An increase in school aid is expected to exceed $1.4 billion, officials said, and teachers would be eligible for tenure after four years of service instead of the current three years.
In the changes being discussed, teachers would be eligible for tenure if they are rated "effective" or "highly effective" in three of the four years. And they couldn't be deemed "ineffective" in the fourth year.
It's unclear whether the system would impact current teachers or only new hires.
As for evaluations, the latest:
Cuomo has been at odds with the teachers' union over his education reforms, and he said Saturday that stronger education policy has probably been the "single most difficult challenge" he's faced since taking office in 2011.
He initially proposed that 50 percent of teacher evaluations should be tied students' test scores. Now the sides appear to have agreed to letting the Board of Regents, which oversees New York's educational system, take up the evaluation issue.
But it's unclear whether the Board of Regents would have a specific charge in the legislation, such as coming up with a system where a new percentage of a teacher's evaluation would be based on test scores.
More as we get it.
HOW THIS WORKS OUT: Tenure will be granted after five years. (Most teachers will get their probation extended) There will be a ton of teachers who will never get tenure and thus will be canned from the profession. This will especially be true in NYC. The big unanswered question is if this effects current teachers or only new teachers. I personally know a couple of probationary teachers who have had a "developing" rating in the past 2 years. What will happen to them?
ReplyDeleteYes - if grandfathered in, that at least gives current probationary teachers a break. I don't think it's fair to include current teachers in the new law, but the vindictive Cuomo (and his vindictive ed deform backers) surely will want that.
DeleteAs for the changes, Sullio on Twitter said the changes to tenure don't mean much if enure is gutted as part of the APPR evaluation reform.
He's got a point.
I'm not on Twitter. Can you paste up the post?
DeleteIt's just what I wrote above - Twitter's only 140 characters...
DeleteThis is another great victory for the UFT and for all teachers. It guarantees that all students will achieve above average scores on high stakes testing. Our enemies are now are friends, war is against the teachers union is now peace. Thank you Kathy Hochul and Andrew Cuomo for helping the educators of New York help our struggling students,
ReplyDeleteYou should go into speech writing for Weingrew. You're very good at it.
Deleteyes, thank you Governor Cuomo!!! And thank you Michael Mulgrew. Thank you so very much. From the bottom of my heart---I am ever so grateful THAT TEACHERS ARE STILL UNFAIRLY TIED TO TEST SCORES AND YOU BOTH AGREE WITH EACH OTHER!!!!! UGH!!!! Roseanne McCosh
DeleteFor old time's sake, here's Mulgrew, Iannuzzi, Cuomo and King announcing the APPR deal in Feb 2012:
Deletehttp://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Teacher-evaluation-deal-saves-1B-in-aid-3337925.php
I think I called that four year deal in a comment I dropped here. MM will say 'that's what teachers have been getting here since Bloomberg anyway'. I'm still holding to a 40% test threshold (just getting rid of the local portion and having the state portion count for the full amount, but I a different way) but I really hope that comes in July or August when the gov has less leverage). The big piece for me was the subjective portion. independent evaluators is like a constantly running audit on over a million teachers. It's not done anywhere and crosses the line of simple reason.
ReplyDeleteCuomo already indicated 40% would be okay for him:
Deletehttp://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2015/03/cuomo-under-pressure-over-his-education.html
I don't see how the independent evaluators part comes off. I think that was a head fake to get everyone up in arms, but was always meant to be negotiated away. Cuomo never gave any details about that part of the plan.
Many teachers in NYC already have probation extended to 4 years. And what does tenure even mean anyway? It used to mean teachers couldn't be fired without due cause and without a fair hearing. Now teachers can be fired after being rated ineffective based on junk-science VAM where NYSED has manipulated cut scores to ensure failure.
ReplyDeleteThanks AFT, NYSUT & UFT for supporting CC, APPR, and yearly testing. You've been key players in the destruction of our profession. Special thanks to Randi Weingarten who orchestrated this so beautifully.
Mary
Yup - have seen teachers extended to the fourth and fifth year on tenure here in NYC. But as you point out, doesn't matter if APPR changes allow for automatic firing after two ineffective ratings.
DeleteThank you Dick Iannuzzi, Andy Pallotta, Mike Mulgrew, Karen Magee and Randi Weingarten. Your performance over the past six years has been horrific. Magee has done nothing for us in the past year. Pallotta undermines teachers in the classroom every chance he gets. Race to the Top got my district less than $35,000 a year for three years. Our union sold us out for that. I would love to be able to stop paying dues. If NY was a right to work state NYSUT would go under in a couple of weeks.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately the Unity train continues at all levels of the union. We know the elections are all rigged by the Unity cronyism, so about the only way you see any changes to the power structure is if the leadership is carted out on RICO charges.
DeleteYou can be frustrated at NYSUT and the union, but you wish NY was a right to work state???? Come on, be real. We would all be working for minimum wage and we would have no job security. Quite frankly neither of us would be teachers anymore because we would all be fired in favor of "cheaper" teachers.
DeleteNY will never be a right-to-work state.
DeleteThe economic elites and the union leaders have an unspoken deal in place that the unions will manage the workers the way the elites want and the elites will let the unions continue to rake in their dues and the leaders live off the trough.
So I wouldn't worry about NY being a legal right-to-work state.
The current system works just fine for the elites and the union leadership.
I agree the NY won't be right to work, at least anytime soon. You are missing the point: Right now the union can thumb its nose at all of us because the elections are rigged (we don't have a direct vote for the NYSUT president or board members) and we have to pay whatever dues they impose. Even if we are not members, we pay the agency fee. If NY was right to work, the union would be faced with either becoming responsive to us - the members, or dying off and being replaced by an organization that is committed to those of us in the classroom. That's the point.
DeleteNo, I got that point. I was responding to Anon 10:54 AM, not Anon 10:40 AM.
DeleteMy point is, the move to make NY a right-to-work state won't come because the elites don't want that - they like having the current system in place, with Randi, Karen, Mikey, et al to hold us in check with their dog/pony shows.
Sorry RBE. I didn't mean to respond to you. It was directed at the 10:54 a.m. Anonymous poster.
DeleteIt is sad that a person like me, who participated in a teacher strike 34 years ago and was once a VP of my local, now concludes that one of the only ways to rid ourselves of this UFT/NYSUT crew is to starve and disband the unions and start over. I am sick of paying dues and getting sold out. It's happened in my own local over the past three years. Taken to the cleaners is too nice a phrase.
Gotcha.
DeleteI understand and share your frustration over the protection we get from the unions here in NY.
I need 7 more years to collect a full pension. I'll settle for 5 when I'll have 23 years and be 60. Now all I have to do is pray every single day that TPTB will allow me the honor of collecting what I worked my ass off to get. There's no amount of money in the world worth the stress that we are subjected to every single day.
ReplyDeleteI'm 14 years in.
DeleteI'm too old to start over in something else, but not anywhere near old enough to even see the retirement line.
My hope is, the economy as a whole will turn around and start zooming the way it did in the 90's, exacerbating the already visible teacher shortages coming down the pike, and help water down the worst reform excesses we've seen the past years.
I'm not sure how realistic this hope is.
The pragmatist in me says it's not that realistic.
But we'll see.
Teacher shortages are definitely coming - between the retirements, the exodus of teachers not eligible for retirement and the fewer young people going into teaching, it might happen.
Very few reasons why a young person should go into this profession at this point. They won't last long enough for tenure or pension, which seems to be the goal. Will they bother to do the 2-5 years just to have a job and some income?
DeleteThat's exactly right. They keep making it more difficult to get an ed degree, they keep making it more difficult to get a teacher's license, and they keep whittling away at teacher autonomy, work benefits, and the allure of the profession.
DeleteIn the past, New York City required three years of probationary service as a requirement for tenure. This included six formal observations per year, for a total of eighteen over this period...I have known many wonderful teachers who had gone through that system, and are just as devoted to their students now, as they were when the began...Cuomo's system is not meant to better the public education sector, but to throw as many obstacles at it to try and paralyze it, to continue to try to shock the public that our schools are failing...However, it is Cuomo who has failed our schools, committing crimes against our public schools in clearly calculated and premeditated ways....he must be held accountable and brought to justice, punished to the fullest extent of the law, by one of the most destructive governors in the history of the state of New York.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly is meant to make circumstances worse in the system - we're already drowning in paperwork, compliance, meetings, et al. That looks like it will only get worse in the next few years.
DeleteJust thought you might be interested in freelance writers. They're really helpful for blogger and students.
ReplyDelete