With hubbub over teacher evaluation deadline, city escapes scrutiny for missing C4E deadline by months
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| January 17, 2013 |
There has been much public furor over the coming deadline for a new teacher evaluation system in NYC that will be based at least in part on student test scores. Though supporters like Commissioner King and Merryl Tischsay a new system is necessary to have a more objective basis for teacher evaluation, experts like Bruce Bakerof Rutgers and many others have shown that the “growth scores” the evaluation system will depend upon are not only highly volatile from year to year, but are also demonstrably biased against teachers with low-performing students. And unlike the teacher data reports, the growth scores do not even attempt to control for the class size; meaning that a teacher who has a class of 30 or more will be unfairly judged compared to another who will be teaching 25 or fewer students.
First, Governor Cuomo set a deadline of January 17, 2013, and warned if the UFT and the city did not agree he would withhold about $300 million in additional state aid. Then the corporate reform troika of Students First NY,Students for Education Reform and Educators for Excellence held rallies to highlight the issue. (Ironically,