Adding to Liam's Tough Time for Tenure post, I wanted to call attention to a few more details, per the Times' take on the story from a couple of days ago.
It may very well be that the era of ?guaranteed lifetime employment? is not over and unions have surely not thrown in any towels in teacher evaluation fights. But what Mayor Bloomberg and Chancellor Klein have managed to accomplish in New York City is worth applauding.
The new rules?for measuring a teacher's abilities may be ??an elaborate system? (the Times), but it does allow principals the chance to use ?student performance on standardized tests in their ratings.?In fact, principals now?assess new teachers as highly effective, effective, developing or ineffective in each of three categories: ?instructional practice,? ?professional contributions? and ?impact on student learning.? ?To be considered for tenure, a teacher must receive a rating of effective or highly effective for at least two consecutive years in all three categories.
Though the city's United Federation of Teachers?is grumpy ? ?They put all this effort into talking about tenure and no effort in figuring out a plan of support for new teachers,? complained the UFT's chief Michael Mulgrew to the Times ? the principals union is behind it.? ?I don't like the extra paperwork involved,? one administrator told the Times. ?But the reality is, it's needed.?
And it is already beginning to have an effect: the city has gone from rejecting only 0.4 percent of tenure requests to a 4 percent denial rate last year.
To know the all-important ?impact on student learning? that such changes will have may take years to sort out, but it's a good sign that the system has been able to?introduce some?sound business practices? ? and common sense ? to our public school education effort.
?Peter Meyer, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow
