Test or Opt-Out: The Discussion Continues

The battle over mandated state testing and teacher evaluations continued this week in the schools, the State Assembly and on television.

According to Lynne Shain, Scarsdale's Assistant Superintendent, 110 children in the Scarsdale School District opted out of the tests as of Tuesday, April 14th. That's just under 5% of the 2,238 students in grades 3-8. In order to comply with the state mandate, 95% of district children are required to take the test. So if another two students opt out, the district will fall below the targeted number.

In other news, State Assemblywoman Amy Paulin and 15 of her peers in the Assembly sent a letter dated April 13, 2015 to Chancellor Merryl Tisch and the Board of Regents asking them to use their power to recognize the uniqueness of each school district and to give individual school districts flexibility in designing their own teacher evaluation plans. The legislators advocate for allowing local principals and administrators to observe district teachers and minimize the use of independent evaluators. According to the letter, standardized test results should be given less weight in teacher evaluations and districts should be given the "flexibility of choosing from a broad variety of assessment measures that are aligned to existing classroom and school best practices." The letter is shown below.

Chancellor of the Board of Regents Merryl Tisch and Diane Ravitch, author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System appeared on Chris Hayes' show on MSNBC on Tuesday night to discuss their positions on this controversial issue. Tisch said the tests were intended to give parents "a snapshot of their child's performance in relation to their peers," and said the tests were "diagnostics to inform instruction and curriculum development." She claimed that the tests were not designed to be used as tools to evaluate teachers, saying "If we had not linked the evaluation of teachers to the testing I think more kids would be showing up for testing. Kids have gotten caught up in a labor dispute between the teachers union and the Governor and our kids are paying the price."

Ravitch said that kids are over-tested and that "Kids in third grade are taking 8 hours of tests – more than the bar exam." She added, "No test results are given to the schools – just the scores.... There is no instructional gain and no diagnostic value."

Watch the segment on MSNBC here: 

Here is the letter sent by Assemblywoman Amy Paulin and her colleagues:

Chancellor Merryl H. Tisch
and Members of the Board of Regents
89 Washington Avenue
Albany, New York 12234

Dear Chancellor Tisch and Members of the Board of Regents:

Communities, educators and elected officials share the same goal of high quality instruction, appropriate accountability measures, and evaluation processes and instruments. We believe that the key to a successful evaluation system lies in the ability of individual districts to tailor their evaluation plans to the unique profile of the district. A one-size-fits-all approach to teacher evaluation ignores the differences that truly exist among districts across the state. All of our students and teachers are shortchanged when we force our districts to operate as if these differences do not exist.

We believe that the recently enacted 2015-16 state budget gives the Regents the power to develop an evaluation system that will allow school leaders, with appropriate oversight, to implement teacher evaluation plans that address the uniqueness of each district. In addition, the recently enacted budget gives the Regents the opportunity to analyze the role of student testing in a teacher evaluation system. Therefore, it is critical that this evaluation system be developed thoroughly and thoughtfully. If there are specifics that need to be addressed legislatively, please let us know.

Education Law Section 207 -- Legislative power -- gives the Board of Regents the power to establish rules for carrying into effect the laws and policies of the state. Education Law also grants the Commissioner the authority to promulgate teacher evaluation regulations that recognize the unique profile of a district, i.e., its diversity and level of student performance based on quantifiable goals such as student growth, graduation rates and college readiness. In our opinion, the recently enacted 2015-16 state budget grants the Regents authority to allow flexibility for the implementation of teacher evaluation plans that use varied evaluation measures and weights, depending on the grade level, subject area or individual teacher. It also now requires the Board of Regents to call on practitioners and experts in the field of education, economics and psychometrics to assist in the implementation of a differentiated evaluation system that will truly improve teaching and learning in New York State. In fact, the enacted budget includes $1 million for this purpose.

Under the newly enacted law, the districts now have an additional option and requirement as to who can conduct teacher observations. We believe that using principals or other trained administrators is the more effective method of teacher evaluation and should be given the highest priority. Regarding an independent evaluator, the law gives the Regents broad discretion to determine what percentage of a teacher's observation will be done by an independent evaluator. We believe districts will be better served if independent evaluators are used minimally as is currently done in NYC where they are used for ineffective teachers. For instance, one way to use independent evaluators effectively would be to use them as validators, to authenticate scores to ensure consistency across districts, grade levels and subject areas.

The cost of using independent evaluators is another factor that you must consider. The cost to the districts is either in money, if they must pay for a trained independent evaluator from outside the district, or time if the evaluator is from within the district. This money is better spent on reducing class size or maintaining a full array of courses. In order to provide flexibility, the Regents should exercise the authority to define a school by its BEDS code even if it shares space within a building with other district schools, i.e., elementary, middle and high school. Defining a school by its BEDS code will give smaller districts the same advantage as larger districts to use an independent evaluator from within the district which will save money and more closely align its evaluation plan to the districts' educational goals.

Student performance is the other area where differentiation is critical. We believe the law offers the flexibility to allow districts to decide what proportion of a teacher's evaluation should be decided by standardized tests, observations and locally selected measures. We recommend that in order to be equal to all teachers, districts be allowed to give the state standardized tests less weight, which is only fair given that the use of state standardized tests targets some teachers and not others. It is important too, that the Regents recognize that for special education teachers, greater weight should be placed on observations due to the diversity of the learning needs of their students. Moreover, special needs students struggle with standardized tests, which is why a variety of student assessments, such as portfolios, should be used to a far greater extent for these students.

Most importantly, the law now requires that annual evaluation systems "shall consist of multiple measures" for student performance. "Multiple measures" means using more than one. If a district chooses only option one – one test – then, in order to abide by the law, the same test must be given over a period of years, with several cohorts of students. If schools choose to add the second component, we ask that you allow them the flexibility of choosing from a broad variety of assessment measures that are aligned to existing classroom and school best practices and take into consideration testing reduction as is required in the law. Using tests wisely over time and encouraging the use of a variety of assessments will help reduce test stress and test anxiety for teachers and students.

Ignoring the differences between school districts disavows the state's ability to put the resources and attention where it is most needed. We urge you to utilize the flexibility that the law grants you, both through the promulgation of regulations and within the newly enacted budget, to allow districts a greater level of self-determination in the implementation of a teacher evaluation system. To ignore this opportunity is an injustice to the students, educators, parents and taxpayers of New York State.

Sincerely,

Members of Assembly