Houston ISD used unverifiable EVAAS scores for teacher terminations
Houston Independent School District used the proprietary SAS EVAAS system to evaluate teacher effectiveness via student test scores. The system's lack of transparency prevented educators from verifying the accuracy of their scores, which were used for job terminations. A federal court eventually ruled this violated due process, leading to a settlement.
The system created a "black box" where teachers were subject to job loss based on scores they had no meaningful way to verify or challenge.
Key facts
- What
- Houston Independent School District used the proprietary SAS EVAAS system to evaluate teacher effectiveness via student test scores.
- Incident date
- May 8, 2017
- Who
- Houston Independent School District
- Failure mode
- Policy Violation
- AI surface
- Algorithmic Decision
- Severity
- High
What happened
Houston Independent School District utilized the SAS Educational Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS) to judge teacher effectiveness based on student test scores. These proprietary scores were used to make high stakes employment decisions including the termination of educators. Because the system was a black box, teachers were unable to verify the accuracy of the results or challenge the findings. This led to a federal lawsuit which ultimately ended the use of the system for terminations.
What broke inside the model
- 01 · TriggerA prompt pushes against a deployment boundary.
- 02 · Model stepThe model produces the disallowed output.
- 03 · Control gapNo enforcement blocks it at generation time.
- 04 · FailureThe output crosses the policy line.
- 05 · ConsequenceA limit the business set is breached in public.
The output crosses a policy boundary the deployment had defined.
The failure was caused by the use of a proprietary algorithm that functioned as a black box, hiding the logic used to calculate teacher scores. This lack of transparency meant that data entry errors or code glitches could not be identified or audited. Consequently, the system produced unverifiable outputs that were used to justify firing employees without due process.
What it cost
Sources
- PressHouston Schools Must Face Teacher Evaluation Lawsuitcourthousenews.com
- PressFederal Lawsuit Settled Between Houston's Teacher Union and HISDhoustonpublicmedia.org
- PressFederal Suit Settlement: End of Value-Added Measures for Teacher Termination in Houstonaft.org
Cite this entry
https://failureindex.ai/failures/houston-isd-used-unverifiable-evaas-scoresAI Failure Index. "Houston ISD used unverifiable EVAAS scores for teacher terminations" (FI-0675). Realm Labs. https://failureindex.ai/failures/houston-isd-used-unverifiable-evaas-scores (indexed Jun 22, 2026).Data fields CC-BY 4.0, prose citation permitted. Incident ID FI-0675. Full dataset at /data.
Note from Realm Labs, the Index steward
How Realm would have caught this
- Prism
- OmniGuard
Realm compares what the model is about to output or do against the policy that governs the deployment, in real time, and can deny or redact the action before it takes effect, which is the gap an after-the-fact review never closes in time.