GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

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…)