Yesterday, Gov. Cuomo and the teachers unions announced agreement on the structure for a new system of evaluating New York’s public school teachers. The compromise was imperfect, but represents a real step forward in ensuring that none of New York’s kids are taught by a bad teacher.
The new system will provide a far richer assessment of a teacher’s performance than is offered by the current rubber stamp evaluations. Part of a teacher’s evaluation will be based on analysis of his or her students’ performance on standardized tests. And while 60 percent of the evaluation will rely on subjective assessments of the teacher’s performance, that subjective piece will include at least two classroom observations by the principal, one of which must be unannounced.