Merryl Tisch Wants To Increase Test Score Component In APPR Teacher Evaluation System To 40%

This news is not a surprise:

Ms. Tisch said in a phone interview Tuesday that she and Mr. King planned to propose several changes to the state’s teacher evaluation system, including creating a more efficient process for firing teachers who receive two consecutive ineffective ratings.

They will also propose doubling the weight of state or district tests in the ratings, to 40 percent of the overall score, which Ms. Tisch said would actually reduce the amount of testing in schools. Currently, 20 percent of the ratings are based on those tests. Another 20 percent are based on additional tests created as a result of negotiation between local districts and their unions, tests that could be eliminated with the change.

“Because of those 20 points, what happened was you got an increase in testing and an increase in focus on testing in these districts,” Ms. Tisch said.

Sixty percent of each rating is based on subjective measures, like principals’ evaluations, which in many districts were overwhelmingly favorable to teachers. Ms. Tisch said she and Mr. King would also propose changes to the scoring of principal evaluations.

I thought Tisch would look to do that - increase the test component to 40% and argue that doing so will actually "decrease" the amount of testing in the state's schools.

Here, of course, is the rub of all of that:

Any significant changes would have to be approved by the Legislature. The teachers’ unions, which have fought to limit the influence of testing, have support in the Democratic-controlled Assembly, and even some Republicans have been wary of the use of Common Core tests.

This is partly why there is now an attack on Assembly Speaker Silver, leaks to the NY Times about a federal probe into Silver by US Attorney Preet Bharara's office and such.

The monied interests have an enormous investment in destroying the public education system and breaking the teachers unions in New York State - they think that moment is now.

The only thing standing in the way of Andrew Cuomo getting to "break" the public education system as he promised to do before the election is Sheldon Silver and the Assembly Democrats.

John Flanagan has already signaled that Senate Republicans will go along with Cuomo's reform plans - including imposing a statewide APPR system.

The monied interests are looking to destroy Silver this legislative session and force through their school privatization and union busting plans.

Tisch's statements to the Times demonstrate just how far-reaching those plans will be.

In one piece of good news today, the Times-Union reports that Silver's expected demise may not come as planned.

I'll have more on that story later.

Suffice to say for now that Tisch, King and Cuomo are going to push a coordinated attack on public schools and teachers before King slinks off to his next gig and Silver and the Assembly Dems are all that stand between them and their goal.