Teacher licensing lawsuit rejected

“No student deserves to suffer an inferior education because he was exposed to a teacher less than qualified,’’ Judge Edward F. Harrington said in his ruling.

Harrington’s ruling was based on legal technicalities, but in his 11-page decision the judge seemed to take issue with the lawsuit itself, saying a teacher’s qualifications should not hinge on a legal definition.

“Society would be better served for plaintiffs to ameliorate their scholastic deficiencies, rather than to seek to undermine the standards of a profession most essential to the vitality of a nation’s culture,’’ Harrington said.

The teachers’ lawyer, Tyler Fox of Cambridge, contested the judge’s remarks and said he will look at ways to make sure the case is heard in court.

“There’s a major problem with this test; there’s been a major problem with this test for 10 years,’’ Fox said, adding that the judge “is not even allowing the light of day to shine on these issues.’’

At issue is the Massachusetts Tests for Educator Licensure, a state standards test that is partly required by the federal No Child Left Behind law. The law requires all but a few teachers to have appropriate licenses and to meet standards set by individual states.

But the Massachusetts test has come under much criticism in its 11-year history over the disparity in results between whites and minorities. In the 2005-06 school year, according to data available from the state, 52 percent of Latino applicants and 54 percent of black applicants flunked the writing portion of the exam, nearly twice the rate for whites. The failure rate for native Spanish speakers was above 60 percent.

The test results led to termination of about 100 minority teachers in Boston, many of whom had until then received temporary waivers that allowed them to retest.

They were dismissed as the state raised concerns about the disparity in passing rates among aspiring teachers of different backgrounds. More than two years ago, the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education established a task force to examine the issue.

In a time of growing diversity among students in classrooms across the state, educators and researchers suggest that academically low-achieving student groups such as blacks, Latinos, and English-language learners could fare better if they are more often taught by teachers of similar background.

The three teachers who had filed the lawsuits, who are either black or Latino, had argued that their qualifications had been proved in other ways. They had earned their master’s degrees and received positive evaluations from their supervisors during regular evaluations, only to be terminated based on the test results.

The case named, among others, the Boston schools, the state school system, and NCS Pearson, the company that administers the test. Boston and state school officials said they had not seen the judge’s entire decision yesterday and so could not comment, and an NCS Pearson official could not be reached for comment.

In his decision, Harrington dismissed the suit on legal technicalities that Fox did not contest.

However, Fox called the technicalities minor issues compared with the underlying concerns that the test discriminates against minorities. A similar test was vacated in Alabama decades ago for the same argument, he said, and tests have been changed in other states.

Fox said he agrees that teachers should be held to standards. But he said Harrington, citing minor technical issues, dismissed the case before it had a chance to be heard.

The test was never even brought in as evidence, Fox said.

“It’s important that this case see the light of day,’’ he said. “How can the truth come out, when we’re not even able to come to that point.’’

Milton Valencia can be reached at mvalencia@globe.com.