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December 1, 2009
Conflict could exclude this year’s tests from tenure decisions
A schedule conflict could mean that students’ scores on this year’s state standardized tests may not play a role in whether their teachers get tenure. Nevertheless, if the city does use the scores, it could land in court with the union on the other side.
Citing a loophole in state law, Mayor Bloomberg ordered the city’s Department of Education last week to begin using students’ test scores in tenure decisions this year. But the results of this year’s state math and English tests will not be available until after the deadline for submitting tenure decisions has passed.
The state changed its timeline for administering math and English exams this year, pushing both exams to the spring. Previously, they were given in January and March. Though principals have to make decisions about whether to grant teachers tenure by May 1, this year’s tests will not even finish going through the scoring process until weeks after that deadline.
This schedule conflict could leave principals to make tenure decisions using two years of test scores rather than three, and those could be two easier years. Chancellor of the Board of Regents Merryl Tisch has said that this year’s tests will be “less predictable” than in previous years.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Education, Ann Forte, said officials were still discussing how student test scores would be used in tenure decisions and did not know whether this year’s test scores could be used.
Of the approximately 7,500 teachers who will be eligible for tenure this year, the majority will be unaffected by the schedule conflict as only students in grades three through eight take the state’s annual math and English exams.
A spokesman for the teachers union, which vigorously opposes the use of test scores in tenure decisions, agreed it’s unlikely that test scores will be used to judge teachers this year, but vowed to fight the city in court if scores are used.
Even if the city extends the deadline for principals to make tenure decisions, teachers have to receive performance reviews, which include tenure decisions, by the end of the school year in June. If this year’s standardized test scores are published over the summer, as they typically are, and principals decide to reverse certain tenure decisions in light of those scores, the union would likely challenge those reversals in court, the official said.
The principal of M.S. 324, Janet Heller, said not having the results of the most recent state tests would not affect how she makes tenure decisions this year, as she assesses teachers throughout the year based on how they respond to students’ scores on interim tests.
“I don’t wait until the end of the year to determine a teacher’s effectiveness. By then it would be too late,” she said.
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December 2nd, 2009 8:52 pm
My name is Bryan Johnston and I am a high school teacher in southern Westchester County. I would like to comment on the idea of standardized tests and their use in determining tenure in NYC schools. The whole idea of high stakes testing in my opinion runs contrary to good teaching practices. And when these high stakes test scores are used to determine tenure I believe that that will bring out the worst in teaching practices.
I feel that when the main goal of a class is to have the students pass a standardized test at the end of the year than mostly what the students learn will be test taking skills. Students will be taught facts, names and dates. They will be taught little tricks to help them remember specific answers and they will be taught by rote learning. None of these things will help a student to truly understand the topic. At the best students will leave the class with a very basic knowledge of the subject and in the worst case the students will forget everything they crammed in to their heads for the test in a couple of weeks. All of this runs contrary to the belief that students need to be able to think critically and be able synthesize what they learn now with subjects they take in the future. When we teach to the test each piece of information comes to the student in a vacuum, completely isolated from other facts that if taught in a holistic way can give the students the kind of big picture understanding everyone says they want them to have.
If we tie the students test scores to tenure or merit pay then teachers, out of self preservation, will be forced to teach to the test. There job will change from being someone who helps students achieve understanding to someone who simply pushes information and students through the system. I also believe that if tenure is tied to test scores that we will begin to see test score inflation, cheating, and the dumbing down of the tests themselves. All of this will be done in the name of self preservation but in the end it will be the students who suffer as they will be unprepared for college and the workforce.
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