| The state is currently at an impasse. The federal government is threatening to withhold some $1 billion dollars in education aid if the stakeholders in New York do not agree on a teacher evaluation system. The best option for students and teachers would be to agree on a fair evaluation system in the near future to avoid losing that money, and more importantly, ensure that every student has quality teachers and a good education.
The current impasse is pretty much the same one that has bedeviled education reform efforts for decades. Governor Cuomo wants teachers to be rated on their students' standardized test scores, and the NY State Teachers Union (NYSUT) is rejecting that as arbitrary and unfair.
The Governor is correct to demand some type of accountability for teachers. Is is virtually impossible to fire incompetent teachers in New York, as a successful dismissal can cost taxpayers up to $250,000. Rather than protecting this ridiculous state of affairs, NYSUT should be working in good faith to create a decent evaluation system. A recent poll found that "Forty-seven percent of respondents said they thought unions have hurt 'the quality of public school education in the United states'", despite that 75% of respondents in the same poll "had tust and confidence in public school teachers." Fairly or not, teachers unions have lost in the court of public opinion and this is a serious development for a group who rely on taxpayer money to pay their salaries and benefits. It is in the unions' best interests to not be perceived, as they often correctly are, as protecting the worst teachers; especially if they want to be taken seriously when they are on the right side of other issues like demanding higher salaries and smaller class sizes. They would be wise to pick their fights more prudently.
However, NYSUT is also correct to be critical of standardized-test-based evaluations. Whatever their merit may be, having test-based evaluations for individual teachers is a bad idea because it ends up making teachers "teach to the test" and waste valuable class time doing so instead of actually teaching. So how can both of these sides be reconciled in a way that gets NY the federal money it needs and also created a fair evaluation system where the worst teachers are no longer immune to any accountability?
Here's my idea:
* Individual teachers should not be evaluated using standardized tests. They should be evaluated by a simple questionnaire that is asks a handful of questions about their effectiveness with a numerical rating system. This questionnaire should be submitted separately by all of each teacher's students, the parents of those students, and the principals in their schools. Any teacher who falls into the bottom 15 or 20% of each of the student, parent, and principal evaluations (thus, being not in the bottom 15 or 20% of only one of the evaluations will preclude a teacher from being fired) for 2 consecutive years will be fired.
* Individual teachers who are in the top 15 or 20% of each evaluation should get a significant bonus, like $20,000 per year.
* Principals should be subject to the same evaluation system, except they are rated by students, parents and teachers.
* And finally schools as a whole, but not individual teachers, should be evaluated on a variety of metrics that include standardized tests, but also graduation rates and post-graduation employment and higher education attainment statistics. Schools in the bottom 5% of those evaluations for a certain amount of consecutive years without showing improvement should be shut down.
I believe this idea is the most fair to all parties involved and will create an effective teacher evaluation system without a lot of red tape and standardized tests and I hope the two sides actually implement something along these lines. What do you think? |
