Governor Cuomo (Photo: Getty)
In his appearance on Fred Dicker’s radio show today, Governor Andrew Cuomo addressed the controversy over teacher evaluations. Last week, State Education Commissioner John B. King announced suspended millions of dollars in funding from schools in the five boroughs and nine other districts around New York that missed a deadline to agree on plans for teacher evaluation programs. Governor Cuomo, who called for an education commission to come up with an evaluation plan in his State of the State address last week, described the situation with as a “major crisis for the state.” Though he doesn’t plan on personally getting involved in the tense negotiations on evaluations going on between local school districts and teacher’s unions, Governor Cuomo said something has to give.
“This situation is not going away, we need the evaluations done because it’s how we improve education. Second, we need an evaluation system, because it was the condition of the federal funding and it’s not going to get better,” Governor Cuomo said.
Establishing teacher evaluation programs was a condition of the $700 million in “Race to the Top” education education funding New York received from the federal government. In order to qualify for the funding, Governor Cuomo passed a state law requiring teacher evaluations in 2010. Teacher’s unions have successfully challenged that law in court arguing that it places too much emphasis in a teacher’s evaluation on student performance. Governor Cuomo admitted to Mr. Dicker that the current law on evaluations has proven to be “a failure.”
“Every state that wanted to qualify had to pass a teacher evaluation law, we did as part of the ‘Race to the Top,’” Governor Cuomo said. “The law has been a failure, it has not been implemented. It is unworkable, some would say it was unworkable by design ab initio, but time has shown that it’s unworkable.”
Teacher’s unions have also battled other plans for evaluation in local districts. In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has clashed with the United Federation of Teachers because they want an independent commission to come up with an evaluation policy while he wants principals to have control over the process. In a radio appearance of his own Friday, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said the governor should help “intercede and try to bring the parties together.” Governor Cuomo rejected the idea that he should step in to the negotiations in the five boroughs or anywhere else in the state.
“I’m not going to get between Mayor Bloomberg and the UFT. There are roughly 700 school districts in this state, the answer isn’t, ‘The governor should intervene between the local political official, or the school board and the union,’” Governor Cuomo said. “I can’t negotiate 700 union contracts, that’s not going to be the answer here.”
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let me guess….. they need more tax money.
and waivers from Obamacare…
Why do you Governor Coumo insist that the blame for low test scores, etc. must lie with the teachers. Have you not considered that the parents must accept a large portion of the blame. Teachers have to parent these children as well as educate them m while the parents blissfully take no oresponsibility for their children. This is not just a duisease of the poor and underprivilged, but also of the wealthy. Have you Governor Coumo ever tried to construct a silk purse out of a sows ear? Let us know when you succeed in this endeavor, please, for that is essentially what you are asking teachers to do. You are askeing them to take a child who has beenn up all night listening to his mother and “uncle” fight or use drugs or – and the list goes on. But the teacher is to blame when Little Johnny can not read or take a 3 hour test and write as well as little Susie who has a caring family who work with her and are M/M Average Joe American. By the way many of the Little Johnnies of the schools are born to mothers who are still in their teens. May I suggest tyou go out into the trenches Mr. Coumo and smell the roses, and by the way the is a large part of New York State locatednoth of the Thruway.
ahh always someone else’s fault.. right?
ahh always someone else’s fault.. right?
obviously if all those kids are “sows ears”… how could you expect them to learn anything?
Teachers are only part of the problem. The real problem is with post-1960s public eduction methodology. The current methodology is geared around making kids feel good about learning, not around learning itself, which, when you are successful at it, makes you feel good. When the educational methodology is bad, adding more hours to a school day and emphasizing the basics is just going to result in spending more time NOT learning properly.
I think a lot of teachers are at best, underqualified, but you can only blame them so far in as much as they are being told to push a methodology that doesn’t work. Back in the “old days” most schools weren’t well-funded enterprises – they were little schoolhouses in rural communities with plenty of poor students – and they did a far better job of educating citizens than extremely rich schools do today. Those schools worked because they expected a lot of their students, no matter where they came from.
Let’s see. ” There are roughly 700 school districts in this state” and New York state received “$700 million in “Race to the Top” education funding from the federal government”. According to my math that would be one million dollars per district for use in establishing these required evaluations. Well I can tell you that the school district here only got maybe a few thousand dollars for this project and that money was diverted to BOCES. I wonder whose pockets the other millions went into. It didn’t end up in any of the teacher unions pockets I can tell you that. On to the testing.
How can you grade and penalize a teacher for poor grades of some students who have parents that refuse to help their own children or better yet can’t?
Do all teachers across the state teach the same curriculum? NO! Does the state have lesson plans for every grade and subject matter thats uniform throughout the state? NO! Do all 30 year teachers teach with the newest most up to date technology? NO! Does a teacher who has taught for three years side by side with one who has taught for twenty years teaching the same curriculum make the same amount of money? NO!
Make it so all of those answers are yes and you won’t even think about testing teachers because there won’t be any need to!
Let’s see. ” There are roughly 700 school districts in this state” and New York state received “$700 million in “Race to the Top” education funding from the federal government”. According to my math that would be one million dollars per district for use in establishing these required evaluations. Well I can tell you that the school district here only got maybe a few thousand dollars for this project and that money was diverted to BOCES. I wonder whose pockets the other millions went into. It didn’t end up in any of the teacher unions pockets I can tell you that. On to the testing.
How can you grade and penalize a teacher for poor grades of some students who have parents that refuse to help their own children or better yet can’t?
Do all teachers across the state teach the same curriculum? NO! Does the state have lesson plans for every grade and subject matter thats uniform throughout the state? NO! Do all 30 year teachers teach with the newest most up to date technology? NO! Does a teacher who has taught for three years side by side with one who has taught for twenty years teaching the same curriculum make the same amount of money? NO!
Make it so all of those answers are yes and you won’t even think about testing teachers because there won’t be any need to!
Let’s see. ” There are roughly 700 school districts in this state” and New York state received “$700 million in “Race to the Top” education funding from the federal government”. According to my math that would be one million dollars per district for use in establishing these required evaluations. Well I can tell you that the school district here only got maybe a few thousand dollars for this project and that money was diverted to BOCES. I wonder whose pockets the other millions went into. It didn’t end up in any of the teacher unions pockets I can tell you that. On to the testing.
How can you grade and penalize a teacher for poor grades of some students who have parents that refuse to help their own children or better yet can’t?
Do all teachers across the state teach the same curriculum? NO! Does the state have lesson plans for every grade and subject matter thats uniform throughout the state? NO! Do all 30 year teachers teach with the newest most up to date technology? NO! Does a teacher who has taught for three years side by side with one who has taught for twenty years teaching the same curriculum make the same amount of money? NO!
Make it so all of those answers are yes and you won’t even think about testing teachers because there won’t be any need to!
The evaluation have to be done at the lowest level. Local! Pruncipal, superintendent keep it local. It Can Not be controlled or applied from a independent commission. You good one week during eval, but below standards the rest of the year doesn’t cut it. It has to be a continueing process, week in and week out! Parents work long hours too, there are not teachers. Teachers are just that, getting paid to educate, not the parents! The parents pay school taxes to pay the teachers! End of story!!!
I hope you have know chilldran.
You either… it’s NO.. not know..idjit.
Rumple56, your logic is ignorant… I am a mother of 2 boys and I am and always will be their first teacher… it is parents or individuals like you who make it harder on the teachers…. It is MY job to provide them with the opportunities in which they will learn, a teacher only gives them the fundamentals… I believe that is the problem.. we expect the school districts to do the parenting along with the teaching…
Rumple56, your logic is ignorant… I am a mother of 2 boys and I am and always will be their first teacher… it is parents or individuals like you who make it harder on the teachers…. It is MY job to provide them with the opportunities in which they will learn, a teacher only gives them the fundamentals… I believe that is the problem.. we expect the school districts to do the parenting along with the teaching…
Rumple56, your logic is ignorant… I am a mother of 2 boys and I am and always will be their first teacher… it is parents or individuals like you who make it harder on the teachers…. It is MY job to provide them with the opportunities in which they will learn, a teacher only gives them the fundamentals… I believe that is the problem.. we expect the school districts to do the parenting along with the teaching…
wheni work iget performancereviews why shouldn’t they
wheni work iget performancereviews why shouldn’t they
wheni work iget performancereviews why shouldn’t they
The problem with teacher evaluation is that all things are not equal. What happens to a competent teacher that is given a classroom of struggling learners? What happens when this teacher is given little or no support? What happens is that the teacher is rated ineffective. What happens when a weak teacher who does the bidding of the administrator is given choice opportunities with lots of support? That weak teacher is called highly effective. This is more the case than not. Many administrators mete out reward or punishment based on loyalty and create a few showcase classrooms that are presented for all to see. The problem lies with poor leadership. There needs to be more focus on how good administrators create good schools.
what did they do back in the 50s?
The problem with teacher evaluation is that all things are not equal. What happens to a competent teacher that is given a classroom of struggling learners? What happens when this teacher is given little or no support? What happens is that the teacher is rated ineffective. What happens when a weak teacher who does the bidding of the administrator is given choice opportunities with lots of support? That weak teacher is called highly effective. This is more the case than not. Many administrators mete out reward or punishment based on loyalty and create a few showcase classrooms that are presented for all to see. The problem lies with poor leadership. There needs to be more focus on how good administrators create good schools.
I teach overseas in an international school. Thus, I have students from many different cultures. I can tell you from experience, it comes down to the mindset of the culture. Education must be valued at home; and that does not simply mean parents who think a good education is valuable. Rather: parents who are supportive in real and meaningful ways. Our American culture is more focused on the boom box, drugs, sports, Hollywood, and everything else. Teachers are even held responsible for the academic progress of children who have literally fried their brains on crack. The politicians and bureaucrats mean well, but they legislate laws in an arena in which they have no real understanding — and thus create more problems. As one Canadian told me: the teachers are the ones who are holding it all together.
Just like the school system, these comments have no option to click ‘dislike’. Why would you only have “like” and “comment” as options? Let us not forget the current generation of new teachers where taught less then the last and the trend will continue. No child left behind….the starting pistol is broken PERIOD.
Why is it that employers are unable to evaluate their employees anyway they see fit?