"Peer assistance and review" programs are being pushed by the American Federation of Teachers as a very good approach to handling under-performing teachers. As we've said before, as much as we'd like to agree, we aren't so sure.

Peer review was invented by the AFT local in Toledo, Ohio and a version has been required since 1999 in all California districts. Such programs typically offer support and coaching to both new and tenured teachers, involving the latter when they receive unsatisfactory performance evaluations. Unacceptable progress in a program can lead to dismissal.

Advocates tout this hybrid combination of peer coaching and review as holding teachers' feet to at least some warm coals, if not a fire.

A little while back we argued in Kumbaya in Toledo? that peer review's potential to reduce the numbers of probationary and tenured teachers with egregious instructional deficiencies is unrealized, if not minimal. Now a court decision raises questions as to whether this method of teacher evaluation can be conducted without placing on the peer review panels the same high burden of documentation--and paperwork--that principals must adhere to when they evaluate teachers.

A California appellate district court just ruled that even if peer review referrals are aimed at shoring up teachers' deficiencies and finding diamonds in the rough, the fact that these referrals are tied to a review process means that courts may view them as punitive. While the appellate court upheld a lower court?s decision that a terminated teacher?s claims be dismissed, and the judges agreed that employers must be able to manage employees without fear that coaching would lead to litigation, they also found that a referral to the peer review program "materially and adversely affected the terms, conditions, and privileges of employment." As such, courts may indeed uphold referrals, but documentation on the basis for referrals can?t be taken lightly.

Remind us again ... what's there to recommend peer review for either remediation of potentially good teachers or removal of dismal ones?