By Jason Zwara:
The deadlines set by State Education Commissioner John B. King, Jr. and Governor Andrew Cuomo for school districts to reach agreement with teacher and administrator unions on a new teacher evaluation system is quickly approaching, with a significant amount of state aid on the line. Commissioner King froze the $9 million in aid the State had awarded Buffalo Public Schools to improve five failing schools; Governor Cuomo raised the stakes, tying proposed increases in state aid to school districts to the success in reaching agreement on a new evaluation system. If the Buffalo Public Schools, the Buffalo Teachers Federation, and the Buffalo Council of Supervisors and Administrators fail to reach agreement on a new evaluation system that weighs both student performance and classroom observations, the Buffalo schools will lose desperately needed aid and will also put additional aid to improve struggling schools at risk.
Beyond all of the deadlines and policy disputes surrounding this issue lies a fundamental truth, one of the best ways to improve our education system is to ensure all students have access to effective teachers. A stronger evaluation system goes a long way in making this a reality, by identifying and rewarding great teachers, supporting those who need improvement, and counseling out teachers who are ineffective and fail to improve. That union and district leaders on either side of this debate have failed to recognize the value of a stronger accountability system is troubling.
While the disorder at the state level in crafting regulations has certainly impeded local parties’ ability to reach complete agreement, these problems cannot be used as an excuse for the parties’ failure to find any common ground. The BPS and BTF submitted an “agreement” as required by NYSED at the end of the December, which the State rejected as wholly unsatisfactory. The agreement failed to address any meaningful issues as required by law: it did not identify any specific tests that would be used or how evaluations would be used. This agreement was clearly a shortsighted attempt to secure funding, and delay the real work that needs to be done to address major flaws in the current teacher accountability system, and improve our schools.
BTF president, Phil Rumore has resisted any change to the teacher evaluation system, arguing against the merits of using student performance as a component of an evaluation system, challenging the evidence supporting such a system, and outright ignoring that the law requires non-teaching factors like income and demographics that contribute to student performance be controlled for, thus isolating the true impact of the teacher as closely as possible. Rather than acknowledging the legal mandate to agree to a complying evaluation system and taking the opportunity to cooperate and collaborate with the district, the union is avoiding the bargaining table. This approach hurts not only Buffalo’s schools and students, but also hurts the individual teachers. The longer the BTF resists serious negotiations, the greater the risk that they will lose their chance to have input. Governor Cuomo has already threatened to implement his own final regulations if the State Education Department and NYSUT cannot iron out the wrinkles of the current regulations.
The current evaluation system is dysfunctional and in dire need of replacement. Under the current system, evaluations are carried out only through a minimal in-class observation, a process that typically resulted in nearly all teachers receiving uniformly high ratings. It is nearly impossible to discover and act on performance differences among teachers when records show them all to be the same. The new evaluation system seeks to make performance measurement and feedback both rigorous and useful. Its aim is to evaluate teachers through a number of means, including student performance on state and district-wide testing, traditional classroom observations, and other measures of a teacher’s preparedness, and classroom skills. Each of these aspects is balanced against each other and no single element makes up a majority of the evaluation. The evaluations are then used in numerous ways. First, they are to be considered in major employment decisions, including tenure, transfers, and termination. Second, and more importantly, they are to be used to assist teachers in identifying their weaknesses and improving their abilities.
While the Governor clearly understands the value in a stronger accountability system, our local leaders do not, and continue to react to financial threats rather than proactively drive change. In the interests of Buffalo’s schools, students, and teachers, the BTF needs to accept the imminent change to the evaluation system and cooperate with the District to craft a system that ensures that teachers have the best resources to improve their ability and, more importantly, our children have the best teachers in their classrooms.