Teachers Offer Plea to NYC Parents: ‘Help Us Fight Cuomo’s Plans’

Many parents and teachers are angered by proposed changes to the way teacher evaluations are performed, giving even more weight to standardized test scores and less to the input of school principals. Protests are planned for next week, and parents can help spread the word.

Two weeks ago teachers at the coveted Park Slope elementary school PS 321 posted an open letter to school families that clearly explains the impact that a new teacher evaluation system would have on their job security, and of course, their ability to teach their students.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has proposed giving greater weight to standardized test results in teacher evaluations. While this may sound like an obvious criteria to consider when evaluating a teacher’s performance, according to the detailed letter from PS 321, giving it undue weight can have the effect of punishing teachers who have indeed done their job. They write:

“Realistically, many of us could be fired. Every year. And many more of us would be pushed away from the profession we love.

   Here’s something parents need to understand. Even though, when our students take the standardized tests, most of them do just fine… many PS 321 teachers do not. Teachers’ ratings are not based on their students’ raw scores for the year, but whether their students improved from one year to the next. If a student with a ‘3’ gets one fewer question correct in 4th grade than she did in 3rd, that student might not have demonstrated the 'added value' their teacher is expected to have instilled. Even though the student has mastered that grade’s content. Even though it’s just one question. And that teacher might, therefore, be rated in the bottom percentile of teachers.

   That may sound patently absurd. However, that has already happened here.”

A Math Problem Gone Wrong?

The teachers go on to explain in their letter the full breakdown of how they would be evaluated under the Governor’s new plan. They break it out as follows:

• 50% of a teacher’s rating would be based on state test scores.
(Currently it is 20%).

• 35% of a teacher’s rating would be based on the findings of an outside “independent observer” who will conduct a one time visit to the classroom.
("This has never been done before. Currently our principal and assistant principals’ observations count for 60%").

• 15% of a teacher’s rating would be based on observations by the principal or assistant principals. "The very people who know our work best would have the least input into our evaluation."