The three-judge state appellate court panel ruled in favor of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), saying that allowing the public to access the performance records of specific teachers would not be in the public’s best interest.

The decision was made in consideration of the teachers’ (note: not the parents’ and students’) best interest. That is, the district superintendent and judges did not want teachers seeing each other’s records and all the “negative” consequences. Really, we can surmise that they in fact did not want the public seeing what are possibly many poor evaluations.

With the story is Terese Wantanbe of the LA Times, which was the plaintiff in this suit to access the school records:

Judges rule against letting public see LAUSD teachers’ performance

The public has no right to know the names of Los Angeles Unified School District teachers in connection with their job performance ratings, according to a court ruling issued Wednesday.

In denying a request for disclosure by The Times, a three-judge state appellate court panel found that keeping the names confidential served a stronger public interest than releasing them. The panel overturned a lower court ruling ordering disclosure and rejected The Times’ assertion that the public interest of parents and others in knowing the ratings of identifiable teachers outweighed the interest in confidentiality.

Instead, the panel accepted L.A. school Supt. John Deasy’s contention that releasing the names would lead to resentment and jealousy among teachers, spur “unhealthy” comparisons among staff, cause some instructors to leave the nation’s second-largest school system, and interfere with teacher recruitment.

The judges said the specter of parents battling to place their children with the highest-performing teachers was of “particular concern.”

“Clearly, the public has an interest in avoiding these consequences in its schools,” said the opinion, written by Judge Russell S. Kussman.