UFT Loses Appeal, Teachers Ratings to Be Published

The United Federation of Teachers has lost its appeal to prevent NYC teachers’ ratings from becoming public.

The United Federation of Teachers (UFT) has lost their appeal to prevent New York City from releasing performance reports for thousands of teachers.

A state court declined to hear a final appeal from the city’s teachers union to keep the reports private. The reports, which rate teachers against their peers, were created in 2008 under former Chancellor Joel Klein as part of a push to evaluate educators using student test scores, writes Lisa Fleisher at the Wall Street Journal.

To block the release, the UFT has attempted to sue to maintain the privacy of the reports, which use a complex formula to try to isolate each individual teacher’s effect on their students’ performance.

The union argued that using state tests to compute teachers’ scores would be an invasion of teachers’ privacy.

In publishing the scores of about 12,500 educators who teach math or English in fourth through eighth grade, their wide margins of error make them unreliable, say critics.

Officials want to see the data reports used as part of an overall teacher’s performance evaluation. The scores would affect teachers in two ways – it would be easier to fire them if they record two straight bad evaluations, but they could also be in line for permanent raises if they record quality evaluations.

Spokesman for the city’s Department of Education, Matt Mittenthal, said the data would be released “in the coming weeks.”

He said:

“These reports, which include data from almost two years ago, are just one indicator of teacher effectiveness and do not tell the whole story — but the data is useful to principals in their management and support of teachers, especially those at the top and bottom.”

However, Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said the release is “particularly inappropriate” because the city will now use the state’s data analysis in the future.

“The teacher data reports are based on bad data and an unproven methodology with a huge margin of error,” he said.

“They are not an accurate reflection of the work of any teacher.”

Comments

Joe

February 21, 2012 at 10:05 am

I can’t believe people actually fought against this. Teachers are public employees and thus subject to FOIA! This isn’t news and why is the UFT wasting member money even fighting it?

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Kevin

February 21, 2012 at 10:06 am

“The teacher data reports are based on bad data and an unproven methodology with a huge margin of error,” he said.

“They are not an accurate reflection of the work of any teacher.”

Well, ok, you’ve made your reservations known. Now you must still turn over this information. The public is entitled to it.

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Chris

February 22, 2012 at 4:40 am

Yikes….interesting article which shows a general lack of knowledge about teaching effectiveness still exists in this day and age.

Sure, there is a lot of data that exists that can be used to evaluate teachers in a public forum. Parent reporting sites, Rate My Teacher, and other forums also exist, and you can certainly check out those as well. However, when it comes to test data, how you interpret this data and how much of it is used is subject to contention. And in the case of the NY schools, the data that maybe released is actually ineffective data that could be used to make poor decisions.

First, statistically speaking, two years of data is not enough to show a trend, let alone make an evaluation reliable. At least three years of hard data, at a minimum, shows this. And that is at a minimum. However, schools throughout the country, not just New York, are relying on two years of data to make a lot of decision. Unfortunately, rash decisions.

Second, the data is used in isolation. The makeup of teacher classrooms plays a major impact on test scores. The number of students with a variety of needs, the number of students who might be tardy during a school year, and the number of students who transfer into a classroom, which aren’t reported in student test data, can affect a test score….all of which might make a teacher seem more ineffective than he or she might be.

Finally, this article suggests that the data is used as part of an evaluation. What is the other data being used? This should at least be emphasized – though not given to the public – to show exactly how test data is being used to evaluate teachers and that test data, alone, is not an effective tool.

It is sad in this day and age that people really think test data is en effective tool to judge teachers. Rather, it is a sure way to create an education where we “teach to a test.”

And that is bad.

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Mike

February 22, 2012 at 12:25 pm

Report in Phi Delta Kappan just came out against using student test performance to rate teachers.

Reply