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MARGIN NOTES
November 23, 2009
Citing tenure law, New York barred from Gates Foundation help (updated)
A reader points us to another sign that New York’s teacher tenure law might hurt the state’s Race to the Top chances: In a memo released in September, the Gates Foundation removed New York from a list of states able to receive help building its application.
The memo specifically named the tenure law, which bans school districts from using student data as a factor in teacher tenure decisions, as the reason New York was struck from the list.
The foundation had vowed in August to give 15 states $250,000 each to hire consultants to help with applications, and New York was on the official list. But when the foundation extended its offer of aid to any state meeting its criteria, Gates director of education Vicki Phillips said New York would no longer be eligible until it makes “explicit progress on…removing barriers to linking student and teacher data.”
UPDATE: Christopher Williams, spokesman for the Gates Foundation, told me Phillips’ memo referred to New York’s chances at future foundation initiatives. “It means we probably won’t be making a lot of grants unless the law is changed,” he said. But the foundation is not cutting the state off from the aid it is receiving to help build its Race the Top application, he said.
State education officials have insisted that state law is not a barrier to matching teachers to student test scores. “We evaluate teachers on the basis of student achievement every year in New York,” Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch told me in an interview earlier this month.
The memo was first reported by Michele McNeil at EdWeek’s Politics K-12 blog.
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November 23rd, 2009 7:58 pm
I dont get it; didn’t the Gates foundation just give a big grant to NY’s teacher evaluation project? What are they doing, just trying to throw their weight around?
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November 23rd, 2009 8:26 pm
All I can say when i read this is good for the tenure law.. Anything that gets in the way of that blood money coming here is fine with me. This is an usurpation of power by the federal gov’t which has no right to mandate education since it is a power that goes to the states under the constitution.I know we set precedent for this type of power grab when the government basically did the same thing with the highways but driving and education are two entirely different things.
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November 23rd, 2009 9:14 pm
Strong arming by out of state interest and the federal government in userpation of local interested to push for an entirely unproven and unsubstantiated change to one the the core elements of our system of schooling?
Wow. Wonderful. Thank god for Bill Gates and everything he touches.
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November 24th, 2009 8:05 am
The law at issue states;
a. evaluation of the extent to which the teacher successfully utilized
analysis of available student performance data and other relevant infor-
mation when providing instruction but the teacher shall not be granted
or denied tenure based on student performance data;
b. peer review by other teachers, as far as practicable; and
c. an assessment of the teacher’s performance by the teacher’s build-
ing principal or other building administrator in charge of the school or
program.
What concerns me is the lack of a defense for what I consider a reasonable safeguard against mindless dependence on test scroes.
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