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March 12, 2012

Principals ramp up evaluations protest with a lobbying effort

by Philissa Cramer, at 1:32 pm

Signing on to a petition wasn’t enough for some principals across the state who oppose the state’s impending teacher evaluation requirements.

The Long Island principals who launched a policy paper and signature drive against the teacher evaluation system last fall are ramping up their resistance with a lobbying effort. Bringing together colleagues from across the region, including from New York City, the principals plan to take out an ad in the Legislative Gazette, a small Albany publication, asking lawmakers to revise the framework that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has proposed for new teacher and principal evaluations.

The framework that Cuomo proposed was set with the support of the state’s main teachers union, NYSUT, but it doesn’t become law until legislators sign off on it when they set the new budget. That must happen by the end of this month, and until then, legislators could conceivably make revisions.

The principals have broad concerns about the educational value of the evaluation requirements, but they are limiting their ask to three main changes. They want lawmakers to shield teachers’ evaluations from being subject to transparency laws; revise the scoring ranges so teachers whose students do not make academic progress are not automatically rated ineffective; and institute a pilot period before the new system goes statewide.

“This new evaluation system is untested, and needs a pilot time period to try it out, before it is rolled out to every school in the state,” said Nate Dudley, principal of New York City’s Harbor School, in a press release the group distributed today. “The inaccuracies in the recently released city data reports make any new system suspect.”

State officials are already thinking about how to protect teacher ratings from being released through Freedom of Information Law requests, the tool that news organizations used to obtain numerical ratings New York City calculated for some of its teachers. Those ratings were published last month to wide criticism, both about the value of releasing the information and about the validity of the scores, which were subject to wide margins of error and other issues.

Getting legislators to agree to a pilot period and changes to scoring ranges could be tougher to achieve, especially because going to battle with Cuomo over the issues would requiring potentially jeopardizing the entire state budget. Cuomo has placed districts under the gun to put new evaluations in place by the 2012-2013 school year. Plus, state education officials characterized adjustments in the scoring criteria to ensure that teachers whose students make no progress cannot get a passing grade as a major win in the negotiations that culminated in the new framework last month.

More generally, lawmakers are likely to be reluctant about expending political capital on pushing back against a plan that won union approval, particularly as they are taking a stand against a different Cuomo education budget item, a plan to make districts compete for $200 million in state funds.

Today, the group of principals will be meeting on Long Island to plan their campaign. The lobbying effort marks a new phase for their protest, which has gathered support from more than a third of principals across the state and about 10 percent of city principals.

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  • JEFF S

    What a difference competence makes.  I am quite sure there are no Principals on Long Island similar to the large number of unqualified Principals we have had appointed in New York.  We have seen how little these unqualified Principals care about education and their students by how many have played the DOE’s game of working with them to close their schools, mark as many teachers as they can unsatisfactory and the like.  Reading the stuff here, it becomes more and more apparent how Klein, Black and Walcott have destroyed the schools by putting in place Principals, few of whom have paid their dues and know how to run a school.  It is one of the biggest disgraces of Emperor Michael I’s attempts to destroy the school system.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1219920997 Alex Messer

    This sounds like a great effort! Any educators and supporters who want to stop the unjust firing and public shaming of teachers can make their voices heard at:  http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-public-shaming-and-unjust-firing-of-teachers

  • Tiredofyou

    Jeff
    This crazy stuff is only happening in the city. In the suburbs the only worry is that this crazy evaluation system may impact the schools. Bloomberg had incompetent business people placed in schools to do his dirty work. He did this on purpose took away their tenure and made them dependent on tweed for their jobs. They are not allowed to think for themselves and they were placed there to do the bidding of their boss Bloomberg.
    Education in New York city under this administration will need 50 years to repair the damage done over the last ten years.

  • SickofBloomberg

    Sooo, Long Island principals are doing more to protect teacher’s interests across the state than NYSUT or the UFT?

  • Vote NO!

    ” Cuomo has placed districts under the gun to put new evaluations in
    place by the 2012-2013 school year. Plus, state education officials
    characterized adjustments in the scoring criteria to ensure that
    teachers whose students make no progress cannot get a passing grade as a
    major win in the negotiations that culminated in the new framework last
    month.

    If  they  don’t  change  the  bands,   (the  65  point  threshold  for  rising  above  Ineffective) and  the  automatic  “ineffective”  rating  for  student  achievement…Public  education  in  New  York  state  will  be  destroyed.  It’s  a fight  the  legislature  should  be  willing  to  take  on.

    The  Cuomo  rubric  is  not  an   fair  evaluation  rubric.  It  is  a” firing”  rubric.  It  will  not  help  the  schools,  but  harm  them  as  they  will  have  turnover  rates  which   will  make  it  impossible  to  establish  an  educational  environment   in a  school.

    It  may  have  been  a  “win  in  negotiations”  but  it  is  certainly  a  loss  for  the  students,  schools,  and  teachers.

  • Pricillad03

    And by the way, Bloomberg has secretly mentioned he is seeking to close over 100 schools next year.  This is a fact!

  • Vote NO!

     Where  did  you  get  this  information?

  • Marty

    Yes.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1219920997 Alex Messer

     Have you taken a moment to fill out our petition and help spread the word? http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-public-shaming-and-unjust-firing-of-teachers

  • nuff said

    he is not just going after NYC he is going after the whole system–read todays NY Times article on Obama /Bloomberg meeting(s)—he has everyone in his pocket from the top down–hey $100 million to get reelected to a job that pays $1/year-there is no end what he would spend to get his way–none

  • Guest

    First time I have heard that Pricillad03.  Can you mention where you heard this information or will you have to dispose of me if you tell? In all seriousness though, I ask this sincerely.  It is this type of information that many will take and run with causing even further paranoia and stress.

  • nuff said

    you might want to look at the prep they have made for transformation schools-they have said all personnel are in place and ready to restaff the schools and have ramped up their capabilities–100 schools would be low–think 150-180  . Remember this yeasrs closing count is 60 not 33. And with 2 DOE staffers and the Principal vs 2 UFT staffers the count will always be 3-2

  • kk, parent

    Sean Feeney, one of the L.I. principals, will be one of the panelists @High Stakes 101, an event organized by parents at PS29, the Brooklyn New School, and the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies. Other panelists are the DOE’s Shael Polakow-Suransky and Elijah Hawkins, former principal of James Baldwin. Education reporter Meredith Kolodner will moderate.  
    Please join us March 19 @ 6:30. Address and directions: http://carrollgardens.patch.com/events/high-stakes-testing-101

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1511673447 Daniel Barresi

    NYSUT may support this, but most of the teachers they represent do not.

  • Marie Mounteer

    I think it’s terrible that the union agreed to allow us to be rated ineffective overall if the tests don’t show growth. Power to those principals who are brave enough to take a stand against this ridiculously unfair rating system. 

    My friends and I created this petition to tell NYSUT and the UFT that we want them to be on our side too and fight against this evaluation system! Fight with us by signing it and passing it along!

    http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-the-public-shaming-and-unjust-firing-of-teachers

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