GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Eye on Education

February 15, 2013

Just How Many Ineffective Teachers Are There In NYC?

by Aaron Pallas, at 2:12 pm

How many New York City public schoolteachers are so incompetent that they should be fired? That’s the $250 million question that must be addressed by both sides wrangling over what kind of teacher-evaluation system the city is going to build.

For months now, despite a state mandate to build such a system, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the city’s Department of Education have been locked in a stalemate with the United Federation of Teachers over the terms of a teacher-evaluation process that, by law, must be agreed to via local collective bargaining.

The parties have already missed a Jan. 17 deadline set by the governor, sacrificing a 4 percent increase in state aid for education to the city. But the governor and other state officials should have known that punishing the city and its children by withholding this aid — and future funds as well — would be both bad public policy and an ineffective strategy to force an agreement.

This dispute is about principles that each side believes to be far more important than the money at stake, and at the heart of the disagreement is just how many teachers we’re talking about calling incompetent — and therefore unsuited to educating our kids.

The mayor’s stance is clear: there are good teachers and bad teachers in New York City, and a teacher-evaluation system must be able to identify and fire consistent low-performers. Their replacements are likely to be better teachers, and children’s achievement will increase as a result. If these new teachers have lower salaries than the ones they are replacing, so much the better.

Published reports suggest that Mayor Bloomberg quashed a tentative agreement between the Department of Education and the union due to a “sunset” clause providing that the agreement would be in force for two years and then be renegotiated. Indignant, the mayor said that any agreement that would end before the completion of a process to remove a teacher rated “ineffective” in two consecutive years was a sham. If the agreement would expire before any teacher had been fired for cause, he argued, it was worthless.

The union’s stance is equally clear: A teacher-evaluation system must be fair to teachers, providing an accurate picture of their performance and an opportunity to improve if their performance is not up to snuff.

The issue of accuracy is a serious bugaboo: Estimates of teachers’ contributions to student learning, whether in the form of value-added measures or growth percentile scores, are imprecise, and, if they fail to take account of factors beyond a teacher’s control, unfair. Moreover, many teachers fear that an unscrupulous or incompetent principal will rate a teacher unfairly when observing him or her in the classroom. The union thus seeks to build procedural safeguards into the evaluation system to minimize the risk that a teacher will be unjustly identified as ineffective, and subsequently terminated.

Lost in this clash of principles — efficiency vs. fairness — is the question of just how many teachers ought to be judged ineffective and fired.

Is it 2 percent? Five percent? Twenty percent?

If you believe our schools are failing kids across the board, you’d likely set the number high, citing the very low number currently fired as utterly unacceptable. But if you’re a parent, typically satisfied with your child’s own school and teacher, you’re likely to set the number low. If you’re Mayor Bloomberg, you might covet the flexibility and cost savings that would come with dismissing a large number of highly paid teachers and replacing them with malleable and cheaper novices. And if you’re the teachers union, your legitimacy is in the hands of your members, none of whom wants to be fired, especially for reasons they deem unfair.

The truth is that, no matter how much we try to craft teacher-evaluation systems that are fair and impartial, the question of how many teachers should be rated “ineffective” and dismissed is still a value judgment. And that fact reveals just how arbitrary the new world of rating teachers can be.

A little over a year ago, Bloomberg told a group of students at M.I.T. that given the opportunity, he’d fire half of New York City’s teachers and double the compensation and class sizes of the remaining “good” ones. That’s a lot more than the 18 percent that a Department of Education official said an evaluation system piloted at 20 New York City schools identified as “ineffective.” (The department later said that number was actually 10 percent.)

But 18 percent is a big number, too. In Washington, D.C., which has pioneered an evaluation system similar to the one New York City might adopt, two percent of teachers are rated “ineffective,” and an additional 14 percent are rated “minimally effective”—but two consecutive ratings of “minimally effective” can result in termination.

In New Haven, Conn., which also uses a system similar to what’s being developed in New York, 10 percent of teachers received ratings of “needs improvement” or “developing,” the two lowest categories in a five-category evaluation system. Hillsborough, Fla., the nation’s eighth-largest school system, initially proposed that at least 5 percent of tenured teachers would be dismissed each year for poor performance under its new teacher-evaluation system. But with experience, the district has determined that only about 1.5 percent of teachers are unsatisfactory, and another two or three percent receive a rating of “needs improvement.”

Are we really to believe that the quality of teachers varies so dramatically across districts and over time? It’s far more likely that these figures reflect local values and priorities. And this is the heart of the New York City dispute. Mayor Bloomberg prizes efficiency and believes that the discretion to fire a large number of teachers is essential. The UFT champions fairness and due process, asserting that teachers who’ve been awarded tenure by the city have demonstrated their effectiveness, and that very, very few have received unsatisfactory evaluations from their principals. The values conflict boils down to a big number versus a small number.

As Bloomberg’s tenure as mayor winds down, he’ll seek to cement his legacy, with education as a signature issue. An evaluation deal that is too easily undone will tarnish that legacy. Conversely, the UFT, aware of the mayor’s disdain for the teachers of New York City, is content to wait him out, betting that a new mayor will be more favorably inclined toward teacher evaluation, and perhaps working conditions and compensation as well.

Neither side is likely to agree to an evaluation system that gives the other party too much control over who gets fired. Perhaps the current standoff wouldn’t be intractable if the two sides could at least agree on some bounds for the number of teachers who will be judged “ineffective” and subject to termination. But what’s the magic number?

Print Print
  • http://twitter.com/leoniehaimson leonie haimson

    you write: “If you believe our schools are failing across the board, you’d likely set the number high (of teachers to be fired), citing the low number currently fired as utterly unacceptable.”

    Quite to the contrary. If you believe schools are failing across the board, one might recognize that there was something wrong with the systemic features that teachers and students faced, rather than with the particular individuals involved that could be simply remedied by firing 5 or ten or even 20 percent of teachers. One might instead posit that there was something wrong with management or the way the system as a whole was constructed.

  • http://nyceducator.com/ NYC Educator

    Also, if you looked at so-called failing schools and
    noticed that poverty was a factor in each and every one, you might look
    at the the root causes and determine it was not, in fact, the teachers. In fact, there is a very high correlation with poverty and so-called failing schools. Firing the teachers and closing the schools does not seem to change the ever-vital test scores, as Bloomberg’s fake NY miracle, the one that helped him purchase term three, seemed to establish.

  • Queens Teacher

    The only thing Bloomberg wants is to replace every “expensive” teacher with a young, cheap one – a teacher that will be too scared, too uninformed to advocate for themsleves let alone their students

  • guest

    The issue is nothing to do with how many ineffective teachers there are. It is problem that we have a system in which teachers have a right to decide to work hard or not… and that ultimately creates a culture of mediocre results and failure.

  • Pogue

    You should do stand-up comedy.

  • http://www.facebook.com/buddy.figliuzzi Buddy Figliuzzi

    Mayor Bloomberg is beating a dead horse issue. The percentage of poor performing teachers is much less today than when the Mayor took full control over the system over a decade ago. In addition, the Mayor has been responsible for the hiring (under his full control) for the past ten years. Under the Mayor’s administration more than half of all teachers in the system were hired under the Mayor Bloomberg agenda. Most of the old teaching staff which he believed were no good, over paid, lazy bums are long gone. Therefore, if the Mayor still believes there are poor teachers in the system he and Mr. Walcott need to look carefully at the hiring process. It is the Mayor and Mr. Walcott who are responsible for hiring the majority of the teachers over the past eleven years. Gentlemen, change the hiring process!

  • http://www.facebook.com/buddy.figliuzzi Buddy Figliuzzi

    Furthermore, the new teachers I have observed coming into the system are very hard working, dedicated, idealistic teachers. The new breed is doing a most fantastic job with a very diverse, needy, student population. The Mayor needs to commend these new teachers rather than demoralize the teaching staff in which he himself is responsible for hiring. What poor leadership is provided by putting people down!

  • John

    “…is the question of just how many teachers ought to be judged ineffective and fired.”

    Why the word ought? What’ with these quotas of successful/unsuccessful? Akin to a class of students, every single student can fail a particular assessment and every single student can pass said assessment. So, then, why have a quota? Each teacher in evaluated, fairly, on whatever metric and the teacher either is good or not.Why a set number? Doesn’t make any rational sense.

  • http://twitter.com/leoniehaimson leonie haimson

    I’m also not sure why firing large numbers of teachers is “efficient”. Is that because you assume that they won’t be replaced at all, or replaced with less costly ones? Under what cost benefit theory is this necessarily efficient, if the replacements are less effective?

  • http://www.facebook.com/peter.goodman.35 Peter Goodman

    Buddy: Evidence!! There is no evidence to support your assertions, and distressingly new teachers leave – about half with five years – and 70% leave in the highest poverty middle schools. And, the more effective new teachers are more likely to leave … as Education Week reports the new data-based teacher evaluation systems are identifying about the same percents of teachers as principal observation only systems.
    Under the current NYS system how many teachers will fall in the “ineffective” range for two consecutive years – about 2% – all the “sound and fury” for a system that identifies the same percent as we have always identifed.

  • I noticed that…

    Fact: Inexperienced teachers are placed in high
    needs and socio-economically challenged schools.

    Outcome: High turnover rate. Teachers with 1 – 5 years leave the teaching
    profession.

    Fact: Untenured teachers are pressured by administration to ignore their
    contractual rights.

    Outcome: They leave the school using the Open-Market.

    Fact: Not all the new teachers that enter the system are young and energetic.

    Outcome: Teaching Fellows are teachers who had a prior career (20+ years in
    that prior profession) and came into teaching to teach those skills and
    concepts to students from their experience.

    Fact: Not all new teachers (TFA) leave the profession because of burnout,
    termination, etc.

    Outcome: Those teachers came in committed to teach for less than 5 years and
    use the classroom “experience” to further their career in the arena
    of education reform as non-classroom policy makers.

    Fact: New, inexperienced teachers are cheaper.

    Outcome: It’s a fact. Open Market does not fully support “seniority
    transfer” because the Children First Funding does not allow principals to
    hire experienced teachers. Therefore, phasing out/closed schools have a large
    population of teachers with 10+ years of teaching, which are relegated to the
    ATR status and will be evaluated by a Field Administrator who does not know
    them and cannot truly evaluate their true potential.

    The new teacher evaluation is in the eye of the beholder who may end up using
    the rating of “ineffective” as Damocles’ Sword by telling
    teachers, “What have you done for me lately?”

  • http://www.facebook.com/buddy.figliuzzi Buddy Figliuzzi

    Peter, that is my point. A 2% ineffective teacher rate is so small as not to warrant the attention and energy everyone is wasting over the issue. In fact, it really is not an issue. Perhaps, the idiocrats/decision makers need to shift the focus and blame on a group other than themselves.

  • http://www.facebook.com/buddy.figliuzzi Buddy Figliuzzi

    To quote guest, “The issue is nothing to do with how many ineffective teachers there are. It is problem that we have a system in which teachers have a right to decide to work hard or not… and that ultimately creates a culture of mediocre results and failure.”
    Sir, you are incorrect. Workers in any occupation want to do their best. People don’t spend money and time educating themselves so they could skate by. Initially, most folks want to highly succeed in their occupation of choice. In the teaching craft, what could be more rewarding than to know you have helped to guide your students to academically achieve and succeed.
    No, you are wrong.

  • KitchenSink

    I think my comment got eaten by Disqus, but I’ll try again:
    1. Folly to put a number on firing teachers: 2% of 5%, whatever. Go case by case.
    2. Ask parents the right question. Pallas is wrong that they are subdued and generally happy. Parents know (some of) which teachers are ineffective. Ask, “Would you rather have Teacher A or Teacher B for your child next year?”
    Some of the Teacher Bs, parents will tell you, aren’t teaching anything. Ask parents in those cases, “Who, then, should allow their kids in Teacher B’s class?” The only answer is, “Nobody.”

  • http://www.facebook.com/aaronpallas Aaron Pallas

    KitchenSink, your contention that parents are not generally happy is not consistent with parents’ responses on the DOE’s annual surveys. Of the nearly half a million parents responding in 2012, 54% said that they were very satisfied with the quality of their child’s teacher(s), and an additional 42% said they were satisfied. Only 3% reported being unsatisfied, and 1% very unsatisfied. To be sure, variations in Tim wording can affect responses, but I think these data are more consistent with my claim than with yours.

  • Roma Giudetti

    So I invite anyone who thinks they can do my job better or more efficiently to be my guest. Here’s a typical day: I arrive at 8:20 and I teach without a break until 11:30. Then I go down to the lunchroom for my C6 until 12:15 and then I tutor students until 12:50 and then I finally get a break for 1.5 hours. During the break I write lesson plans and make copies. Then I teach one more period until 3:15. I have a 15 minute break and then teach an after-school class until 5. This is more or less my schedule each day. But hey if you think there’s an unlimited supply of people dying to do this oh-so-easy job, find me ineffective. Be my guest.

  • Chuck Y.

    Roma, what does your busy day have to do with effectiveness? You can do all the things you listed ineffectively.

  • KenMH

    Chuck Y asks a great question.

    Two additional points:

    1. There are many people who are willing to do your job in NYC. My understanding is that there are many more people that want teaching jobs than there are positions in NYC.

    2. Working hard from 8:20am to 5pm for 180 days per year is not a great point to demonstrate that teaching is unusually hard work. To be clear, it might be unusually hard work, but official hours worked is not going to help you to make that point.

  • I noticed that…

    Ken,

    Teachers are not working in a cubicle like office workers.

    Teachers are constantly dealing with the human element of emotions of their students on a daily basis, minute by minute. Teachers work so hard that they don’t have a chance to go to the bathroom until the end of the day; it explains why they’re prone to kidney problems or bladder infections. Those 180 days are filled with many hours of marking papers, making calls to parents, sending letters home to parents, attending conferences/meetings within or outside their schools, creating formative and summative exams to assess their students and lesson planning during preps, after work, and during the weekend. By Friday, I have yet to see any teacher go home with color in their cheeks and full of energy. That’s what effective teachers do for 180 days.

    Teachers at times give up their own time with their family to attend to their school children because a majority of the kids are behind the eight ball in life, burdened with lots of challenges in their own homes and in their neighborhood.

    So I understand Roma’s description of a teacher’s daily routine. Although he stated the work schedule, it doesn’t dismiss the overwhelming amount of time teachers put into the lives of their students that many out there who work in the private sector of 9 – 5 would never take on the challenge of teaching in a public school especially in a low-performing, socio-economically neighborhood where the parents want teachers to be the loco parentis 24/7.
    So Ken, describe your work schedule to us and how many challenges do you face on a daily basis, 180 days in a year?

  • KenMH

    Like most non-teachers, the only challenge in my life is addressing personal questions from anonymous commenters.

  • I noticed that…

    So I assume you don’t understand the challenges teachers face on a daily basis because of the anonymous commenters. Would you prefer the names of all 80,000 teachers and a detailed explanation of their daily dedication and hard work? Is that the challenge you prefer in your live? N.P. Please provide your email so I can contact my colleagues and they can personally email you. Enjoy reading these “anonymous” comments.

  • flerp

    I wasn’t aware teachers are prone to bladder infections. I learn something new every day here.

  • http://twitter.com/BNiche B

    Closest thing to a study I was able to Google was conducted in the early 2000s:

    “Teachers do not seem to have poorer mental health. However, their physical condition is characterized by a higher prevalence of health problems related to the ENT tract, and to a lesser extent, depending on the gender, to skin, eyes, legs and lower urinary tract.”

    http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/6/101“

  • flerp

    Seems to be an issue for male teachers. Be careful out there, B.

  • Roma Giudetti

    Chuck Y. and Ken spoken like two people who know nothing about teaching. Good teaching requires reflection. Reflection has everything to do with being effective. I don’t have time to read any research or books on new methodology for instance. Each year I join IRA and I don’t have any time to read any of the journals. I don’t have time to sit down and look over my roster and reflect on the kids I teach – their strengths and weaknesses. I jot things down I notice about students and questions they have but I barely have time to reflect on what I write. I understand you two probably conflate teaching with being a secretary or babysitting – but good teaching requires time to actually think about what you’ve done in the classroom and where you are heading. Good teaching requires reading about and sharing best practices. That requires time that most teachers don’t have because their schedules are so overbooked.

  • Roma Giudetti

    Oh and one more thing Ken – do us all a favor and lose the condescending attitude.

  • http://twitter.com/leoniehaimson leonie haimson

    Interesting piece on NPR this AM about how Microsoft is pushing for expansion of HB1 visas to being in foreign workers- nit because ther is any shortage of qualified US. Candidates, some say, but to keep wages low and secure a younger more pliable workforce. I see parallels with the Gates stance on teacher evaluation. It is posed as a way to “help” teachers improve but its main goal is to create a system to undermine tenure and get rid of more senior teachers in favor of a cheaper, more temporary and more amenable bunch of recruits.

  • http://twitter.com/leoniehaimson leonie haimson

    Most studies show that teachers work a very long day when all their prep time and correcting homework etc is taken into account. You can look that up easily enough.

  • flerp

    Or the person trying to describe their very long day could include it in their description.

  • http://www.facebook.com/drleopold314 Dan Leopold

    My thoughts exactly. You are not happy with the teaching workforce Bloomberg? Then why did your administration hire them? I am wary to suggest anything in the vein of evaluation because I do not have enough chutzbuh to suggest a one size fits all approach works with all teachers of different license areas, teaching different grade levels of students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds. I AM SUGGESTING, to combat teacher burnout, that. ALL TEACHERS, no matter when they received their certificate, be required to attend a certain amount of credited events to keep current on practices in the field. The medical profession requires this, the law profession requires it. Most of the time, you need to pay money for the credits. Essentially, you are paying money to your licensing organization to keep it afloat, under the guise that you are learning. If teachers had to earn a hundred credits every 5 years from a DOE sponsored organization,where each credit is about $25 dollars, well I would think those teachers who are not really vested in the profession, would find work elsewhere outside of the system. Who wants to spend money on credits to keep a license when you know you have no business being in front of a classroom in the first place?

Tips, questions, feedback?

Contact us at .

Word from Our Sponsor

From Our Jobs Board

Featured Employers
Recent Jobs

Chalk It Up

Recent Comments

49 comments so far today
View all comments »

RSS Feeds

Newsroom posts Community posts All GothamSchools content

Archives

June 2013
M T W T F S S
« May  
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930

Copyright Notice