Local superintendents call for end of teacher-eval system

• Valhalla Superintendent Brenda Myers%3A %22There is no simple fix. We want this to stop.%22
• Superintendents want state to pilot new models
• Study%3A Districts forced to inflate teacher scores to ensure fair ratings

School superintendents from the Lower Hudson Valley say it's time for the state to shut down its failed teacher-evaluation system and to pilot new models with the involvement of administrators and teachers.

"There is no simple fix," Valhalla Superintendent Brenda Myers said. "We want this to stop. You can't just mandate and roll out this system and publish scores that are invalid. We warned that this would happen and now we need a moratorium."

The state Board of Regents, which sets education policy, began pursuing a new evaluation system in 2009 as part of its agenda to "reform" schooling in New York. With the strong support of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the state Legislature adopted a system into law in 2010 that has been widely criticized by school districts and teachers.

Myers co-chairs a committee of the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents that has consistently panned the state Education Department's implementation of the new system, which rates teachers and principals on a 100-point scale.

A new study commissioned by the superintendents group identified problems with the complex scoring system. Superintendents also say they gleaned little useful information from the first full year of results.

"If the goals of this reform agenda were to improve teacher accountability, improve a district's ability to remove incompetent teachers, to provide data to inform teacher practice, and improve student achievement — it has been a costly and wholly avoidable failure," said Harrison Superintendent Louis Wool, who co-chairs the committee with Myers.

The superintendents group plans to lobby legislative leaders to change the evaluation law.

Teachers are given grades of "highly effective," "effective," "developing" or "ineffective." The grades are based: 20 percent on how students progress on state tests or other measures; 20 percent on school district-chosen assessments; and 60 percent on classroom observations.

Each component was negotiated by districts with teachers unions, except for the measurement based on student test scores.

For 2012-13, the first year when all school districts outside New York City used the system, 91.5 percent of teachers statewide were rated "effective" or "highly effective." Results for 2013-14 are expected to be released by the end of the year.

State Education Department officials have said that they want to review more data before considering changes. But local superintendents do not want to wait. They say the current system falsely implies that teachers can be compared based on their ratings.

"The system creates an illusion of accountability," Byram Hills Superintendent William Donohue said.

The study commissioned by the superintendents group looked at 2012-13 results for 1,400 teachers in 32 districts in Westchester, Rockland, Putnam and Dutchess counties. It found that, because of the state's uneven scoring scales, districts must give teachers high scores for classroom observations — an average of 58.1 out of 60 — to ensure they don't get "unjustly" low overall ratings.

Education Department spokesman Tom Dunn said the scoring scales were established in state law and that the Board of Regents is now authorized to adjust them. He said the superintendents group could recommend adjustments.

But he said in a statement that not all districts gave teachers consistently high grades for classroom observations.

"This problem — which reduces the amount of useful information available to help teachers improve their instruction — can be addressed only at the local level through more differentiated — and meaningful — local teacher observations and more differentiated locally negotiated scoring," he said.

Others are lining up to call for a review of the evaluation system.

Cuomo has said several times in recent weeks that the evaluation system needs to be revised. He told The Buffalo News that results have been too positive.

"Not everybody can get an 'A,' it can't be," he said.

New York State United Teachers, the statewide teachers union, has its own task force reviewing the system. President Karen Magee of Harrison has pledged to fight for a rewriting of the system, particularly the component that crunches student test scores.

"Flawed state testing is not a reliable indicator of what teachers are doing," Magee said. "The reliance on state testing is skewing the impact of evaluations."

This should be a good time to review the system, since Cuomo, NYSUT and legislators negotiated a "safety net" bill in June to protect teachers for two years from getting poor evaluations because of student test scores. But Cuomo has not yet signed the bill, confounding school districts.

A Cuomo spokesperson said the governor's office hasn't called for over 200 bills passed in the last session and has until the end of the year to do so.

The state releases average scores for districts, schools and grades, but not for individual teachers. State law restricts the release of teacher ratings to the guardians of children who are currently in a teacher's class.

Twitter: @garysternNY