both were asked by attorneys in an ongoing lawsuit, Cayla J. v. State of California, to testify on behalf of students filing the case. The lawsuit, against the California Department of Education, the State Board of Education and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, charges the state with failing to prevent the deep learning loss imposed by the pandemic on low-income students and other high-needs students.
Reardon, who had co-authored landmark nationwide research on pandemic learning, said he would have considered providing expert testimony. But warned this month by CDE that he’d be breaching his contract, Reardon declined — even though his learning loss research did not involve the data obtained through his agreement with CDE.
Dee, a professor at the Graduate School of Education at Stanford, agreed to serve as an expert witness for the plaintiffs in the Cayla J. case on the effects of Covid-19 on enrollment, chronic absenteeism and student engagement in California. This month, he was one of a half-dozen nationally prominent education professors who filed briefs in the case.
In it, Dee cited data on enrollment declines and chronic absenteeism. He concluded, “Because of both its comprehensive data systems and its powerful fiscal and operational capacities, the state of California is in a unique position to provide leadership in better understanding and meeting the serious challenges of academic recovery. However, to date, the state has not clearly demonstrated such leadership, instead emphasizing responses by local school districts.”
CDE moved against Dee even though the data contract he had signed on behalf of a Stanford program was for research unrelated to the Cayla J. case.
On Feb.24, after CDE discovered that Dee had filed the brief, the department warned Dee that he had violated the contract he had signed in February 2022 as the chief investigator for the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities at Stanford. As a result, the letter said, CDE was suspending the data partnership and demanding that Dee “mitigate further damage.” The department would consider seeking an injunction to prevent him from participating in the Cayla J. case along with a $50,000 fine.
“Also, be aware,” wrote Cindy Kazanis, the director of CDE’s Analysis, Measurement, and Accountability Reporting Division, “that your actions have adversely impacted your working relationship with CDE, and your response to this letter is critically important to existing and future collaborations between us.” The letter was copied to Stanford.
The contract that Dee signed with CDE is to examine how the California School Dashboard was affecting alternative schools serving those at risk of dropping out and those with motivation and behavior issues. He said he signed the contract in his capacity as faculty director of the Gardner Center, but had not actually looked at any of the data. Dee said he relied on publicly available data in writing his brief for the Cayla J. case. He declined to comment further on the case.
The dispute is now in the courts. The plaintiffs’ attorneys in Cayla J., the public interest law firm Public Counsel and Morrison Foerster, a San Francisco-based law firm doing pro bono work, are asking a Superior Court judge to allow Dee’s participation in this case and protect him from CDE’s penalties — but only in this particular lawsuit. A hearing is scheduled early next week in Alameda Superior Court. The ACLU filed a brief on Feb. 27 supporting Dee’s participation in the Cayla J. case. But meanwhile, it took the first steps toward a larger lawsuit to eliminate CDE’s litigation prohibition...
Full story at https://edsource.org/2023/california-moves-to-silence-stanford-researchers-who-got-state-data-to-study-education-issues/694920.
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Yours truly hasn't signed any contracts with CDE. So, he is free to point out that California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, CDE head, and ex officio Regent Tony Thurmond will be termed out at the end of his current term. Should he choose to run for some other office in 2024, blog readers might want to contemplate the issues above.
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