NEW YORK—The New York State Board of Education Board Regents passed a plan on Monday night, with a 13-3 vote, to reform the teacher evaluation system. The decision has been met with harsh criticism from teacher unions.
The plan to move New York toward an “objective evaluation method” was presented on April 4 and has been in discussion between the regents, teachers, and principals since. The revised Notice of Intent states that under the new law, “40 percent of an educator’s evaluation score must be based on measures of student learning,” most of which will come from standardized tests. The remaining 60 percent will be based on administrator and peer evaluations, and educators would then be rated highly effective, effective, developing, and ineffective.
Education Commissioner David Steiner said he was confident the new, well-structured system would “help ensure that we have an effective teacher in every classroom and an effective leader in every school.”
The previous draft of the plan had teachers evaluated with only 20 percent of the score coming from standardized tests and another 20 percent from local assessments, and unions are unhappy with the change. The unions feel this will encourage some teachers to only focus on standardized testing, hurting the students’ education overall.
During the April 4 meeting, compromises had been made, and the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) said in early April discussions that the new evaluation system “will not go into effect unless local negotiations have concluded,” but that was not the case. The regents continued to discuss changes with the Education Department and unions until Monday night, when the regents approved the governor’s plan.
On Friday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo wrote in a letter that the proposed system “falls short” compared to evaluation systems in other states, and asked the board to make revisions, allowing for up to 40 percent of the evaluations to be based on state standardized test scores and accelerating the implementation date. In Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch’s reply, she agreed with the recommendations and wrote, “I will support them when my colleagues and I on the Board of Regents convene on Monday.”
In response to the letter, Richard Iannuzzi, the president of the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT), released a statement saying that they “remain committed to a collaborative and thoughtful process for ensuring that every student has an effective teacher.” The NYSUT is New York’s largest union, representing approximately 600,000 teachers.
“If political ideology and rhetoric trumps what’s best for the kids, then we’re not going to be able to come to a decision,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew told NY1. “I just want to be clear on our position that test prep has harmed the school system of New York City.”
Iannuzzi calls the new plan a “significant setback” and has suspended all collaboration with the Education Department.
“[Monday’s] actions take New York down a path that will hamper instruction and student success, and that will arrive at a dead end,” said Iannuzzi.
A spokesman for NYSUT, Carl Korn, says there is a strong likelihood they will be seeking relief from the courts. “We will not extend cooperation to the Board of Regents because they have breached faith,” he commented, noting that Regent Chancellor Tisch called standardized tests in New York an embarrassment just last week.
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