John King Says NYSED Won't Help Teachers Who Were Rated With Faulty Data

Jessica Bakeman at Capital NY reports that NYSED Commissioner King says SED will do nothing to help teachers who were rated using erroneous data:

ALBANY—The state Education Department is telling teachers whose evaluations were based on faulty data they will have to deal with their local school districts to make corrections. 

Some teachers, including many in Syracuse, are appealing their evaluations because the portion that is based on test scores either included students who weren't in their classes or left students they taught off the list.

But Education Commissioner John King said those grievances will have to be dealt with locally by school districts because it would be too difficult and time-consuming for the state to run the data formula again. Teachers were told to review student lists and verify their accuracy through an online portal in June, before districts submitted the rosters to the state.

Because the formula compares teachers to other teachers with similar students, the state could not recalculate individual teachers' scores without having to re-start the whole process.

“There is a moment in time when you sort of close the file, and that is the information that is used,” King told reporters after announcing preliminary results of the evaluations last week.

Uh - no.

If the data is faulty and teachers were unfairly rated "ineffective" or "developing" as a result, it is the state's obligation to fix the problem - even if that faulty data comes from the district.

If the APPR evaluation system is so half-assed that the state can't deal with mistakes and they have to recalculate every teacher's rating, well, that's just too damned bad.

Fix the problems with the individual teacher ratings, fix the problems with the system as a whole.

Or, there will be lawsuits and we'll see what a court of law says about work evaluations based upon faulty data that SED says it won't or can't fix.