Merryl Tisch Suggests Firing A Lot of Black and Hispanic Teachers
New York Regents Chancellor Dr. Merryl Tisch has been downplaying the potential negative consequences of sweeping changes to teacher tenure and evaluation in the new state budget. On April 1st, she commented that the new system does not specifically say that test scores make up 50% of teacher evaluations and suggested that concerns over the weight given to tests was overblown. Dr. Tisch is technically correct which, as we all know, is the best kind of correct. The new evaluation law does not say scores are 50% and it leaves various weighting decisions to the Regents and the NYSED. However, the scoring matrix, which is in the law, has two axes, one of which is for test scores. I can count really well up to two, and it is fairly obvious the tests, as one axis out of two, are 50% of the evaluation (not to mention that both axes determine the outcome in the matrix roughly equally).
Dr. Tisch was back in the press this morning, suggesting that she thinks the new evaluation system should potentially be lifted from districts that have had strong records of student achievement. The upshot is that if a district has high graduation and college acceptance rates and strong “college readiness” (aka test scores), they could be freed from state regulations and allowed to craft their own evaluation and accountability systems within certain parameters. Dr. Tisch suggested that such changes could come from the Commissioner’s regulatory power, but she would also consider asking legislators to make amendments to the newly passed system allowing these changes. In her view, such changes in favor of high performing districts would “…give them the respect that they deserve for the job that they do, and let us turn our attention, our scarce resources and our capacity to the districts that really need us in terms of access and opportunity for students.”
It would also mean many fewer African American and Latino teachers would ever get tenure and many more of them would be fired.
Now I am not suggesting that Chancellor Tisch actually hopes to do this, but there are consequences to not thinking things through in policy. Exempting districts with records of high achievement from the new evaluation requirements would place a significantly heavier burden on teachers of color and result in their removal at disproportionate percentages. The reason for this is fairly simple: just as our communities and schools are segregated by race and income, so are our teachers. In New York State, 9.8% of teachers are Hispanic and 8.6% are Merryl Tisch Suggests Firing A Lot of Black and Hispanic Teachers | Daniel Katz, Ph.D.: