The United Federation of Teachers recently filed a lawsuit aimed at blocking school choice. This action is unjust and completely disregards the needs of the most important stakeholders in our school system: students and parents.

Leaders from the teachers' union and the City have until January 17th to reach an agreement on a new teacher evaluation system or else NYC schools will lose $300 million.

With one day left before the deadline and still no deal, StudentsFirstNY ran the newspaper ad below in New York papers urging leaders to come to an agreement for our teachers and our students.

While studies have consistently shown that teacher quality is the greatest influencer of a child’s academic success, few systems exist in New York State to influence teacher quality. As a result, it’s difficult to identify, encourage, promote and retain top educators. Teachers are left without constructive feedback regarding their performance, and administrators lack effective measurements for highlighting and rewarding excellence.

Teacher quality matters - extensive research shows that the quality of a student’s teacher is more important than anything else that happens in a school.