ASSEMBLY BILL ON TEACHER EVALUATIONS COULD LEAD TO EVEN MORE TESTING

The Board of Regents discussed the recently passed Assembly bill that would replace the state exams with new assessments for teacher evaluations. (You can read the text of the bill here; the same bill is now in the Senate.)

This is from Newsday:

ALBANY — A drive to repeal New York’s legal requirement basing teacher job ratings largely on students’ state tests scores ignited debate Monday over the question of whether repeal could mean “double testing” for students.

Links between student testing and teachers’ job evaluations are an explosive issue on Long Island, where tens of thousands of students in grades 3-8 boycotted English and math tests in recent weeks.

At Monday’s meeting of the state Board of Regents, Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia and her staff reiterated a point they have advanced over the past week — that bipartisan repeal legislation recently approved by the Democratic-controlled state Assembly could have the unintended result of generating more tests.

Further down in the artice:
Alex Trikalinos, executive director of the state’s Office of Educator Quality & Professional Development, said at the meeting that, under the repeal bill, school districts could find themselves in a situation where “students would essentially be double tested.” 

And even further down in the article:

The repeal bill would make school districts’ use of state assessments in evaluating teachers and principals optional rather than mandatory, and would allow districts to use alternative exams of their own choosing, provided such tests were approved by the commissioner.

Districts would be required to negotiate the choice of tests with unions representing teachers and principals.

Elia and her aides noted that federal law requires state tests to be administered to students annually, regardless of whether assessments are also used in rating job performance of school employees. Should a large share of the state’s 600-plus school districts choose to use alternative exams, the commissioner and her department would face a massive task in screening such tests. 

NYSUT disputes this but if there has to be an assessment involved in rating teachers, then someone has to make up the assessment and someone has to grade it. The potential for abuse in NYC on new assessments is huge. This bill will not help students as it is just taking more time away from teaching so we can create even more assessments that the state would have to approve.

This blog has been clear that the bill is inadequate.

We need a total repeal of the teacher evaluation laws and a return to Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory evaluations where student test results on any assessments have nothing to do with educator ratings and the Danielson Framework is eliminated for observations.

Please join us in spreading our petition which has slowly but surely gained over 1,000 signatures. If teachers and others know what we are asking for, we will get support.

Keep pushing folks.