At the same time that New York public schools are failing thousands of our students in their preparation for college or careers, we bestow the vast majority of our teachers with positive job evaluations. In 2010, the legislature passed a historic law calling for the overhaul of teacher evaluation systems across New York State. That law required school districts and teachers unions to collaborate on the creation of meaningful evaluations, which included clear measures of student learning.
Nearly two years later, implementation of these evaluations remains stalled. Governor Andrew Cuomo’s recent proposal that school districts and unions meet this obligation in order to receive additional state aid for public schools is a much-needed inducement to realize this vision.
Denying reality will not cut it anymore. We need to start telling the truth to our teachers, our school leaders and ourselves about teacher performance. If we are not able to implement an effective teacher evaluation system this year, we face the loss of nearly 1.7 billion dollars in federal aid and state aid combined. In our six largest cities alone, we face the loss of $756,416,778 in the 2011–2012 and 2012–2013 school years.
This report reveals for the first time the cost to the state’s largest school districts if they fail to implement teacher evaluations.
