After years of contentious debate and delay, New York City finally has a new teacher-evaluation plan that state officials say will help weed out the worst teachers.
“The challenge is to bring the best teaching practices to every classroom in New York City. Today, we’ve moved a little closer to that goal,” state Education Commissioner John King said yesterday.
“The plan gives principals the tools they need to improve instruction in their schools. It will help struggling teachers and principals get better and help good teachers and principals become great.”
Teachers will be classified in one of four categories — “highly effective,” “effective,” “developing,” or “ineffective” — and an “ineffective” rating two years in a row is grounds for termination.
“It is easier to remove a teacher or principal who is ineffective,” King told a press conference. “Two ineffective ratings constitute a pattern that is substantial evidence of incompetence.”
“This is a sea change in evaluating all of our teachers,” Chancellor Dennis Walcott said. “Our goal is to make sure we have strong teachers in front of the classroom.
“This isn’t a gotcha moment, going after our teachers. If they’re not effective they shouldn’t be in the classroom.”
Key features of the plan, which will remain in force through the 20162017 school year, includes:
■ 40 percent of a teacher’s grade will be based on their students’ performance,
Of that, 20 percent will be based on state exams in math and English in grades 4-8 for some teachers. They will be judged based on how much their students improve compared to similar students around the state.
■ For teachers who do not administer those exams, their student growth will be measured based on “Student Learning Objectives,” in which teachers and principals set annual goals for each student.
■ Another 20 percent of a teacher’s rating will be determined by other “school-based measures” — primarily tests — set by an eight-member school committee. The principal will select four panel members, and the UFT will pick the other four.
■ 60 percent of a teacher’s grade will come from in-class observations by principals, with at least one unannounced visit.
■ But in the 2014-15 school year, principal observations will account for 55 percent, and 5 percent will be based on student surveys. Currently, Syracuse is the only school district in New York that uses students to help evaluate teachers, though its a national trend.
One Manhattan high school teacher criticized the provision.
“I don’t think it’s fair,” she said. “I don’t think students are the best judge of who the best teacher is or what the beat teachers do. Sometimes it’s a popularity contest. Sometimes unprofessional behavior can lead to the students liking a teacher more.”
■ Teachers can appeal only ineffective ratings.
UFT President Michael Mulgrew did not object to the new rating system, or the crackdown on poor performers.
“New York City teachers will now have additional protections and opportunities to play a larger role in the development of the measures used to rate them,” he said.
“There will now be additional arbitration slots that will allow teachers to challenge any violations by supervisors of the new evaluation process before they reach the stage of actual ratings.”
But he expressed reservations about the prospect of student input — something the UFT has opposed.
“We’re concerned with the student surveys, because all the experts have told us there’s no validity to using them in a high-stakes system. We’ll wait to see what the pilot tells us and see if the research moves. If it’s not a valid instrument, we don’t want to use it.”
“ Our concern is that the Department of Education will not implement this properly. That’s why we asked for all the due process pieces [in the plan] — and clearly the Commissioner heard us.”
The Post has repeatedly called for a tougher teacher evaluation plan so that the weakest can be identified and quickly removed.
The new plan replaces the city’s long standing system in which teachers were rated only “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory.” based mainly on observations by principals.
An average 2 percent of teachers, or 1,500, get rated unsatisfactory each year, although close to half of students perform below grade level. Teachers rated “S” three years in a row qualified for tenure, which makes it more difficult to fire a teacher for alleged misconduct or incompetence.
Arthur Goldstein, a English teacher at Francis Lewis, worries that test data will give a skewed picture of performance.
“We’re going to be judged by a system with no more reliability than voodoo,” he said. “From everything I read, there’s no validity to this method. It doesn’t show whether you’re a good teacher or a bad teacher,”
Under pressure from Cuomo, the state Legislature revised the law this year to bar any expiration date on the evaluation system.
But King’s plan can change if the city and UFT reach a collective bargaining agreement to tweak or replace it. However, the state would have to approve any changes.
This leaves the plan open to revision under NYC’s next mayor.
Both the city and UFT will have 10 days to file a court appeal of King’s plan, but under state law such proceedings cannot delay the start of the plan.