Teacher Evaluations: Whose Business is it Anyway?

Last Thursday, Governor Andrew Cuomo approved a plan that reversed an original decision by Mayor Michael Bloomberg to release teacher evaluations to the general public and instead mandated that teacher evaluations would be provided to parents only.

Under the legislation passed Thursday by state lawmakers, parents will be allowed to see the evaluations of their children's current teachers.

It was unclear how the information would benefit parents, though, since they don't choose their children's teachers and don't find out who their children's teachers are until the first day of school.

And on a radio show the next day Bloomberg insisted the evaluations should be made available to the public-at-large so that parents will know their options for the following year.

"That notion is out of touch with the way schools work — public schools or private schools," said Chiara Coletti, a spokeswoman for the Council of Supervisors and Administrators, which represents public school principals. "They cannot assign their teachers vis-a-vis a popularity contest."

Coletti added that wide dissemination of teachers' ratings with names attached is "cruel and punitive," and that "The only people who need to know that kind of information are parents who feel they have a good reason to."

Still, Lauren Passalacqua, a Bloomberg spokeswoman, said, "He believes that more information is better, and that includes the names."

What do you think? Should teacher evaluations be kept private and available only to the parents of the teachers, or should transparency be extended to the wider public?

Take our poll, and let us know what you think in the comments