Andrew Cuomo is a very popular governor and apparently that means that what he wants, he gets. So when Cuomo says he wants teacher evaluations across the state—he gets them. Yup, Cuomo announced earlier today a compromise with the teachers union on evaluations. Nothing like threatening to just write some rules yourself without input to get people moving!
There are a number of factors in the long-time coming compromise, but the gist seems to be that teachers will have the ability to get an "effective" rating even if their kids' test scores are low, "as long as they showed at least some progress, according to people familiar with the arrangement." Evaluations will now be based on Teacher Performance (60 points) and Student Achievement in State and Local Assessments (40 points). Teachers who score below 64 will be deemed "ineffective," 65-74 will be "developing," 75-90 will be "effective," and 91-100 will be "highly effective."
Teacher evaluations have been a hot topic for years, but the issue started really boiling after Cuomo made it a centerpiece of his State of the State speech this year—threatening to "impose his own version of a teacher evaluation system through budget amendments" if an agreement wasn't reached by about...now. Good job, Andy!
