A deadline is looming this week that will impact every school district in
New York.
If the state education and state teachers union do not agree on guidelines for evaluating teachers by noon tomorrow, Governor Cuomo promises to impose his own plan Thursday and tie it to state aid payments.
“They’re trying feverishly to meet the deadline,” says Adam Urbanski, president of the Rochester Teacher’s Association. He is also on the board of the NYSUT, the state teacher’s union involved in the negotiations.
The governor’s line in the sand is aimed at advancing a requirement to tie teacher evaluations to performance- which was passed two years ago but remains in limbo because of the lawsuit that was filed.
With three kids in Pittsford schools, Kelly Young says it’s an idea that makes sense. “I do think that performance needs to be evaluated,” she says. “Teachers do need to be effective, that’s tremendously important.”
The problem has been how to establish performance criteria beyond simply tying it to student test scores. The state has left that up to individual districts to negotiate with their own teachers. But the lawsuit has thrown everything in limbo.
“It’s frustrating for us because many of the dynamics are not in our control,” says Urbanski.
Rochester is the only school district in the state to have worked out an agreement with teachers. It says 20 percent of students must show progress based on the following criteria:
*State Test Scores: 20 %
*Pre-Post Year Test: 20%
*Principal or Lead Teacher Observation: 60 %
According to the agreement a pre-post year test is a measure of how a student improved based on a test taken in a subject at the beginning of the school year and again at the end of the school year.
After three re-writes, the agreement appears to be headed for state approval- yet the settlement of the state lawsuit could change that. “If the settlement of the litigation includes new requirements and new features we may have to make further adjustments to comply with that,” says Urbanski.
Yet districts, educators and some parents worry what will happen if that agreement is not reached and Governor Cuomo makes good on his threat to impose his own plan and tie it to the budget.
“I worry that my district has done a lot of good work to make this process effective and to improve our district,” says Pittsford parent Kelly Young. “What would be the benefit of all that good and hard work if it’s made null and void?”
