This is either a cautionary tale about trusting education bureaucracies, a lesson in Internet lethargy, or simply the complaint of a crochety (former) journalist. Various news reports today discuss the release of a 114-page report, at a Monday meeting, by the New York Board of Regents 63-member Task Force on Teacher and Principal Effectiveness (Ithaca Journal, Daily News, Times Union). ?This is a pretty big deal in New York -- as the size of the task force would suggest -- so, I went to the New York State Education Department's web page to take a look for myself ? and found nothing. In fact, the last ?news release? from NYSED was from February 17!***
In fact, from what one can surmise from the news stories, yesterday's Task Force report is not a lot different?from one issued in January ? just a lot longer -- and they all point toward a briar patch of monumental complexity. Writes Scott Waldman in the TU:
Twenty percent of an educator's evaluation will be based on student academic progress on state standardized assessments, 20 percent on locally selected measures of student achievement and 60 percent on other measures of teacher and principal effectiveness. Those measures must be collectively?bargained.
To be continued.? ?
?--Peter Meyer, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow
***Ah, the power of Flypaper.? The press release is up and the Task Force report available--here.
