7 Comments

You hit the nail on the head when you related the size of the award to the amount of effort, in work time, needed to pay it.

Clearly school administrators have to be concerned about school morale, and Ms. Payne actions do seem on face to be unfair. I am at a loss as to why she was given any money as jurors pay property taxes.

I assume it is only the excessive dollar amount of the verdict that led you to post this, and not the merits of the case.
It appears very likely that the School Board violated the law in this case and that a verdict for the teacher was justified.

Some subject grading is more subjective (english) than other subjects (mathematics).
Nevertheless, a teacher has a certain burded to be able to justify a grade given within generally accepted criteria and only for material and criteria for which the students were on prior notice for. It should be rare for an administration to question a single grade.

However when a teacher grades most of the class as failing (in many settings a D grade earns no graduation credit) then it is appropriate for the school to examine closely whether appropriate teaching is taking place, whether appropriate grading criteria are being used, and why seemingly otherwise competent students are failing only in that particular class.
When a teacher wants to fail that many students, the burden falls to the teacher to justify why it is the students and not the teacher that is failing.

Timothy: just so. Whether this suit was meritorious depends on disputed facts, and the jury found that she was telling the truth; I have no basis for questioning that finding. So the suit itself — not a problem.

But $1.4 million? (To correct my post, it was $1.2 million for her anguish, and $200K for punitive damages.) You know how much mental anguish I’d be willing to have you put me through for 30x my annual salary?

As a former Louisiana public school teacher I agree in principle with this verdict. Surely the reward will be reduced on appeal?

The pressure to pass students along is very heavy indeed.

…seemingly otherwise competent students…

Life becomes very easy when students are given good grades, and very difficult if they are given bad grades. There is no disincentive for giving A’s. You collect your paycheck and go home without any stress. No parent calls the principal and complains about this. Everyone is happy. Any idealistic teacher wishing to enforce standards will experience a lot of stress and pressure. I suggest that the investigation into grading practices and criteria begin with those that give good grades and pass “seemingly competent” students who in fact are not. These kinds of classes vastly outnumber the classes in which students are given unfair failing grades.

If the point of tort law is to deter bad behavior rather than to make the victim “whole,” why is this comparison relevant? Assuming that the school district’s behavior is worth discouraging (which it may or may not be), $1.4M sounds like a deterrent to me.

I’m with the majority thus far on this topic. Coming from an area (Philadelphia) where several schools have been caught inflating the grades of students, I’ve got no problem with 1.4M deterrent to the school district if the teacher was able to prove her case.

The downside is that those costs will be passed on to the local populace in their taxes. Maybe enough will begin to question whether her case was strong enough to put a bit more scrutiny on West Feliciana School Board, Lindsey and Principal Thornhill.

Maybe it’s because of my background, I see far too many people being under-educated because of schools who are afraid to give students the grades which they actually deserve (ironically enough, due to the threat of litigation).