Schools chief optimistic on teacher evals

The state's top school official told a Long Island audience Thursday that he remains optimistic a statewide agreement will be negotiated on the contentious issue of teacher job evaluations, despite fresh misgivings expressed by union representatives.

"It's going to be anxiety-causing and create debate, and I'm glad for it," Education Commissioner John B. King Jr. said in response to a reporter's question about the status of negotiations. "I think it's good that we're having robust statewide conversations about evaluations of principals and teachers."

King declined to discuss details of recent negotiations with representatives of New York State United Teachers, which represents 600,000 school workers statewide. The main sticking point is how much of a teacher's rating will be based on students' state test scores.

The commissioner spoke at a breakfast meeting of educators, politicians and others at Hofstra University in Hempstead.

The teacher union announced Wednesday that it would place about $100,000 worth of ads in Newsday and eight other newspapers to underline its position that "evaluations should focus on classroom learning and individual student needs and not over-rely on standardized tests."

NYSUT president Richard C. Iannuzzi, a former Central Islip teacher, said "meaningful" discussions were under way to resolve differences.

The fight involves a 2010 law that requires 20 percent of teachers' evaluations to be based on results of standardized state tests. In May, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and a majority of the state's Board of Regents tried to boost that requirement to as much as 40 percent. NYSUT complained that the move violated an earlier agreement and filed a lawsuit that is pending in state courts.

Last month, Cuomo set a Feb. 16 deadline for a settlement between the teacher union and King, who reports to the Regents. If an agreement is not reached, the governor has said he will propose his own evaluation system, which would require legislative approval. Federal authorities have said that delay in establishing such a system could jeopardize $700 million in Race to the Top grants to New York State and its schools.

Other states also are trying to establish teacher evaluation systems in return for the federal money. In Tennessee, where new evaluations began in the fall, the effort has gotten mixed reviews, with some school administrators calling it an improvement over the state's old system and others calling it a bureaucratic tangle.

Roger Tilles of Great Neck, the Island's representative on the Regents board who attended Thursday's breakfast, said he remains skeptical that teachers' job performance can be accurately rated through mathematical formulas based on students' scores. Tilles was one of three Regents who voted in May against the system's revision. "It has not worked great anywhere in the country yet," he said.