New York Regents Speeds Up New Teacher Evaluation Rollout (NY)

May 18, 2011

The New York Board of Regents voted 14-3 on Monday to speed up the roll-out of the new teacher evaluation system created last year, as well as to change some of the specifics of the system itself, the Democrat and Chronicle reports. Originally scheduled to be implemented this fall for 4-8th grade math/English teachers and their building principals, then in the fall of 2012 for everyone else, the Regents now would like school districts to adopt the new system fully by the start of this school year. The state passed a law creating the new evaluation system last year to obtain a $700,000 federal Race to the Top grant.

 &nbs p;  The evaluation system…was supposed to be based 20 percent on state assessments and 20 percent on other locally developed measures of performance. But regents agreed Monday that a full 40 percent of the evaluation system could be based on state assessment tests. The other 60 percent of the ratings will be based on other measures of teacher/principal effectiveness.

NY Education Commissioner David Steiner specified that the change in rules will not require districts to base the entire 40% on test results, but merely give them an option to do so without objections from the state. But teachers unions and even some of the regents expressed reservations that using test scores for such a large chunk of the total teacher rating would unfairly penalize those working with high-needs or low-income students and would also encourage the practice of “teaching to the test.”

New York State United Teachers President Richard Iannuzzi called the 40% rule change “a gimmick,” and said that the Board of Regents was prioritizing political expedience over the students and teachers. He added that the union was considering legal action over the new rules.

The Board of Regents introduced the scheduling changes in response to a March letter from Governor Andrew Cuomo requesting that the implementation of the new system be sped up. In an additional letter to the Board this Friday, Cuomo also asked for the removal of the prohibition against using state assessment for more than 20% of the teacher evaluations.