Big Education Grants Threatened By Teacher Spats
Teachers and school districts say they agree that better teacher evaluations are needed, but they can't agree on the details. Now, those disputes threaten federal grants meant to encourage education reform.
Take New York state, which has a lots of failing schools. Those schools got more than $100 million in federal School Improvement Grants. In exchange, districts promised to phase in new evaluation systems.
But John King, state Commissioner of Education, says districts haven't followed through. So he may have to take drastic action. "Their grants would be suspended. There ought to be a process in place to evaluate teachers and principles. They understood that at the time they applied for the grants," King says.
The unions say they back the idea in principle of finding a better way to evaluate effective teachers.
But Carl Korn with New York State United Teachers says the plans would link teachers' future to how students do on a standardized test. "I don't think anybody out there would want their career