New York to Evaluate Teachers With New System

[alp227]

The New York State education commissioner broke a long and acrimonious impasse on Saturday by imposing a new evaluation system that would rate New York City teachers in part on their students’ test scores and streamline the disciplinary process.

The new system, announced after three hectic days of meetings, testimony and arbitration that involved the Bloomberg administration and the teachers’ union, finally brought New York City into compliance with state law — the last district in the state to do so.

“It’s time. The students have waited too long,” said the commissioner, John B. King Jr., adding that the new plan would “help improve teaching and learning and give New York City students a much better opportunity to graduate from high school with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in college and their careers.”

In something of a compromise, Mr. King’s plan would make New York City — with more than 1.1 million public school students, 75,000 teachers and 1,700 schools — the only district in the state that would leave a significant part of the implementation of the evaluations up to individual schools, with teachers perhaps having the chance to weigh in with administrators on how they are rated.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/nyregion/new-evaluation-system-for-new-york-teachers.html

[femmocrat]

1. "The students have waited too long"----???

As if the students give a crap about it. Hey kids, it means more pressure on you to test well! Drill, baby, drill!

[knitter4democracy]

2. That was my response, too.

Ask a group of kids who the worst teacher in the school is, and you'll get a different answer every time with at least one student defending the so-called worst teacher. The kids don't care about this. They really don't.

[mbperrin]

3. "with teachers perhaps having the chance to weigh in with administrators on how they are rated. "

OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! The horror!!!!!!! Some semblance of DUE PROCESS!!!! NOOOOOOOO!

No state wants to pay for a real evaluation system - a longitudinal study tracking every student to the grave with their outcomes correlated to which teachers and subjects they had during their time in public schools, adjusted for socioeconomic factors, historical events, genetic inheritance, and students' own definitions of success or failure at the terminal point of their lives.

Anything less is a fart in the wind.

[duffyduff]

4. And the real problems in public education, the administrators,

will go about business as usual, destroying teachers' careers as if it were blood sport.

I don't believe teachers will ever have the opportunity to have any say on how they are evaluated. Not with the outrageous power imbalance between the two groups.

[Smarmie Doofus]

6. Elephant in the living room.

Genuine reform would start... and largely end, really.... if that were recognized.

The way most ed systems work.. the worst candidates in the ranks seek , and rise into the leadership roles.

Money, power over other adults and a fascination w. gaming the system for their own material benefit seem to be the big attractions.

In other words... they're natural allies for corporate reformers. Esp w. the gobs of extra corporate cash laying around for ez access by those who know how to do it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Same question I always ask:

How are the P.E. teachers evaluated? Music?

Will they attempt to have high stakes testing in every subject, as they are trying to do in Florida?

This is just insane.