Joel Klein sends letter to city teachers, principals, defending controversial teacher ratings
Tuesday, October 26th 2010, 4:00 AM
Schools Chancellor Joel Klein reached out directly to teachers and principals on Monday to defend the controversial teacher ratings the city may make public.
In a letter to school staff, Klein acknowledged that the rating system doesn't tell the whole story about teacher performance.
But he said it gives parents information that they want and need.
"Parents have been left out of the equation, left to pray each year that the teacher greeting their children on the first day of school is truly great, but with no real knowledge of whether that is the case, and with no recourse if it's not," Klein wrote.
Critics have called the rating system inaccurate, in part because it is based on tests state officials have now said are unreliable indicators of student learning.
Klein said that it is hard "to discern definitive evidence from data alone" in the case of average teachers.
But he said the ratings give a clearer picture of the stars and the dunces in the school system. "(W)here teachers have performed consistently toward the top or the bottom, year after year, these data surely tell us something very important," he wrote.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/10/26/2010-10-26_dont_fear_teachers_ratings_pleads_klein.html?r=ny_local/education#ixzz13SxkJbj7