Award-winning principal urges legislators to say ‘no’ to Gov. Cuomo
Here is a letter that an award-winning New York high school principal is sending to every member of her state’s legislature in regard to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s proposals to reform teacher evaluation (for the second time in three years). Among Cuomo’s proposals is requiring that student standardized test scores account for a full 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation rather than the current 20 percent. Assessment experts warn against linking test scores to educators’ evaluation for a variety of reasons, but the practice has become a central feature of the school reform agenda of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
The principal is Carol Burris of South Side High School in New York. She was named New York’s 2013 High School Principal of the Year by the School Administrators Association of New York and the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and, in 2010, she was tapped as the 2010 New York State Outstanding Educator by the School Administrators Association of New York State.
In this post, Burris refers to “value-added” methods (VAM) of measurement that purport to be able to determine the “value” a teacher brings to student learning by plopping test scores into complicated formulas that can supposedly strip out all other factors, including the conditions in which a student lives. Different districts use different formulas and numerous experts in the field have said that VAM is not a reliable or valid tool for teacher evaluation. You can read about why here. She also mentioned the PARCC test, a Common Core standardized test being used in a number of states this spring.
Here’s the Burris letter:
Dear members of the New York State Assembly and Senate:In 2012, the legislature dramatically changed the way teachers and principals were evaluated by instituting a system called APPR. That legislation created categories of performance, scoring bands and consequences for teachers rated developing or ineffective.I did not then, nor do I now, understand why you would want to be in the business of evaluating teachers. Teachers are employed not by the State of New York, but by their locally elected school boards. I do not believe that our legislature has created systems to evaluate police officers, school superintendents, firefighters, the custodians who work in government offices, SUNY professors, or the men and women who take tolls on our bridges and tunnels. I suspect that you would recoil at the thought of legislating how every public servant is rated. And so you should. The good people of New York did not elect you for that purpose.I appreciate the position that the legislature was in several years ago. The New York State Education Department was attempting to secure Race to the Top funds at a time when our state revenues were low. Due to pressure from the governor, theAward-winning principal urges legislators to say ‘no’ to Gov. Cuomo - The Washington Post:
