Cuomo’s Education Retreat A case study in how unions undermine teacher accountability.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/cuomos-education-retreat-1451261376
The latest federal education reform sends more power back to states and local districts, but that poses risks to the extent they are captured by teachers unions. Witness New York, where Governor Andrew Cuomo is retreating on teacher accountability.
In a bid to snag Race to the Top funds in 2010, New York adopted Common Core standards and required that 20% of teacher evaluations be based on student scores on state tests and another 20% on local objective measures of student learning. Student scores on the tougher new tests plunged. Proficiency dropped to 31% in reading and math in 2013 from 69% and 82%, respectively, in 2009.
Yet even as student measures plunged, local school districts in cahoots with the unions rigged evaluations to ensure that nearly all teachers got good marks. One tactic: Unions collectively bargained for easier local tests to be part of their evaluations. Lo, 96% of teachers statewide were rated “effective” or “highly effective” last year while only about a third of students passed state reading and math tests.
Mr. Cuomo responded in January with a call for more stringent evaluations. And this year’s budget agreement required that state test scores account for half of teacher evaluations and linked tenure to the new ratings. Tenured teachers with at least two consecutive “ineffective” ratings could be fired.
The unions took revenge by fueling a public outcry against over testing, though their collective-bargaining had encouraged more (if easier) tests. Some teachers urged parents to opt out of state tests to undermine the new ratings. One in five students skipped testing this April. State education officials claimed civil disobedience was highest among upper-crust communities and low-scoring kids—i.e., affluent parents disillusioned by the grade deflation.
Mr. Cuomo sought to temper the testing tantrum by anointing a 15-member task force to review Common Core standards and tests. The council issued a 51-page report recommending more teacher, parent and student input in devising new tests and standards. In practice, this will likely mean dumbing-down tests to ensure that more students pass.
The Governor’s school counselors also proposed a moratorium on test-based teacher evaluations through the 2018-19 school year, which conveniently goes past his potential re-election campaign. So teachers will get a four-year forbearance from accountability, which could in time become de facto permanent—like Mr. Cuomo’s “temporary” ban on shale oil drilling and millionaire’s tax.
Mr. Cuomo started as a promising voice of centrist reform in a state that desperately needs it, but in his second term he has moved left with his $15 minimum wage and fracking ban. His about-face on accountability doesn’t bode well for the rest of his education agenda, and it shows why teachers union chief Randi Weingarten (a task force member) went along with the federal devolution of testing power to the states. She thinks she can own many of them politically.
Comments are closed.
