Educators rally at job evaluation forum

Originally published: February 15, 2012 5:37 PM
Updated: February 15, 2012 10:22 PM
By JOHN HILDEBRAND  john.hildebrand@newsday.com

Photo credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas | Saying that it's "bad policy and bad politics," Joseph A. Laria, Superintendent of the Glen Cove School District, took to the microphone to express his opposition to the state's new teacher evaluation plan at C.W Post. (Feb. 15, 2012)

More than 800 teachers, school principals and others turned out at a Long Island forum on job evaluations Wednesday -- most to oppose the state's plans to start using student scores on state tests in rating educators' performance.

Some organizers of the forum, held at LIU Post in Brookville, acknowledged in advance that their protests could be moot. InAlbany, negotiations between the state Education Department and the teachers union on a revised evaluation system are continuing.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has threatened to impose a system of his own if agreement is not reached by Thursday.

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Critics of the state's new approach to rating teachers, however, said they have a responsibility to advise the public that the system is being pushed into place too rapidly, that it puts too much emphasis on test scores, and that it could result in unfair labeling of some teachers as ineffective. Evaluations also would cover principals.

The ratings formula is being developed through a $2.7-million state contract with American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit assessment group.

"We're doing things straight off the drawing board with no trial period," said panelist Terry Orr, a professor at Bank Street College in Manhattan. "Who would want to be evaluated by this system?"

To prepare for evaluations, the Education Department has announced plans to start testing in grades 3-8 on April 17, the day after most students return from spring break. In June, scores will be compared with those from last year through a mathematical formula to rate teachers' success in boosting achievement.

"It [the evaluations law] is already on the books," said ArnoldDodge, an LIU Post assistant professor. "But that doesn't mean that we in the educational community can't say we don't like it."

The two-hour forum was led by a panel of five principals and two college professors, all of whom have signed petitions urging the state to reconsider its position on evaluations. The event was held in the Tilles Center at LIU Post and sponsored by that college's Department of Educational Leadership and Administration.

Marlene Natale, 64, a retired math teacher who spoke during the question-and-answer period, suggested that evaluations based on comparisons of test scores from one year to another could be thrown off by unexpected circumstances.

Natale recalled one spring when a heat wave drove classroom temperatures above 100 degrees while students were taking a math exam. "There were kids fainting," said Natale, who taught in the Sewanhaka district.

Cuomo has warned that failure to put rigorous evaluations in place could jeopardize $700 million in federal Race to the Top money obtained by New York State. The state pledged to have the evaluation system in place as school districts renegotiate their labor contracts.

"I understand it's hard to do," the governor told lawmakers last month. "But I also understand that if we're serious about education, we have to do this."

Cuomo aides cited a recent Siena College poll showing that more than 70 percent of respondents backed the governor's plan to link increases in state aid to school districts to those districts' adoption of enhanced teacher evaluations.Public support for stricter evaluations has grown in recent years, sparked in part by perceptions that many younger teachers in New York City faced layoffs, regardless of performance, because of a seniority system that sometimes appeared to protect inept colleagues.

Many Long Island educators have contended that cases of teacher incompetence in the Island's 124 districts are rare, and that it's unnecessary to impose a complex rating system here.

In 2010, the state Board of Regents and New York State United Teachers, the state's largest teachers union, reached tentative agreement on a new evaluation system. Under that accord, 20 percent of teachers' ratings would be based on results of standardized state tests, 20 percent on other assessments that are locally chosen and 60 percent on subjective measures such as classroom observations.

Cuomo, who became governor after that arrangement was worked out, declared that it wasn't rigorous enough. In response, the Regents, on a vote of 14-3, decided to raise to 40 percent the share of teachers' ratings that would be based on state test scores.

NYSUT charged that the revision violated the earlier agreement and filed a lawsuit, which is pending before a state appeals court.