Mayor Bloomberg said this week’s progress on teacher evaluations
will not deter him from replacing about half of the teaching staff
at “most of” the 33 city schools identified as struggling by the
state, including eight in Queens, raising the ire of borough
officials.
Previously, Bloomberg had said the lack of an agreement between
the city and the teachers’ union on annual evaluations prompted his
plan to implement a controversial “turnaround” model at the schools
that are in a federal improvement program due to low graduation
rates and test scores, which means replacing many of the teachers
and potentially renaming the institutions.
After Gov. Cuomo intervened, a major sticking point in the
negotiations on the evaluations was resolved on Thursday — that of
the appeals process for teachers who receive low marks on the
assessments, and the state Education Commissioner said yesterday
that he expects the union and mayor to be able to come to a full
agreement on the evaluations.
But Bloomberg insisted that the agreement on the appeals
process, which would provide for teacher evaluations to include an
independent, third-party validation of teacher ratings, does not
stop his plans for many of the 33 schools, including John Adams
High School in Ozone Park, Richmond Hill High School, Long Island
City High School, Flushing High School, Grover Cleveland High
School in Ridgewood, Newtown High School in Elmhurst, August Martin
High School in Jamaica and Bryant High School in Long Island
City.
He did concede that the progress on the teacher evaluations
could mean all of the schools would sustain the teacher
replacements.
“Nothing in the deal prevents us from moving forward with our
plan to replace the lowest performing teachers in 33 of our most
troubling schools,” Bloomberg said at a City Hall press conference
on Thursday.
Still, at the same conference, Bloomberg said the city may not
implement the “turnaround” program in all of the schools, though
did not say that was definite.
He said the teacher replacement would happen in “probably most
of them, certainly most of them.”
Queens officials slammed the mayor for not abandoning the model
and instead returning to the improvement programs that had begun to
be implemented in the schools at the beginning of the 2011-12
school year.
“The city must roll back its disruptive plan to overhaul public
schools like Long Island City and William Cullen Bryant high
schools,” state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Astoria said). “Our
children’s education should supersede political posturing that
would interfere with students’ ability to learn.”
Each of the 33 schools are in a federal improvement program
because of such issues as low graduation rates and test scores,
which mandated the city to implement one of four federally required
programs at each institution.
Last spring, the city announced it would use models that would
not close the schools or replace teachers, but instead bring in
educational organizations that would work with the schools’
communities to improve graduation rates, test scores and
morale.
The city’s announcement on the progress on evaluations came at
the same time that Cuomo announced the state had reached an
agreement with the state teacher’s union on teacher
evaluations.
The state agreement on teachers, as well as principals, ends a
nearly two-year stalemate on the issue of evaluations and allows
school districts, such as the entire New York City system, to base
up to 40 percent of the review on student performance and state
standardized test scores. The current decades-old evaluation system
relies more on principals’ classroom visits and input from
colleagues.
Cuomo said the remaining 60 percent of the teachers’ ratings
will be based on teacher performance, as determined by principals’
observations, peer reviews and student and parent feedback.
The “agreement puts in place a groundbreaking new statewide
teacher evaluation system that will put students first and make New
York a national leader in holding teachers accountable for student
achievement,” Cuomo said at a press conference in Albany — at which
Bloomberg was notably absent. “This agreement is exactly what is
needed to transform our state’s public education sytem, and I am
pleased that by working together and putting the needs of students
ahead of politics we were able to reach this agreement.”
But Queens educators were less than pleased with Cuomo’s
announcement.
Arthur Goldstein, an English as a Second Language and the UFT
chapter leader at Francis Lewis High School in Flushing, said the
focus on test scores seems especially unfair when it comes to
students just learning English.
“Someone who moved here from Brazil two weeks ago is judged on
the same standards as someone who spent their entire life in the
U.S.,” Goldstein said.
“I love to teach what kids need to know, and I love to make kids
love to learn English,” Goldstein continued. “This is a disaster
and is a stupid idea, and I believe it’s motivated by this hatred
for teachers.”
