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The city’s bid to “turn around” 33 struggling schools is politically motivated and should be quashed, according to the head of the city’s principals union.

The city is days away from submitting a formal request for State Education Commissioner John King to release millions of dollars in federal funding for the 33 schools even though the city has not yet negotiated new evaluations with the teachers union.

Ernest Logan, president of the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators, sent a letter to King Tuesday urging him to reject the city’s request. Logan charges that the city’s announcement last month that it would abandon two in-process school improvement strategies, “transformation” and “restart,” was meant only to sidestep a requirement that the city negotiate with CSA and the United Federation of Teachers. Without an agreement, King froze federal funds to the schools last month.

“Simply stated, if the Turnaround model were the most educationally sound plan of intervention for the 33 schools, it would have been selected for any or all of them in 2010 and 2011,” Logan writes. “It was not. It is being proposed now only as a means of evading the … evaluation requirements.”

The city is required to negotiate new evaluations in order to receive federal funds and, in a plan Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced last month, additional state school aid. But Cuomo also said he would push changes to the state’s 2010 evaluation law if districts do not adopt new evaluations by mid-month. City officials are lobbying legislators to take that route, even though a statewide teachers union, NYSUT, has said it is on the verge of agreement for nearly all districts other than New York City. (more…)

A week that was packed with conflict over teacher evaluations is drawing to close with news that detente is nearing — at least at the state level.

Here’s a statement we just received from the State Education Department, confirming rumors that have been swirling since shortly after Gov. Cuomo issued an ultimatum Monday on teacher evaluations:

New York State Education Commissioner John B. King, Jr., along with New York State United Teachers President Richard C. Iannuzzi, today announced that negotiations going on since October are now making significant progress and continue in earnest towards settlement.

We’ve been hearing for over a week that a settlement is basically a done deal, but that the two sides have to first play politics to their respective constituents. “They can’t cut a deal until they posture for their public,” as a source put it. In recent weeks, NYSUT has held press conferences and issued several statements denouncing what they say is SED’s unwillingness to settle.

A settlement between the state and NYSUT would stop Cuomo from trying to use the budget process to impose new evaluations without union consent. But it would do little to soothe tensions in New York City, where the relationship between the Department of Education and the United Federation of Teachers seemed only to worsen this week.

Last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo slashed school aid across the state. This year, he plans to add back much of what was lost — but there’s a catch.

Districts will get the money only if they roll out controversial new teacher evaluations according to an accelerated timeline, Cuomo announced in a hotly anticipated speech in Albany today.

He also outlined a procedure by which new evaluations could be put into effect even without local unions’ agreement, which a state law passed in 2010 requires.

Cuomo kicked off the procedure today with an ultimatum: He demanded that the state teachers union, NYSUT, drop its lawsuit over the evaluations and settle on a “protocol” for new evaluations with the State Education Department within 30 days.

“If they can’t do that then we’ll do it for them,” Cuomo said in his address today. Using the state’s unusual Article 7 process, Cuomo could use a budget amendment to change the state’s teacher evaluation law — possibly by striking the requirement for districts and unions to negotiate some details locally.

For now, local districts and their unions would still have to sign off on evaluation plans even if NYSUT resolves its issues with the state. Districts that do so by Sept. 1 will be able to compete for $250 million in state funds, Cuomo said today. If they miss that deadline, they will have until Jan. 17, 2013 — a year from today — to settle on new evaluations or give up the 4 percent increase in state aid.

“The equation is simple at the end of the day: No evaluations, no money, period,” Cuomo said. (more…)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo turned up his rhetoric against teachers unions today, charging that their influence made the state’s teacher evaluation law “destined to fail.”

Cuomo was responding to the Obama administration’s warning that New York could lose hundreds of millions of federal dollars if it does not speed up reforms that include overhauling how teachers are rated.

In 2010, with the deadline to apply for federal Race to the Top funds looming, legislators passed a law requiring districts to negotiate more sophisticated evaluations. That law was key to helping the state secure $700 million in the funding competition, and it is that law that the Obama administration now wants to see in effect.

But a requirement that districts negotiate some details with their local unions has hampered implementation, including in New York City.

Speaking several days after negotiations in several districts fell apart, Cuomo said in his State of the State address last week that the state’s teacher evaluation law “didn’t work.” Today, he took that characterization even further, suggesting that legislators had been excessively influenced by teachers unions and arguing that a different law is needed. (more…)

NYSUT President Richard Iannuzzi on the steps of the State Education Department building today

ALBANY — Nearly 200 teaching jobs across the state could be lost as a result of a decision to freeze federal funding to low-performing schools, according to the head of the state teachers union.

New York State United Teachers President Richard Ianuzzi detailed the potential job casualties this afternoon on the steps of the State Education Department building, where the Board of Regents was holding its monthly meeting. He was joined by union officials from six districts and superintendents from Albany and nearby Schenectady — but not from New York City, where he blamed politics for impeding progress on teacher evaluations.

The press conference was a response to State Education Commissioner John King’s decision last week to suspend federal funding set aside for the state’s lowest performing schools, known as School Improvement Grants, in all 10 districts that were set to receive the money. Some of the districts, including New York City, failed to negotiate new teacher evaluations for those schools by a Dec. 31 deadline, and King said the other districts’ evaluation plans didn’t meet state standards.

“What is happening here, ladies and gentlemen, is that the State Education Department has decided that being a bully and acting like a bureaucrat is better than meeting the needs of New York State’s most vulnerable children,” Ianuzzi said at the press conference.

The money still could be restored. King gave all districts a 30-day period to appeal the decision and revise their system to meet his concerns, which he spelled out in letters last week.  District officials at the press conference said that they planned to follow that process. (more…)

New York will get new terms for high- and low-performing schools — and new ways to define good and bad performance — under a proposed accountability plan designed to replace the requirements of No Child Left Behind.

The proposal, which was released in draft form late today and will be discussed by the Board of Regents on Monday, is the result of two months of planning in response to the Obama administration’s offer to waive some of the decade-old federal law’s requirements, including one that requires full proficiency by 2014. In exchange, states must to commit to prioritizing college readiness, setting guidelines for teacher and principal evaluations, and holding schools and districts accountable for their students’ performance on state tests.

Under the proposal, the bulk of the state’s testing program would remain unchanged. But elementary and middle school students would take science tests; the bar to be considered proficient on high school exams would be raised; and proficiency would be calculated not just by whether students met certain benchmarks, but by how much they improved.

Schools that fall short would not get extra funding to pay for tutoring services, an arrangement that has shown mixed results. Instead, they would get extra money to carry out more of the initiatives that the Regents themselves have endorsed, such as improving teacher training and revising curriculum standards.

Five percent of low-scoring schools would become Priority Schools and have to undergo federally mandated school overhaul approaches. Another 10 percent would become Focus Schools, and their districts would have to develop plans to improve them.

For the first time, school districts will be evaluated with the same scrutiny as schools were under NCLB.

“Since district policies often contribute to why schools have low performance for specific groups of students,” the proposal says, “districts must play a lead role in helping schools to address this issue.”

New York City, a district certain to house many Focus and Priority schools, will not be evaluated as one entire district, according to a provision. Instead, each of the city’s 32 districts would be evaluated based on state test scores for its schools.   (more…)

The cover of NYSUT's evaluation handbook

This school year, New York State school districts and their teachers unions are spending a lot of time hammering out local agreements about adopting the state’s new mandated teacher evaluation system, required by June. While 40 percent of that system is predetermined by student test scores, myriad unanswered questions surround the remaining “subjective” 60 percent:

Should formal observations be announced in advance? Should teachers be entitled to discuss their own observations with administrators afterwards? Should student surveys have weight in evaluations?

Today, the state teachers union unveiled what it’s calling a “groundbreaking” roadmap to answering those questions that it hopes local unions will use as they sit down to negotiate. Based on work that was piloted last year in six districts across the state with funding from the AFT and the Obama administration’s Investing in Innovation competition, New York State United Teachers’ “Teacher Evaluation and Development” system carves out a role for teachers to participate in their own evaluations.

TED represents a shift from defense to offense for NYSUT, which sued this summer to stop the state from allowing districts to increase the weight of test scores in teacher evaluations.

The roadmap is broken down into four phases, each involving teachers in the evaluation process, that are outlined in a 95-page guidance handbook available on the union’s website. (more…)

A State Supreme Court Judge partially sided with the state teachers union today over how big of a role standardized test scores should play for teacher evaluations.

Overturning a key state regulation that was approved by the Board of Regents in May, Judge Michael Lynch ruled that local districts could only double the weight of test scores in evaluations – from 20 percent to 40 percent – if the local union signs off on the arrangement. The judge upheld a different regulation, which will allow districts the option to increase testing emphasis, so long as it is through collective bargaining.

The New York State Education Department criticized the judge’s reversal and pledged to appeal it, further complicating the future of an evaluation system that was originally slated to take effect this year.

The decision came in response to a lawsuit filed by New York State United Teachers in June. In the suit, NYSUT lawyers argued that the Regents were circumventing a carefully negotiated state law that set the weight of test scores at 20 percent. (more…)

U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan (right, blue shirt) and NYSUT President Richard Ianuzzi listen to a teacher at a roundtable at NYSUT's Albany headquarters today.

ALBANY, N.Y. — Teamwork was the watchword as U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan took his national back-to-school bus tour to Albany today.

Duncan has taken to the road to celebrate teachers, and to convince them that his reform efforts will not undercut their interests.

In New York, many teachers are still skittish of a new teacher evaluation plan that will, for the first time, allow school districts to judge them based on their students’ test scores. The state and city teachers union struck the agreement with state education officials in May, in part to improve the state’s Race to the Top application.

And so, in appearances at the state teachers union headquarters and the State Capitol, Duncan and state officials emphasized that New York’s reform policies are the result of a team effort between state education officials and its teachers unions. Those policies won the state nearly $700 million in federal Race to the Top funds last week.

“Where other states were not able to reach consensus, New York was,” Duncan said. (more…)

The legislative battle over whether and how to raise the state’s cap on charter schools could begin again as early as next week.

The State Senate’s Rules Committee, which is chaired by Senator Malcolm Smith, introduced a bill today that would lift the charter school cap to 460, more than doubling the number currently allowed under state law.  It also would require schools to make more of their financial practices public and increase the number of special education and English language learners they serve.

Charter school advocates are hailing the bill as a compromise between supporters of the speedy growth of charter schools and critics who argue that a cap lift should come only with changes to how the schools are run. But perhaps the most vocal skeptics of charter management practices, the teachers unions, are crying foul. Union officials are complaining that the bill was developed without union leaders’ input and that its regulatory provisions are too weak. (more…)