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State test scores won’t count more toward the evaluations of elementary and middle school teachers next year, according to an amended proposal that a Board of Regents committee passed unanimously on Monday.

The proposed model, which was formally approved on Tuesday, included a methodology to calculate student growth that was nearly identical to the “value-added” model that State Education Commissioner John King brought to the board in April. Both models add new data points to the formula used to approximate how much each teacher has contributed to students’ growth.

But under state law, any model termed “value-added” would have required, controversially, that its weight increase from 20 to 25 percent on some teacher evaluations. King’s alternative this month was for the state to adopt an “enhanced growth model” that adds virtually all of the same data points but doesn’t have the value-added moniker. Spurning the name allows the state to avoid increasing the weight of test scores until all districts have at least one year of implementation under their belts, something the state teachers union has asked for.

“I would have thought that adding all these factors would qualify as ‘value-added,’ but this distinction was always opaque,” said Jonah Rockoff, a Columbia University economist who advised the state on its methodology “If the commissioner wants to keep the weight at 20 percent for another year then staying within the ‘student growth’ framework seems like the simplest way to do it.” (more…)

New York City teachers fared slightly better than teachers in the rest of the state on metrics that will now factor into their annual ratings.

In the city, 8 percent of teachers received ratings of “highly effective” on their state growth scores for the 2011-2012 school year, compared to 6 percent in the rest of the state, according to data that the city released today. Another 76 percent of city teachers netted “effective” ratings, compared to 77 percent in the rest of the state. (more…)

A presentation that the Department of Education distributed to principals this week aims to simplify the city’s complicated new teacher evaluation system.

The Department of Education effort to translate the city’s complex new evaluation system into manageable information for the 80,000 teachers who will be rated under it has started with a webinar. (more…)

Student Learning Objectives will count for 20 percent of most teachers’ evaluations next year, and yet many city educators know little about them.

SLOs, a goal-setting tool, were written into the state’s teacher evaluation law in 2010, when legislators first revised it to require student achievement to factor into teachers’ ratings. The tool would be used to generate the state’s portion of each teacher’s student achievement score once districts adopted evaluations that conformed to the new law.

But even as the city has aggressively prepared principals and teachers for overhauled observations, which the law required, officials have barely mentioned SLOs.

“We’ve heard little about SLO’s … and there is still no approved list of options for schools to choose from,” said a person affiliated with a network. “Not knowing is anxiety producing for principals and teachers whose livelihoods may depend on these measures.”

Department of Education officials say it did not make sense to begin trainings until State Education Commissioner John King outlined details of the teacher evaluation plan but now that he has, more information is coming soon. (more…)

Beyond the wins and losses on the city’s new teacher evaluation plans, there are questions — and only a short period of time before school staffs disperse for the summer in which to answer them.

With school ending in just a few weeks, just when are teams of teachers supposed to choose each school’s local assessments, a process that State Education Commissioner John King said must be complete by the first day of classes in September? How will principals whose schedules are already packed add multiple additional observations of each teacher to their calendar? What the heck are Student Learning Objectives?

The Department of Education and United Federation of Teachers have each launched breakneck information campaigns to start chipping away at these questions, even as officials are still trying to nail down some of the answers themselves.

This month’s “Children’s First Intensive” for network leaders, taking place in three sessions this week, is geared at “giving people an overview of the commissioner’s decision so that they can in turn help answer questions for folks at schools,” Deputy Chancellor Shael Polakow-Suransky said today. (more…)

Student reporters video-conferenced with State Education Commissioner John King this morning.

Reporters peppered State Education Commissioner John King with questions about all of the expected topics at a press conference this morning: teacher evaluations, college readiness, and Regents exams. But in a twist, the reporters were students whose questions were rooted in their own experience, and who pushed King to consider how his policies play out in their schools. (more…)

The teacher evaluation plan that State Education Commissioner John King set for the city over the weekend has prompted both city and union officials to claim victories.

But a point-by-point analysis of some of the major areas of dispute shows that the truth is more complex than either side has proclaimed. We’ve rounded up some of the biggest disputes and how King settled them. In our first installment, we looked at King’s decisions on issues relating to teacher observations. In the second installment, we look at other issues where King bridged gaps between the city’s and union’s positions.

School-based committees to decide student growth measures
Outcome: Shared UFT/DOE win

Both the city and the UFT agreed that figuring how to calculate the “locally selected” piece of student growth should be decided at the school level. But they disagreed about who should make that decision and about one of the options they should have.

The UFT wanted a team of teachers to make the choice, but the city wanted principals to have complete discretion. King accepted the union’s suggestion that each school have a committee to draft recommendations for which student growth measure to use. But, siding with the city, he said principals could reject the committee’s recommendations. (more…)

Like most officials who work for city schools’ support networks, Nathan Dudley plans to spend the week helping the principals he works with understand the city’s new teacher evaluation system.

Last week, though, Dudley was telling a freshly minted crop of teachers and administrators not to dwell too much on the evaluation system or on other in-vogue education policies.

As the commencement speaker Hunter College School of Education last week, Dudley, the deputy leader of Children’s First Network 403, started his speech by asking graduates whether they thought the Common Core standards and new state teacher evaluation standards would improve instruction in New York.

After he got some signs of approval, and some laughter, Dudley stage-whispered, “That’s not what’s important.”

He went on: (more…)

Over the past 48 hours since State Education Commissioner John King set a new teacher evaluation system for New York City, both sides in the dispute have sought to position themselves as winners. First out of the gate was the Bloomberg administration, which compiled a chart outlining its victories and boasted about publicly. But, as union officials argued in an email highlighting their own “wins,” it was a cherry-picked list.

King imposed the plan after reviewing policy papers (that still have not been made public) and hearing hours of testimony last week. In his written explanation of his decision, he summarized where the two sides differed and where they occasionally agreed — and where he sometimes disagreed with both of them.

We’ve rounded up some of the biggest disputes and how King settled them. In the first part of the roundup, we look at King’s decisions on issues relating to teacher observations, which will count for 60 percent of teachers’ scores next year.

Version of the Danielson rubric
Outcome: DOE win

One of the only issues, it seemed, that the city and the union could agree on when it came to observations was which rubric to base them on. It turns out they lacked consensus even there. (more…)

Mayoral candidates face political considerations when commenting on the city’s state-imposed teacher evaluation system. Several have reflected concerns that the UFT raised.

For mayoral candidate Bill Thompson, sleeping on the city’s new teacher and principal evaluation plans was an illuminating experience.

Thompson was the first candidate to issue an official response to the educator evaluation plans that State Education Commissioner John King imposed on the city late Saturday. Speaking less than two hours after King released an overview of the plan, Thompson said the plan represented a victory for the teachers union’s approach to evaluating teachers.

“Let’s remember where this process started: The mayor wanted to be able to fire teachers at will, because he believes you can somehow fire your way to student success. That approach is now off the table for good,” he said. “Instead, teachers are going to get the support and professional development they need.”

But a day later, Thompson’s outlook was less sanguine. He issued a second press release on Sunday afternoon highlighting the many pitfalls that the plan faces in getting implemented. (more…)