Teacher evaluations frustrate New York

Give Albany an incomplete: The 2010 state law passed to create a teacher evaluation system based partially on student achievement, thus qualifying New York for federal Race to the Top grant funds, didn't work. About 18 months later, the evaluation methods aren't in place, agreed upon, tested or even defined.

In fact, 10 school districts were denied state School Improvement Grants last week because, according to the Education Department, they haven't crafted acceptable agreements with their unions to evaluate teachers and act on those evaluations. The denial could cost the Roosevelt School District almost $2 million.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo promised in his State of the State speech last week to make fixing education a priority, naming himself the Albany lobbyist for K-12 students. His proposal: a new commission that will devise a way to evaluate educators so fair, comprehensive and workable that every special interest will either willingly support it, or be forced to by the weight of public opinion. Districts will likely still be given a chance to make their own deal, but the committee's plan could go into place automatically for those that fail.

Cuomo has no other option, at least partially because that 2010 law -- passed hurriedly to garner $700 million in federal funds -- provided no method to achieve its goals. In retrospect, it was far too optimistic to believe that 700 districts and union shops would each come to an agreement on plans for grading teachers, helping the worst improve and firing the ones who don't.

The New York State United Teachers union says the state has provided little in terms of testing and evaluation guidelines, particularly in subjects other than math and language arts. Union officials say nobody even knows what it is the union is supposed to agree to -- and this is true. One of the biggest stumbling blocks for many districts, including New York City, has been crafting an appeals process for teachers who are dismissed.

A recent battle over the lengths of tests for younger students and whether they can be asked to take them the day after a long vacation shows just how few guidelines are in place. Regents exams, which could have been a way to measure student and teacher achievement in many subjects, have been cut back to save money. And funds to retrain and help incompetent teachers improve haven't been found.

Some of these are real difficulties, not merely obstructionism. So it would be wise for Cuomo and his committee to approach this as a challenge rather than a brawl.

The obstacles are a ticking clock and an entrenched bureaucracy, represented by all those individual districts and teacher contracts. The factors in the governor's favor, however, are more powerful: control over state aid to schools, the property tax cap, tough rules governing that $700 million in Race to the Top money, and the state's desperate need for a waiver to the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Absent that waiver -- which won't come if the evaluation system isn't in place by 2014 -- every district in the state will be declared "failing" by Washington, potentially costing districts more money.

With the new cap this year, districts can no longer raise property taxes almost at will, and they're going to need every penny they can get from the state and the federal government, as well as a lot of authority to decide where that money goes. Districts that adopt systems to make teachers and administrators accountable for student achievement won't get the money they need. Showing educators that, and coming up with an evaluation system so sensible and workable that public opinion -- and even union opinion -- coalesces behind it, are Albany's assignment.New York's students need the governor and his committee to get an A.