The Illegal Trojan Horse In King’s Teacher Evaluation Plan
The state education commissioner of New York, John King, recently imposed a teacher evaluation system on New York City after years of disagreement between the city and the teacher’s union.
The evaluation system will consist of three components: 55 points for principal observations, 40 points for test scores, and 5 points for student surveys. Much of this was inevitable as last year the state legislator updated education law 3012-c, which dictated the components and weights of the test scores and ‘other measures’ which now include principal and student ratings. The whole idea of ‘multiple measures’ is that teachers won’t be unfairly punished for struggling in one category if they make up for it with success in the other categories. And the most important and reliable measures, therefore, get the most weight, in this case, the principal evaluation.
Reading the 240 page report issued, there were two mentions of a very unusual provision, which has been noticed by several bloggers:
On page 37 it says:
The evaluation system will consist of three components: 55 points for principal observations, 40 points for test scores, and 5 points for student surveys. Much of this was inevitable as last year the state legislator updated education law 3012-c, which dictated the components and weights of the test scores and ‘other measures’ which now include principal and student ratings. The whole idea of ‘multiple measures’ is that teachers won’t be unfairly punished for struggling in one category if they make up for it with success in the other categories. And the most important and reliable measures, therefore, get the most weight, in this case, the principal evaluation.
Reading the 240 page report issued, there were two mentions of a very unusual provision, which has been noticed by several bloggers:
On page 37 it says: