NYC Teacher Evaluation System: Still Rigged Against Teachers

Gotham Schools put a piece up this morning saying the teacher evaluation system imposed upon NYC teachers by NYSED Commissioner/rookie teacher John King is so good that it may be the model for renegotiated evaluation systems in other districts around the state.

Basically the King-imposed system "fixed" problems with the state and local testing components in APPR by increasing the "ineffective" ratings from 2 to 12 (out of a total 20 points per component) and "fixed" problems with the "objective" measures by decreasing the "ineffective" ratings from 49 to 38 (out of a total 60 points.)

But Carol Burris explained in the comments why the system "fixes" are still problematic:

Now here is the problem with the NYC bands....

Teacher gets a 12 and a 12 in the first two components and a 59 out of 60 in the last component. 83 points--a great score in the effective range. Not so fast... it is not. The teacher will be found ineffective overall because they were ineffective in the two student achievement components.

Here is scenario 2. Teacher gets 11 in the first and 13 in the second. They get 59 points in the third. 83 points. This time they are EFFECTIVE, because the score in the second band squeaked into the developing range. Opposite is of course also true. There are of course many permutations on this. The flaw is setting the score for ineffective up to 64 and insisting test scores trump all. This cannot be fixed. Massachusetts has a far more professional system.

John King's "fix" fixes nothing and the system remains rigged against teachers.

Let's see if it stands up to scrutiny in court when the first challenges are brought.