Proposed changes to teacher evaluations

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10)---A bill that would change teacher evaluations is currently in committee, with more movement expected in the coming weeks.

Assembly Education Chair, Michael Benedetto, explained what this would mean for teachers.

"It won’t be a ranking based upon how the students did on standardized tests and other factors," said Benedetto. "It will be on straight performance and evaluation by the people who know the teachers best, and that’s their administrators."

Under the new legislation, school districts would have more of a say in teacher evaluations.

"They’d be required to specify the criteria that we would use to evaluate teachers and principals," explained Robert Lowry, Deputy Director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents. "Those criteria would have to be aligned with state teaching and school leadership standards, they’d have to specify the number of observations that they would use in evaluating teachers and principals— those could vary depending on if someone was tenured or not, a beginning teacher."

According to Lowry, districts would have to have their plans approved by the New York State Education Department and report the evaluation results. He shared a reason why there has been a push to make changes to the current system.

"One of the concerns we heard from superintendents was that the very bad reputation of this system harmed efforts at recruiting and retaining teachers," said Lowry.

He hopes this new legislation will help change that.

Assemblymember Benedetto said he expects the legislation to pass soon.

"I’d be very surprised if it’s not done before June," said Benedetto.