Regents Adopt Rules For Evaluating Teacher And Principal Effectiveness

On February 16, 2012, Governor Cuomo proposed budget legislation that would amend Education Law section 3012-c to resolve the issues in New York State United Teachers, et. al v. Board of Regents, the litigation challenging these regulations. The Department will be proposing amendments to Subpart 30-2 of the Regulations of the Commissioner to conform to the statutory changes and reflect the agreement to settle the litigation. We anticipate that amendments will be made that will substantially impact the conduct of Annual Professional Performance Reviews for the 2012-13 school year.

The New York State Board of Regents today adopted regulations that will implement a statewide teacher and principal performance evaluation system that includes multiple measures of educator effectiveness. The regulations, which will take effect during the 2011-2012 school year, are required by legislation enacted last year. The new law establishes a comprehensive evaluation system for all classroom teachers and building principals in New York. These evaluations will play a significant role in a wide array of employment decisions, including promotion, retention, tenure determinations, termination, and supplemental compensation, and will be a significant factor in teacher and principal professional development.

Regents Chancellor Merryl H. Tisch said, "With the help of our partners in the field, we have taken a critical step today in developing a fair and equitable system for evaluating the performance of New York’s teachers and principals – a system that will enhance the quality of education across the State."

State Education Commissioner David M. Steiner said, "This new evaluation system will help educators improve their craft by focusing professional development and coaching on their specific needs and recognizing outstanding teaching. It will help ensure that we have an effective teacher in every classroom and an effective leader in every school."

Senior Deputy Commissioner John B. King said, "As we shift to the work of implementation, our focus remains leveraging evaluations to drive improved teaching and learning."

Under the new system, each teacher and principal will receive an annual professional performance review (APPR) resulting in a single composite effectiveness score and a rating of "highly effective," "effective," "developing," or "ineffective." The composite score will be determined as follows:

20% -- student growth on state assessments or a comparable measure of student achievement growth (increases to 25% upon implementation of a value-added growth model);
20% -- locally-selected measures of student achievement that are determined to be rigorous and comparable across classrooms (decreases to 15% upon implementation of a value-added growth model); and
60% -- other measures of teacher/principal effectiveness.

If a teacher or principal is rated "developing" or "ineffective," the school district or BOCES is required to develop and implement a teacher or principal improvement plan. Tenured teachers and principals with a pattern of ineffective teaching or performance, defined as two consecutive annual "ineffective" ratings, may be charged with incompetence and considered for termination through an expedited hearing process. The law further provides that all evaluators must be appropriately trained and that appeals procedures are to be locally established.

The evaluation system’s three components are designed to complement one another:

Statewide student growth measures will identify those educators whose students’ progress exceeds that of similar students, as well as those whose students are falling behind compared to similar students.
Locally selected measures of student achievement will reflect local priorities, needs, and targets.
Teacher observations, survey tools, and other measures will provide educators with detailed, structured feedback on their professional practice.

Taken together, this information will be used to tailor professional development and support for educators to develop and improve their instructional practices, with the ultimate goal of ensuring that there is an effective teacher in every classroom and an effective leader in every school.

The regulations adopted today reflect many of the recommendations of the Regents Task Force on Teacher and Principal Effectiveness as well as input received from numerous stakeholders, including conversations with Governor Cuomo, during the development of the regulations. In April, the Task Force submitted to the Board of Regents a comprehensive report containing recommendations for implementing New York’s performance evaluation system. The sixty-three member Task Force – composed of teachers, principals, superintendents of schools, school board representatives, school district and BOCES officials, and other interested parties – has been meeting regularly since September 2010. The Board of Regents discussed various topics related to the evaluation system at their meetings in January, February and March 2011, and they discussed and reviewed the Task Force recommendations at their April meeting. At the April 2011 Regents meeting, the Task Force presented their recommendations to the Board. Thereafter, the Department presented their recommendations, which incorporated most of the Task Force’s recommendations. The Regents then directed Department staff to prepare draft regulations consistent with the day’s discussions. The Department posted those draft regulations online, seeking and receiving extensive public comment from both Task Force members and the field.

As a result of the input received from stakeholders, the Department made several key improvements to the regulations:

The language was revised to eliminate the limitation in the draft regulations on the use of the same measure of student growth on state assessments for both the state assessment subcomponent and the locally selected measures subcomponent. Allowing the optional use of measures based on state tests for both growth and locally-selected measures provides flexibility to districts.
With regard to the 60% of teacher effectiveness that is based on "other measures": The language in the draft regulations was revised to assign at least 40 of the 60 points to classroom observations and to require multiple observations.
With regard to the 60% of principal effectiveness that is based on "other measures": The language in the draft regulations was revised to require that at least 40 of the 60 points be based on a broad assessment of the principal’s leadership and management actions by the building principal’s supervisor or a trained independent evaluator. The draft language was further revised to require that any remaining points be based on the results of one or more ambitious and measurable goals set collaboratively with principals and their superintendents (or their designee).
With respect to scoring ranges: the language in the draft regulations was revised to adjust the scoring ranges so that teachers and principals must earn better than "ineffective" ratings on at least one of the two student growth/achievement subcomponents as well as the "other 60%" measure in order to earn an overall rating higher than "ineffective." In addition, if both student achievement subcomponents are "ineffective," the overall rating will be "ineffective."

The Regents and the Department will immediately begin a series of steps to ensure the successful implementation of the regulations.

The Department will issue two Requests for Qualifications (RFQs) seeking teacher and principal evaluation rubrics and third party student assessments that meet state criteria and will release later this summer the resulting lists of state-approved tools for districts to choose from.
The Department will also seek, through competitive bidding, an expert provider to construct statistical measures of student growth attributed to each educator to be used as one component of evaluation.
In addition, the Department invited labor and management representatives from around the state to participate in a conference about collaboration toward implementing the new evaluation regulations hosted at Cornell University’s Industrial Labor Relations school in June. The conference is sponsored by the school management and labor associations in the state.

Implementation Timeline

2011-2012 School Year – New performance evaluation system takes effect for classroom teachers of common branch subjects, ELA or math in grades 4 through 8 along with their respective building principals. The Department recommends that, to the extent possible, districts and BOCES begin the process of rolling this system out for the evaluation of all classroom teachers and building principals in the 2011-2012 school year.
2012-2013 School Year – New performance evaluation system goes into effect for all teachers and building principals.
2012-2013 School Year and thereafter – Implementation of teacher and principal improvement plans, as appropriate; implementation of a Regents-approved value-added growth model to be used for the teacher and principal performance evaluation system.

A copy of the regulations is available at the following web address:
http://www.regents.nysed.gov/meetings/2011Meetings/May2011/511bra4.pdf

The regulation was adopted as an emergency measure and will be published in the State Register for public comment on June 8th. Public comment will be received for 45 days after publication.

See webcast of the meeting at: http://usny.nysed.gov/webcasts.html#May16PM.