New York State Legislature approves bill revising state's teacher evaluation system

State lawmakers have approved a bill revising the state’s teacher evaluation system — giving more local control to districts and eliminating student test scores as a required assessment tool.

The legislation, supported by the state Education Department and the New York State United Teachers union, awaits Gov. Kathy Hochul's signature. A representative from her office said Thursday the governor will review the legislation.

Several statewide education groups, including the New York State Council of School Superintendents and the New York State Parent Teacher Association, have applauded the changes.

Under the proposal, evaluation of a teacher's job performance would be subject to an agreement between representatives of the local teachers union and district leaders — much like the way contracts are negotiated. The legislation also will give school districts extended time to come up with an evaluation process. Districts can incorporate test scores if that is agreed to locally. 

“This is a win for students, educators and communities, because it will allow instruction to focus on a love of teaching and learning, and it will treat our educators like the professionals they are,” said Melinda Person, NYSUT president,  in a statement Wednesday.

The legislation, drafted by the New York State Educational Conference Board, creates a new system for measuring teacher and principal accountability that focuses on professional development and support, she said.

Person and State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa had jointly delivered the legislation to the State Capitol in March.

 “We thank our allies in both chambers for overwhelmingly passing bipartisan legislation that would return teacher and principal evaluations to local control,” Person said. 

Greg Perles, president of North Shore Schools Federated Employees, who is also a history teacher at North Shore High School in Nassau County, said Thursday the bill “actually allows teachers to challenge kids in a more interesting and creative way.

“What we are going to get are local communities making decisions rather than Albany making decisions, so that the teachers and the school administrators here are able to put more sophisticated work in front of kids,” he said. “And the end result is that we are going to get back to authentic teaching and authentic learning.”

The measure was passed by the state Senate and Assembly Wednesday.

Ken Girardin, research director for the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative think tank, said the state should instead be strengthening accountability of teaching staff.

“No rational person would look at the low performance and high cost of New York's public schools and say that the biggest problem was insufficient input from the teachers union in deciding how teachers get evaluated,” he said Thursday. “Standardized tests aren't the end-all, be-all but when people ask why kids in Texas and Kentucky are outperforming New York students while New York schools are spending twice as much, it stands to reason that Albany needs to be strengthening accountability, not kicking the can to local school boards where NYSUT helped most members get elected.”

In 2010, lawmakers approved basing teachers' ratings on students' achievement on state English and math standardized tests, as well as on classroom tests and supervisor evaluations. In 2019, lawmakers approved ending the mandate tying teacher evaluations to students’ scores on standardized tests under the process known as the Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR). But even supporters acknowledged at the time that it didn’t completely unlink exams and evaluations, leaving 50% of a teacher’s appraisal to some measure of student performance.

Those changes were prompted in large part by massive student boycotts of state tests that swept across the state and remain strong on Long Island to this day.

That law required local districts to negotiate with their teacher unions to choose the exams to be used to evaluate an educator's performance. About half of job ratings were based on test scores, and the other half on classroom observations by district supervisors.

These performance reviews were paused for three years during the COVID-19 pandemic and then re-evaluated when they resumed to “move forward with a performance review process that prioritizes educator growth,” according to the Senate summary of the bill.

Changes in the bill will allow districts and staff to negotiate performance review plans. These agreements would develop a process to rate educators on a 1-4 scale, with 4 being the highest, on multiple measures and provide support for teachers rated 1 and 2. Parents would receive the most recent score of their child's teacher each year.

Districts and BOCES would have eight years to transition to the new system.

“The current APPR statute is cumbersome and expensive, and has taken up precious time and resources … This legislation will provide a new framework to ensure a system of evaluations that better serves our teachers, students, parents, and school communities,” read the Senate bill summary.

By Joie Tyrrell

joie.tyrrell@newsday.com@JoieTyrrell

Joie Tyrrell is a Long Island native and covers education for Newsday, where she has worked since 1998.