In “Cuomo Fights Rating System in Which Few Teachers Are Bad,” Kate Taylor writes:
SOUTHOLD, N.Y. — The teachers and administrators in this rural Long Island district do not mince words when asked about Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s proposal to tie teacher evaluations more closely to test scores.
“Disastrous,” said Ellen O’Neill, the principal of Southold Elementary School.
“It is headed in the wrong direction,” said David A. Gamberg, her superintendent.
They are hardly alone. Around the state, administrators, teachers and parents have been protesting the governor’s proposals, which would both increase the weight of test scores, to 50 percent of a teacher’s rating, and decrease the role of their principals’ observations.
But this school district, set amid the vineyards and farms of the North Fork, provides a vivid demonstration of what Mr. Cuomo contends is not working about the current evaluation system.
Southold’s students did slightly better than the average student statewide on the tests last year. Thirty-five percent passed the reading test, and 39 percent passed the math test. Despite this middling performance, every one of the district’s 82 teachers received a rating of either effective or highly effective. Not one was rated “developing” or ineffective, the two lowest ratings on the scale.
In this, too, Southold is not alone. Nearly 70 districts in Westchester County and on Long Island did not have a single teacher who was developing or ineffective. In some districts, as many as 96 percent of teachers received the top rating. Around the state, less than 1 percent of teachers were rated ineffective.
To Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, that result simply defies belief.
“In New York last year, about 99 percent of the teachers were rated effective while only 38 percent of high school graduates are ready for college or careers,” he wrote in an op-ed article in Newsday this month. “How can that be?” (During his State of the State address, he was even more blunt, calling it “baloney.”)
The governor’s proposal, which is strongly opposed by the state’s teachers’ unions, would reduce the weight of principals’ observations to just 15 percent of a rating. The judgment of an independent evaluator from outside the school would make up 35 percent. Fifty percent would be based on how much students improved, or slipped, on state exams; alternative measures would be used for teachers whose subjects do not include state exams, like art and physical education.
Students: Read the entire article, then tell us …
— What makes a good teacher?
— What are a teacher’s most important qualities? Knowledge of the subject matter? Presentation style? Classroom activities and assignments? The ability to connect with students? Or something else?
— What are the best ways for a community to identify which teachers are doing well and which ones are struggling? Are student test scores a good indicator? What about observing the teacher teaching in class? Should students evaluate their teachers? Or is there another way?