Ratings madness: Are there really no highly effective elementary or middle-school teachers in Syracuse?
What the heck happened in Syracuse?
Ten days ago, Superintendent Sharon Contreras briefed the city’s Board of Education on the results of the first year of implementation of the “Annual Professional Performance Review” (APPR) plan, a fancy phrase for the new statewide teacher and principal evaluation system in New York. The APPR process sorts teachers into the categories of “highly effective,” “effective,” “developing” and “ineffective” based on state-approved measures of student learning “growth,” locally determined measures of student achievement, and principal and peer observations of teachers’ classroom practices.
The summary evaluations reported by Superintendent Contreras were striking: Just two percent of Syracuse teachers were rated highly effective, and an additional 58 percent were deemed effective. Seven percent were classified as ineffective, and 33 percent as developing, categories that suggest low levels of teaching performance, the need for teacher improvement plans, and the threat of eventual dismissal. Not a single elementary or middle-school teacher in the entire district was rated