GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

• The High School of Fashion Industries is mourning a principal who retired 21 years ago. (Facebook)
• Minnesota took a legislative step toward jettisoning seniority-based layoffs today. (Star-Tribune)
• A Newark-based charter school wants to open the second school on Governor’s Island. (DNA Info)
• Of 839 questions asked in 20 Republican debates this year, 12 were about education. (Guardian UK)
• An argument that even liberal homeschooling is actually pretty conservative, values-wise. (Slate)
• A teacher who taught South Bronx students to farm is taking his show on the road. (Metrofocus)
• A story of last week’s PEP meeting from the perspective of two teachers who Occupied it. (Indypendent)
• A program to prep low-income students for specialized high schools is opening wider. (Insideschools)
• A judge gave churches set to be evicted from city school buildings a 10-day reprieve. (SchoolBook)
• Inspired by Tim Tebow, an exploration of homeschoolers’ rights to school sports. (School of Thought)
• A request: If newspapers print teachers’ ratings, they should print the margins of error, too. (Shanker)
• In the third school arrest this week, A Queens teacher was charged with molesting students. (City Room)

Today’s agreement on teacher evaluation appeals wasn’t a complete loss for the union – just 87 percent of one.

When talks over an evaluation system broke down last year, the conflict centered on who should have the final say on teachers rated ‘ineffective’ under the new evaluation system. The city wanted all appeals to be decided by the chancellor, while the union wanted an independent third party to make the final call.

The subsequent deal that was struck as part of today’s statewide teacher evaluations on paper appears to favor the city. Eighty-seven percent of first-year ineffective rating appeals will still be heard by the chancellor. Second-year ineffective ratings will go straight to a 3020-a termination process that takes into account, but does not depend on, a third-party reviewer’s assessment of a teacher’s quality.

The fact that the union managed to salvage a sliver of its demand – getting the city to agree to refer 13 percent of ratings to a third party – is a small win. Bloomberg and the Department of Education initially walked away from the negotiating table in late December and refused to return until the union gave in to all of their demands. (more…)

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan praised the agreement between the State Education Department and NYSUT.

Just hours after Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a deal about the structure of a new teacher evaluation system, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said he was no longer concerned about the state’s eligibility for federal Race to the Top funds.

New York won $700 million in Race to the Top funds in large part by agreeing to adopt a new teacher evaluation system. But after passing an evaluation law in the spring of 2010, implementation was slow, and relations between the state and its teachers union, NYSUT, had deteriorated over the implementation.

Last month, charging that the state was “backtracking on reform commitments,” Duncan warned that New York was at risk of losing its Race to the Top funds.

Today, Duncan said he was no longer worried. He struck a tone of unreserved optimism this afternoon while speaking to reporters on a Midtown sidewalk as he dashed between a meeting with the New York Times editorial board and a taping of the Daily Show.

“This was a major roadblock, a major stumbling block, and I think they are over that in a great way,” he said. There’s a whole body of work going forward that New York has to do, but this was a major issue, a major concern of ours and I think they’ve addressed it in an extraordinary way.” (more…)

Teachers can expect unannounced observations to factor into their annual ratings under the terms of the evaluations agreement that Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced today.

The unannounced observations are one of several ways that the State Education Department and state teachers union, NYSUT, agreed to flesh out the state’s 2010 evaluation law, seen as so open-ended as to stymie implementation.

The agreement, which Cuomo is set to turn into law through the state budget amendment process, resolves some major points of contention while continuing to leave many elements of districts’ evaluation system subject to local collective bargaining. Districts and their unions have until the end of 2012 to turn the framework into a local evaluation system, or risk losing state aid.

The framework hews to the broad contours of the 2010 teacher evaluation law: 20 percent of ratings will be based on a calculation of student growth based on state test scores; 20 percent will be based on other assessments that are decided locally; and 60 percent will come from subjective measures such as observations, also decided upon locally. Teachers will still receive a score between 0 and 100 and a rating ranging from “ineffective” to “highly effective.” But there are new constraints.

In a major win for the state, teachers whose students show no academic growth will get an “ineffective” rating, even if the rest of their evaluation is strong. The evaluation law had not provided for such a circumstance. (more…)

We’re still piecing together what Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s teacher evaluations announcement today means for the state — and, even more bafflingly, just what the city and United Federation of Teachers have agreed to.

But the complex nature of today’s announcement hasn’t stopped education stakeholders from around the state from sounding off about it. We’ve compiled reactions to Cuomo’s announcement from unbridled exuberance to measured optimism to — in the case of the UFT President Michael Mulgrew — cynicism about what is likely to come next.

From Dick Iannuzzi, head of New York State United Teachers, which agreed on a new evaluations framework with the state:

Teachers support high standards and accountability for our profession. We believe today’s agreement is good for students and fair to teachers. It includes two principles we believe are essential. First, a child is more than a standardized test score. While there is a place for standardized testing in measuring teacher effectiveness, tests must be used appropriately. Secondly, the purpose of evaluations must be to help all teachers improve and to advance excellence in our profession. This agreement acknowledges those key principles. The settlement also reinforces how important it is for teachers to have a voice in establishing standards of professional effectiveness and in developing evaluations that meet the needs of local communities.

From State Education Commissioner John King:

The goal is and always has been to help students – to give them every opportunity to succeed in college and careers. To make that happen, we need to improve teaching and learning. We owe it to our students to make sure every classroom is led by an effective teacher and every school is led by an effective principal. Today, the Governor’s leadership and his commitment to our students have helped us take a strong step toward that goal.

From UFT President Michael Mulgrew:

The UFT and the Governor have reached an agreement on an appeal process for New York City teachers that includes the kind of independent, third party component that the UFT has been seeking.

The appeal process will not go into effect unless and until Mayor Bloomberg negotiates agreements with the UFT for an overall teacher evaluation deal or for schools eligible for School Improvement Grants (SIGs). (more…)

Today’s evaluations announcement would appear to eliminate the main reason for the city’s controversial plan to “turn around” 33 struggling schools. But Mayor Bloomberg said the city would move forward with the plans anyway.

Bloomberg proposed turnaround, which would require the schools to close and reopen with new names and many new teachers, last month as a way to circumvent a requirement that the city negotiate an evaluation deal for teachers in those schools. Now, having resolved a sticking point in those negotiations resolved — the appeals process for teachers who receive low ratings — the city could conceivably appeal to the state to let it continue receiving federal funds to implement improvement strategies that had been underway there until the evaluations negotiations broke down in December.

But Bloomberg — who did not join state and union officials announcing the evaluations deal in Albany today — said during a press conference at City Hall that he would not be backing down from the turnaround plans.

“Nothing in the deal prevents us from moving forward with our plan to replace the lowest performing teachers in 33 of our most troubling schools,” he said.

Bloomberg said the aggressive overhaul strategy was necessary because no teachers would be removed from schools because of low scores on the new evaluations for at least a year and a half. (more…)

A compromise between the state and its main teachers union will refine the state’s teacher evaluation law and make it easier for local districts to implement new evaluations, Gov. Cuomo announced today.

Cuomo had said that he would impose a new evaluation system if a deal did not come by today.

The announcement suggested that some of the most pressing issues at the state level had been resolved but that significant questions remained wide open here in New York City. The city and UFT have settled at least part of their dispute about appeals for teachers with low ratings but have not actually agreed on a new evaluations system.

Cuomo announced the deal during a a press conference in Albany, where he was joined by State Education Commissioner John King, NYSUT President Dick Iannuzzi, and UFT President Michael Mulgrew — but no officials from New York City. Mayor Bloomberg is holding a press conference at City Hall this afternoon to discuss the deal.

We’ll have more details about the content of the agreement, which is a statewide framework that would tweak the state’s 2010 evaluation law, later today. Cuomo will be submitting bills today to formalize the agreement through the budget amendment process. (more…)

Live from Albany, it’s Gov. Andrew Cuomo and representatives of New York State United Teachers, as they announce a deal over new teacher evaluations.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew will also be at the event, signaling that the city and UFT have also moved forward in their talks, which broke down late last year over the issue of appeals for teachers with low ratings.

The Daily News is reporting that the city and union have settled on an appeals system that will be modeled after New Haven’s — a city whose union New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof touted today in a column.

But a spokesman for the union just cautioned me in an email: “State deal done; UFT more complicated.” More soon.

City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez speaks to a crowd of Washington Heights parents about college readiness Wednesday evening.

A Washington Heights politician who has been trying to get local parents talking about college readiness might have bitten off more than he can chew.

City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez has adopted a novel response to the daunting statistic that only about 13 percent of the city’s African American and Latino students are graduating from high school prepared for college: He has put together a working group of principals to get families talking about the path to college starting in kindergarten.

But at a forum Wednesday evening at I.S. 143, the first public event to come out of the working group’s suggestions, parents among the audience of 60 families, educators, and elected officials spoke mostly about more immediate concerns.

Most of the parents who spoke during the question and answer session prefaced their questions about college readiness with complaints about high class sizes and administrative problems at their schools, which drew the meeting off topic.

“There are 35 kids in our classroom and only one teacher,” one mother said. “What are the things we can do about that?” (more…)

All eyes are on Albany today, the deadline Gov. Andrew Cuomo set last month for an agreement on new teacher evaluations.

The deadline is for the state teachers union, NYSUT, to set aside its lawsuit over the evaluations and reach an agreement with the State Education Department over how new evaluations should be structured.

The word on the street — and in the Capitol parking lot, which Cuomo exited early Wednesday — is that SED and NYSUT appear nearly assured of meeting that deadline. But the specifics of an agreement remain opaque. Last spring, NYSUT had sued over Cuomo’s bid to increase the weight test scores play in the evaluations.

Now, attention among the governor’s staff has turned to the city’s own evaluations impasse. Just a month ago, Cuomo gave the city a year to resolve its conflicts, which have focused on the appeals process for teachers who receive low ratings. But he seems eager to be able to announce a statewide sweep of teacher evaluation deals.

Whether a sweep is in Cuomo’s grasp remains unclear. (more…)