Planning To Succeed

As of the 2012/13 school year, New York State had 4, 822 public schools operating within 950 districts that utilized 207,060 teachers for 2, 710,703 students (source: Ballotpedia, figures given are the most recent as of June 2015). Of this amount, 73,373 teachers and 1.1 million students were in New York City during the 2011/12 school year (source: New York City Independent Budget Office Schools Brief, May 2014).

New York City still wrestles with the questions: Is it that Latoya cannot spell or is it that Latoya’s mother works two jobs and isn’t going to Parent Night? Or is it that Mrs. Franken has not set up a print-rich environment? Or is it that Mr. Dixon, the Principal is not even observing the classrooms in his building at least two times a week? The Board of Regents for NYS Department of Education ponders these scenarios and develops models of teaching and administration assessment.

The current assessment is the Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) for use during the 2015/16 through 2018/19 school terms. There is a moratorium on using standardized tests for teacher evaluations during this period. The APPR involves external and internal professionals observing classroom teachers and principals in elementary schools, middle schools and high schools. The educators use a four-scale rating system where the teachers and principals are deemed either:

Highly Effective (H):  90 -100% of students meet or exceed Student Learning Objectives

Effective (E): 75 – 89 % of students meets or exceeds Student Learning Objectives

Developing (D): 60 – 74% of students meets or exceeds Student Learning Objectives

Ineffective (I): 0 - 59% of students meet or exceed Student Learning Objectives

The external professionals are trained Independent Evaluators. The internal professionals are district superintendents or other administrators that assess the principals. There is the option of using trained peer principals. Each school’s principal or other trained administrator assesses the classroom teachers. There is the option to use trained peer educators.

Late December 2016, NYC Education Chancellor Carmen Farina, Council of School Supervisors and Administrators President Ernest Logan, and United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew agreed that the best interest of the New York City public school system is best served by submitting an Independent Evaluator Hardship Waiver due to financial hardship. The waiver looks innocuous. It requires giving the school district’s name, school district’s BEDS code, marking “Yes’ or “No” to Rural District and Single Building District, and then giving a substantive response to “Please describe the size and/or resource constraints that are preventing your district from obtaining an independent evaluator within a reasonable proximity without an undue burden:”

Dr. Sam Anderson, an education activist and Lurie Daniel Favors, General Counsel for the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College were invited to offer their insights on the current version of principal and classroom teacher evaluation. Dr. Anderson believes independent evaluators will be better than the school principals doing so. In fact, he “would go a step further and have a panel of teacher peers, students, and parents do the teacher evaluations.” When asked what work products ought to be used to assess school teachers, he responding more so to the expression ‘work product’: “First, I don’t accept the corporate phrase, ‘work products’. Our children and educators are not products. Education is not a product like a new phone or new app. Teachers are supposed to develop a child's whole intellect to their fullest capability-- not ‘produce’ a loyal test-taking machine being molded for anti-critical thinking for the profit sake of Global Capitalism.”

“The UFT and the CSA have become fully incorporated into the privatizing process of public education. In addition, these two organizations have implicitly and explicitly embraced the school-to-prison pipeline model of education for Black and Latino children. Within this acceptance, they have either embraced or ignored the reality of the disappearing Black and Latino educators. This racist acceptance is a necessary part of the mechanism of privatization and is being replicated all across the US” was his concluding remark.

Lurie Daniel-Favors, Esq. contends [the school teachers] “ought to be assessed on performance but instead, they are looking at tests which are racially skewed. Rather than standardized tests, the students’ portfolios ought to be evaluated. The portfolios contain classroom exercises, student projects, class examinations and quizzes.

Given the three-year moratorium on using standardized tests for teacher evaluations, Daniel-Favors’ contends “The tests are racially skewed and they are not a predictor of success beyond the test. They don’t predict the capacity for brilliance. “Standardized tests are flawed, reductive approaches to assessing intelligence.”

“Tests are great for students who have access to test preparation programs. Children demonstrate their intelligence in different ways. There is art and poetry, building and construction, and the sciences. “If we’re moving away from exams to evaluate teachers, then move away from them for the students” are Daniel-Favors other thoughts on the value of standardized tests.

Daniel-Favors’ position on independent evaluators intersects Anderson’s: “The value of the independent evaluator is having a neutral party who has distance from the school. This distance permits not being swayed by interpersonal relationships within the school. This distance has its positives and negatives in that the independent evaluator does not know the school culture, kinship networks, nor has sufficient background knowledge about the culture of learning in that school. The independent evaluator can give the hard facts but is unable to develop a holistic picture of the learning experience in the building.”

Neither Daniel-Favors nor Anderson know the source for the independent evaluators. The nonprofit TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project) explains in a May 13, 2015 memo to the NYS Education Department’s acting Commissioner the recruiting and hiring of trained Independent Evaluators is the district’s responsibility. TNTP is based in downtown Brooklyn and provides teacher professional development to schools and districts in the United States. Its clientele includes New York City. “With average caseloads of 100 teachers, most commonly, it is a full-time position held by former teachers or current teachers who are taking a temporary leaves of absence. Most districts use Independent Evaluators who had been rated Highly Effective (H) or Effective (E) when they worked as classroom teachers. TNTP suggests that the salary for these personnel be at least equivalent to the teachers’ current position and at the end of the hiring process, the prospective Independent Evaluators undergo another rating wherein those that are judged H and E are offered the job.”

On December 21, 2016, Chancellor Carmen Farina for the NYC Education Department issued a lengthy press release explaining the hardship waiver application to be submitted by December 31, 2016, new assessments for Measures of Student Learning (teacher observations) and Measures of Leadership Practice (principal observations) rubric. A subsequent press release on the matter has not been publicized as of January 25, 2017.

New York City is not alone in expressing its challenge in fulfilling the APPR mandate. NYS Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia said on June 14, 2016, “It is not just New York City. Across the state school districts are voicing concerns.” The concerns come from the prospect of hiring a large number of teachers to observe other teachers.