State Releases Plan For City Teacher Evaluation System
For the first time in decades, New York City teachers and principals have a new evaluation system. State Education Commissioner John King released the details of the plan Saturday, which will be imposed on the city starting in September. The state plan comes after three years of negotiations between Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the United Federation of Teachers, the teachers' union, failed.
The evaluation system King wrote for city teachers actually allows each school, and even each teacher, to customize some aspects of the way they will be rated. King said that was "in recognition of the extraordinary diversity of the New York City school system." Both Department Of Education officials and union officials are backing this state evaluation system. "The New York City Department of Ed will not be able to fire its way to a great school system," said UFT President Michael Mulgrew. "His decision basically affirms our reforms over the past 11 years," said Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott.
The overall framework of the system was set into state law in 2010, and it will mean significant changes for the 75,000 city teachers. As part of the plan, teachers will no longer be rated satisfactory or unsatisfactory, a system that has led to 97 percent of teachers rated satisfactory every year. Teachers will now be given one of four ratings. Teachers who get the lowest rating two years in a row can be fired, even if they have tenure. Forty percent of the grade will be based on student test scores. The rest will be based on subjective measures, such as classroom observations.
According to the commissioner's plan, New York City teachers will actually get to choose one of two options for how the classroom observations will work. They can either choose one long formal observation and at least three short ones, or they can choose six or more short observations. Teachers can also decide whether they want the principal to observe in person, or have the class videotaped and reviewed later.
Read more at http://www.ny1.com/content/top_stories/183065/state-releases-plan-for-city-teacher-evaluation-system