New+York+Teacher+Evaluations+Unfairly+Weigh+Test+Scores,+State+Supreme+Court+Says

= For State Teachers’ Union, a Victory on Evaluations = =By [|SHARON OTTERMAN]= =//Published by the New York Times//= =//8/24/11//= = = = = =A judge ruled Wednesday that the [|New York State Board of Regents] overreached in its interpretation of a new law on teacher evaluations, offering a victory to the state teachers’ union.= =The decision, by Justice [|Michael C. Lynch] of State Supreme Court in Albany, invalidated aspects of a recent Regents vote on teacher evaluations, and may further delay the introduction of the law, which is scheduled to go into effect for all fourth through eighth grade teachers, pending union approval, in the coming school year.= =“We are extremely pleased with the outcome,” said Richard C. Iannuzzi, the president of the union, the New York State United Teachers.= =In June, the union sued the Board of Regents, which sets state education policy, arguing that last-minute changes the Regents approved had increased the role of student test scores in teacher evaluations beyond what the 2010 law permitted.= =In his 16-page decision, Justice Lynch largely sided with the union, writing that the Regents had failed to give sufficient weight to the law’s collective bargaining requirements, and that it had not fully acknowledged the law’s stipulation that test scores alone cannot determine a teacher’s performance review. “The Regents is unquestionably invested with broad rule-making authority,” Justice Lynch wrote, “but such authority must be exercised subject to and in conformity with the law of the state.”= =John B. King Jr., the state education commissioner, said the state planned to appeal.= =“We are disappointed,” he said, by the aspects of the decision “that undermine the rigor of the evaluation system.”= =Heeding [|a call from Dr. King] and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, the Board of Regents voted in May to permit districts to base 40 percent of a teacher’s annual review on students’ scores on state standardized tests. But the law specifies that 20 percent of the evaluation must be based on state tests, with an additional 20 percent based on other, locally developed student tests. The other 60 percent of the evaluation is based on subjective measures, including observation.= =In a compromise that pleased both the union and the state, Justice Lynch ruled that districts could use state tests for both the local and state measure, if the local union chapter approved and the tests were used in more than one way.= =But he invalidated [|a Regents decision] that would have required any teacher who received a rating of “ineffective” on the test score component of his or her evaluation to get an “ineffective” rating over all — no matter how well that teacher scored on subjective measures.= =The new law replaces the simple “satisfactory/unsatisfactory” scale that teachers have been judged against for decades with a four-tiered rating: ineffective, developing, effective or highly effective. [|It was passed in a compromise]= = = = = =News= =home=