NYC's Department of Education has released data related on the 2011-12 state tests used in the new teacher evaluation system imposed by the state Education Department. Based on student scores last year about 6 percent of the city’s fourth through eighth grade teachers were rated ineffective. The new teacher evaluation system will hold teachers accountable to higher standards than under the previous system and help schools remove ineffective educators from the classroom.
According to the Wall Street Journal:
City officials have said that, under the city's current teacher-performance system, far too few were flunked by principals, who had only two choices: a rating of satisfactory or unsatisfactory. In 2011-12, under the old rating system, 2.6% of the city's roughly 73,000 teachers received unsatisfactory ratings, and the rest were rated satisfactory. It was once common for less than 1% of teachers to be rated unsatisfactory.
The new system, which will take effect this fall, ranks teachers in four categories: ineffective, developing, effective and highly effective. The scores will generally be based 20% on state tests, 20% on school-based tests and 60% on classroom visits by administrators.
