New Teacher Evaluation System on its Way Down From Albany

Measures are being developed in Albany right now for evaluating teachers, a new system that will begin to take effect in the upcoming school year.

Yes, new teacher evaluations are coming. In fact, the debate about whether or not they should exist was never really in question, as the evaluations have existed all along. What was in question was whether or not to tie teacher performance with student performance.

Part of the requirements of the $700 million Race to the Top grant money the state won last summer was that the governor enact statewide aggressive measures for new teacher evaluation systems tied in with student performance, amongst other things, including the adoption of a common core curriculum and raising the cap on the number of charter schools.

And although the teacher’s union has done all it can to push back against many of these measures, ultimately, it is forced to negotiate terms, if the schools expect to get any of the grant money.

Now, however, the big debate is exactly how teachers should be evaluated, and also, whether it should be uniform across the state or determined by each district.

The evaluations will be a factor in whether a teacher gets promoted, tenured or terminated, allowing the city to also tie lay-offs with teacher performance and doing away with the seniority-based “last-in, first-out” layoff system.

So Mayor Bloomberg will get his way—just not in time for the impending layoff of 4,000 teachers at the end of the school year, as union representatives and state agencies continue to hammer out the details of how it will work.

The State Education Department is asking for public comments on the regulations by April 29 -- just two weeks from the date they were issued. The Board of Regents will discuss the regulations at its May meeting.

Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch said the implementation of the new law would not be perfect at the beginning: "This is going to take a lot of professional development, a lot of districts working collaboratively," she said on Monday. "But we simply must start. We simply have to forge ahead."

It will take some time to develop a viable growth model to show a teacher's impact on a student's ability to grow, said Richard Iannuzzi, president of The New York State United Teachers. The union is asking for the comment period to be extended past April 29. The regulations were released a few days ago and many schools are on spring break this week, he said.