ALBANY, Feb. 27, 2012 — New York State United Teachers President Richard C. Iannuzzi today condemned the publication of teacher ratings in New York City, saying: “This sensationalized release of teacher scores from a New York City pilot project is a betrayal of the essential purpose of evaluations, which is to support all teachers in improving their effectiveness. The decision by the Bloomberg administration and the New York City Department of Education not to oppose the release of scores by individual teachers is deplorable.”
Referring to the just-completed Teacher and Principal Evaluation Agreement, Iannuzzi continued: “As we move forward across New York state with a new process for teacher evaluations, NYSUT will vigorously defend the principle that evaluations must remain confidential and not be released by name, but be used, as the new proposed legislation makes clear, to help all teachers improve. Because the annual professional performance reviews under the new evaluation law are fundamentally different from the teacher data reports released by the New York City Department of Education, we will take every possible measure, including legal action, to prevent APPRs from being misused to publicly shame or punish teachers.”
Even Bill Gates, in a recent New York Times op-ed piece, made the point that the public shaming of educators is contrary to every best practice and will only harm the educational enterprise. Iannuzzi noted that, as the United Federation of Teachers has made clear, the teacher data reports in New York City are based on bad data and an unproven methodology with a huge margin of error.
NYSUT, the state’s largest union, represents some 600,000 classroom teachers and other school employees; faculty and other professionals at the state’s community colleges, State University of New York and City University of New York, and other education and health professionals. NYSUT is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers, National Education Association and AFL-CIO.
-30-