The Buffalo New (Buffalo, NY) May 11, 2010

HEADLINE: Teacher ratings to add test scores

Unions agree to measures of student performance

By Tom Precious and Barbara O'Brien

Under a deal reached Tuesday by state education officials and major teachers unions, standardized test scores could be used as part of annual evaluations of teachers.

The state is poised to apply for the second round of funding under the federal Race to the Top program. That could make the state eligible for as much as $700 million in aid - a critical amount that could soften some of the proposed school aid cuts under consideration.

Gov. David A. Paterson said the teacher evaluation deal - as well as his as-yet-stalled plan to lift the limit on charter schools - would "put us at the top of the list" for the federal funding.

If approved by the State Legislature, the new system would take effect for the 2011-12 school year but would use test scores from the 2010-11 year.

New York State United Teachers and the United Federation of Teachers back the deal.

Michael Mulgrew, UFT president, called objectivity the key to the agreement. Teachers feel current evaluations are "based almost on how does your administrator feel about you this year," he said.

Using test scores would place a teacher working with at-risk children at a disadvantage, he said, but the new system will look at how much improvement the student has shown. It results in far more objectivity than the current system, state Education Commissioner David M. Steiner said.

"Their work in moving those students should be recognized," he said.

But The Legislature still needs to sign on to the deal before the June 1 Race to the Top deadline if the state is to incorporate it in its federal application.

But the charter school issue, a sticking point for the unions, remains unresolved. Charter school advocates say failure to lift the limit helped to lose the state $700 million in the last Race to the Top round a couple of months ago.

The deal announced Tuesday would eliminate "effective or not effective" ratings now used by principals to evaluate teacher performance, a system unions call "drive-by evaluations."

They would be replaced with four possible ratings: highly effective, effective, developing or ineffective. Those deemed developing or ineffective would get more training. But those developing or ineffective teachers who do not improve could be charged with incompetence and removed.

Twenty percent of the evaluation would be based on student performance on state standardized tests, such as annual math exams administered in grades three through eight.

Over time, that would grow to 25 percent.

Another 20 percent would be based on other measures of student performance devised at the local level, which would help cover the many teachers who are not in grades or the kinds of classes that offer annual state exams of students, according to people briefed on the agreement.

Assessments in the arts would not necessarily look the same as assessments in social studies, the education commissioner said. A seventh-grader might be asked to write a series of essays; a high school science student might be asked to perform experiments; and music students could be evaluated on performances, Senior Deputy Commissioner John B. King Jr. said.

The remaining 60 percent would be based on other factors determined by principals or other teachers and would include things such as classroom management, collaborations with colleagues and whether a teacher takes outside professional development courses. What goes into that 60 percent would have to be part of a collective bargaining agreement on the local level.

Not all union leaders, though, are happy with the deal.

"When the state Education Department and the Board of Regents start insisting on mandatory smaller class sizes - then I'll be willing to discuss having test scores be a part of teacher evaluation," said Philip Rumore, president of the Buffalo Teachers Federation.

He described the measure as a political and public relations effort that won't solve the problem of poor performance resulting from poverty.

"It's not that we have droves of poor teachers that happen to be in the poor rural and urban areas," Rumore said. "It's not that teachers aren't doing a good job. They're working their hearts out."