NEW YORK—More than 90 percent of teachers statewide were found effective based on evaluations released on Oct. 22.
The preliminary data showed 91.5 percent of teachers were rated highly effective or effective. The results did not include teachers in New York City, since an evaluation plan was delayed due to a dispute between the teachers’ union and the city.
Though comforting, the teacher evaluation numbers are in stark contrast to only 31 percent of students found proficient in this year’s Common Core tests.
State Education Commissioner John King, Jr., said that the evaluations are meant to be used as a tool for professional development and not to create a “gotcha environment.”
An evaluation is comprised of three elements. One is the performance on state tests of all the students a given teacher taught during the year. That portion accounts for 20 percent of an evaluation. Another 20 percent is based on criteria decided by a local district.
While state tests are only available for certain subjects, like math or English, teachers of all the other subjects had 40 percent of their evaluations determined locally.
However, the local criteria had to comply with a strict set of standards. So, some schools chose to use the state test results for the entire 40 percent of the evaluation. As a result, music, art, and physical education teachers were evaluated based on the results from math and English tests.
The other 60 percent of the evaluation is based largely on classroom observations.
Overall, the evaluations show 49.7 percent of teachers were highly effective, 41.8 percent effective, only 4.4 percent developing, and one percent ineffective.
Among principals, 26 percent received the highly effective mark, 60.9 percent were effective, 7.5 percent were rated developing, and 2.1 percent ineffective.
More detailed, district-by-district data will be available in early winter.
