Governor Cuomo's educational proposals...what's in store for you?

From Governor Cuomo's January 21, 2015 Opportunity Agenda:

Proposals #37-41: Strengthen teacher evaluations

Last year, less than one percent of teachers in New York State were rated ineffective, yet our students still lag behind in performance. We need a strong teacher evaluation system that can help school leaders recognize and reward outstanding teachers and identify those who need help to improve.

The Governor proposes changes to the teacher evaluation system to ensure that teachers are recognized and treated as professional people whose skills, strengths and weaknesses are not all interchangeable. To ensure that our teacher evaluation system is real, accurate and fair, Governor Cuomo proposes a series of reforms to simplify and standardize the system:

1. Instead of two student growth measures, we will eliminate the local measure. In the new system, fifty percent of the score will be based on state tests, or, in the case of teachers in non-tested grades or subjects, a student growth measure that measures one year of academic growth.
2. The remaining fifty percent of the score will be determined by rigorous observations of the educator in action; of this, thirty-five points will be determined by independent observations and fifteen points will be determined by supervisor observations.
3. The scoring bands currently used in the tallying of summative ratings vary across the State. Districts set their own cut offs and the 100 point scale encourages backing into a result. We will set the scoring bands for both the student growth measure and the observation portion of the score at the state level.
4. The law will also state that if a teacher is rated Ineffective in either portion of the score, he or she cannot receive a rating of Effective or Highly Effective.
5. We propose tenure to be only granted when a teacher achieves five consecutive years of effective ratings.

Proposal #42: Create a $20 million Teacher Excellence Fund to support top teachers

Governor Cuomo will launch a $20 million Teacher Excellence Fund that will encourage excellent teachers to continue to teach in the classrooms where they are needed the most. Highly effective teachers will be eligible for up to $20,000 in annual supplemental compensation through the Teacher Excellence Fund. Eligibility for the Fund will require agreement of both the school district and teachers’ union. Districts will be chosen to participate based on factors that include whether the incentives are designed to encourage highly effective teachers to work in struggling schools.

Improve and Reform our Education System

Proposal #43: Make it easier, fairer and faster to remove ineffective teachers from the classroom

The current teacher discipline and termination system, commonly known as 3020-a hearings, is broken. The hearings are costly and time-consuming for districts, and allow arbitrators to overrule administrators’ determinations of competency and of appropriate remedies. Administrators take on protracted battles that they may or may not win, at great cost to themselves and their school communities, in attempting to eliminate ineffective and incompetent educators in their buildings. The Governor proposes a series of reforms to 3020-a hearings to streamline the hearing process, shift the presumptions, and strengthen evidentiary standards, including:

1.  In the case of a teacher accused of physical or sexual abuse of a child, there will be an expedited hearing with a decision rendered within 60 days. We already have an expedited process for teachers deemed incompetent, but we must also have one for teachers accused of harming children. The teacher alleged to have engaged in abuse will be suspended without pay, pending the outcome of the hearing, and will receive retroactive pay if the hearing officer finds in his or her favor. In addition, a teacher convicted of a violent felony against a child will automatically have his or her teaching certificate revoked.
2.  The Governor proposes easing the legal burden on school districts seeking to remove a teacher that has been rated ineffective two years in a row. Under the new standard, such a teacher would only be able to rebut this strong evidence of incompetence by clear and convincing evidence that the calculation of one the ineffective ratings was fraudulent.
3.  Elimination of the current legal requirement that administrators must attempt to “rehabilitate” teachers who are incompetent or engage in misconduct.
4.  Removal of the requirement that children must testify in person and will allow them to testify via sworn written or video statements.
5.  A clarification to existing law that a non-tenured teacher may be dismissed at any time for any reason.
6.  New legislation that prevents a student from being assigned two ineffective teachers in consecutive school years.

Proposal #44: Implement the Massachusetts Model in New York to transform failing schools

Across New York State, more than 100,000 students are sitting in 178 “priority schools,” defined as schools that (i) are in the bottom 5 percent of schools statewide, based on combined ELA and math scores, and are not showing progress in test performance or (ii) have graduation rates that are below 60 percent for the last three years. 77 of these schools have been failing for nearly a decade and 27 have been in the lowest level of accountability status for nearly a decade. Estimates are that at least 250,000 students were enrolled in these 77 schools since they’ve been failing; the bottom 27 schools enrolled at least 64,000.

To ensure that the most chronically underperforming schools in the state improve at a faster rate, the Governor proposes legislation modeled after the Massachusetts education receivership model. When a school fails for three years, a nonprofit, another school district, or a turnaround expert must take over the school. That entity will have the authority to:

• Overhaul the curriculum.
• Override agreements to terminate underperforming staff.
• Provide salary incentives to recruit high-performing educators.
• Obtain priority over Pre-K, extended learning time, community schools, Early College High Schools, and other State grant programs.

Proposal #45: Give students in failing schools a preference

To provide students in failing schools with additional options in the short-term the Governor will create a preference in the charter school lottery for such students.

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/2015-opportunity-agenda