Photo Courtesy Stock XChange
By Omar Lopez, DFER Policy Analyst
It may be common sense that a good teacher can have a positive effect on his or her students’ lives, but systematic support of teachers by evaluating their performance has faced opposition. However, a new study that tracked 2.5 million students over 20 years found that students who are assigned effective teachers “are more likely to attend college, earn higher salaries, live in better neighborhoods, save more for retirement….and are also less likely to have children as teenagers.” This is the latest evidence supporting the argument that better evaluations will make better teachers and, most importantly, benefit students in the short and long term.
Unfortunately, the implementation of a much needed teacher evaluation system and 60 million dollars that were going to the neediest schools in the city now hang in the balance because negotiations between the United Federation of Teachers and the NYC Department of Education have broken down.
An education reform coalition has already drafted a letter urging Governor Cuomo to back teacher evaluations to secure New York’s Race to the Top funding. They also suggest a back-stop measure that requires districts to develop teacher evaluation plans by August 31, 2012 to avoid repeat impasses.
The window of opportunity for NYC is still open, but it won’t be forever. There are at least three stakeholders that need to make the right moves in order for the negotiation to be successful and the money to end up in needy classrooms, where it belongs.
Setting the Stage
New York City’s teacher contract (which expired two years ago) evaluates teachers on only two levels: satisfactory or unsatisfactory. The new evaluation system would double the ratings categories to include: highly effective, effective, developing, or ineffective. The evaluations would then be used to support teachers in their practice, determining their tenure and transitioning them out of teaching if they are found ineffective.
New York State was able to acquire much-needed additional Federal funds through a School Improvement Grant (SIG) to turn around the lowest-performing schools in ten districts by promising to adopt a new teacher evaluation program as part of its Race to the Top application.