Cuomo To Regents: Make Teacher Evaluations More Rigorous And Make Sure They're Tied To Test Scores

And only give teachers a positive rating if the standardized test score measures are "positive". More on that in a minute - first, here's the story from the Daily News:

Here's a letter from Gov. Cuomo to Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch outlining some of what Cuomo sees as gaps or weaknesses in the Regents' Draft Regulations for Teacher and Principal Evaluation.

Cuomo's basically asking the Regents to step on it and adopt the following regs (and there's money on the line here): Increase the percentage of statewide objective data, like measuring student growth on statewide test scores, used to evaluate teacher performance; Impose rigorous classroom observation and other subjective measures standards on school districts when evaluating teacher performance; Require a positive teacher evaluation rating be given only when the teacher receives a combined positive rating on both subjective and objective measures, such as student growth on statewide tests; and Accelerate the implementation of the evaluation system.

So in Cuomo's evaluation system, the only way a teacher gets a positive rating is if s/he receives a combined positive rating on both classroom observations and other "subjective" measures and the "objective" measure of the state standardized tests.

I have written over and over that Cuomo was doing teachers no favors in the LIFO battle, that when Cuomo's policies for teacher evaluations becamse law, they would make test scores and value-added measures a really large part of the new system.

Apparently the current proposals by the Regents, which already take into account test scores in teacher evaluations, weren't good enough for him.

You have to show that your students are doing better on their state tests or you don't get a positive rating, in Cuomo's book.

Which means after two years, you get fired.

Never mind if you have AP classes that already do well on tests.

Never mind if you work in a high poverty district where children come to school with serious social and emotional issues that affects how they test.

Never mind if your students have a bad day or you teach Special Education or anything else, for that matter.

Raise the test scores or get fired - that's the borttom line.

Heckuva job UFT for enabling this crap by signing onto Obama's Race to the Top top-down corporate reforms.

Heckuva job not opposing Cuomo or his education policies.

Now we're going to have an education system where the only thing that matters is the test score.
If you can't get a "positive" measure on the standardized test portion of the eval, you're put on notice and fired after a couple of years.

This should revolutionize teaching.

Who would want to be a teacher now that your students can get you fired just by, you know, not trying so hard?

And given that they're going to be overtested in every subject in every grade, after a while you can be sure that they're not going to try too hard on these things.

The outrages in public education continue unabated.