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Geraldine Maione, principal of William E. Grady High School, has signed onto a petition opposing the state's new teacher evaluations.

The newest signatories to a petition against the state’s new teacher evaluation system include one of the few principals who actually has experience with the new evaluations.

Geraldine Maione heads Brooklyn’s William E. Grady High School, which is among 33 “persistently low-achieving” city schools that are using the new evaluations in exchange for additional federal funds.

She told me that she opposes the new evaluations because they are so formulaic that they leave little room for principals to exercise discretion.

“When I walk in a classroom, I know when children are learning and teachers are teaching,” she said, adding that tougher evaluations aren’t necessary if principals push struggling teachers either to improve or move on.

“No teacher has a forever job if the principal is doing her job,” Maione said.

Maione is among about 30 city principals who have signed onto a position paper arguing that the state’s evaluation requirements — which require a portion of teachers’ ratings to be based on their students’ test scores —  are unsupported by research, prone to errors, and too expensive at a time of budget cuts. That’s a sharp rise from last month, when hundreds of principals statewide had signed on but only two active city principals were on the list. (more…)