It started just like any other school day in Great Neck. Then the doorbell rang, and standing there alone was our six-year-old son. His teacher had told him to leave the room because he was disrupting the class, so this future doctor got up and walked home. All by himself!
After a lengthy career, this totally unqualified teacher decided to retire. He was a long-time Great Neck principal. Everyone speculated that when the door to his office was closed, there was a good chance that he was probably having a “nip of the brew.”
Tenure and a failed teacher evaluation system allowed them both to remain without the treatment they desperately needed.
Obviously, they subjected our kids to years of their “special” brand of education.
Compared to the size of New York City’s school system, Long Island’s problems are minuscule. With it’s 1.1 million students and 75,000 teachers, New York City never could come up with a plan to solve its archaic and totally dysfunctional teacher-evaluation system.
Like Great Neck, incompetent teachers were “protected” by a union-supported, untenable, tenure system.
Even in failing schools, less than four percent of the teachers ever even received an incompetent rating. But times are different now. We have a 16 percent under-employment rate, (that rate includes part-time workers) and with long-term unemployment, personal bankruptcies and home foreclosures at all-time highs, the value of a good education is even more important today.
A teaching position, with all it perks and time off, is really a valued job. We have the pick of great teachers.
Now is the time to remove the incompetent ones and replace them with talented, enthusiastic educators.
In stepped Gov. Cuomo, who, for the first time, was ready to take on the New York state teachers union. For decades, this union had totally resisted any real change.
Unfortunately, they are also Gov. Cuomo’s biggest supporter, as well as the most powerful lobbyist in the state. To get things started, he actually fined New York City $260 million for taking so long. Way to go, governor! What guts!
What happened was truly amazing. Up to the plate stepped this diverse cast of characters:
1 – State Education Commissioner John King, representing Gov. Cuomo.
2 – United Federation of Teacher’s President Michael Mulgrew.
3 – New York City School Chancellor Dennis Walcott, representing mayor Bloomberg.
The new evaluation plan:
1 – 20 percent is based on student performance on state tests. About time.
2 – 20 percent is based on how their students do on “school-based measures.” These are set by a committee consisting of four members selected by the Principal and four by the UFT.
3 – 55 percent is determined by observations by the principal (no passing the buck now).
4 – 5 percent by student evaluations.
Maybe if Manhasset tried this new plan, their residents would accept their recent school-tax increase.
This new system not only provides the mechanism to remove incompetent teachers but it allows teachers to actually improve their own teaching skills as well.
Each teacher is guaranteed multiple observations and they have a choice of quantity and style. They can even choose videos to improve.
But the principal gets the final say. Bravo! Their administrators are finally obligated to not only evaluate their teachers, but to also substantially improve their teaching skills as well.
This replaces the old system where the principal had only two choices, satisfactory or unsatisfactory.
Now teachers will be classified as: highly effective, effective, developing, or ineffective.
And now the big one, a teacher rated ineffective for two straight years can be fired. How about that? The biggest loser? The teacher’s union.
1 – They wanted to oversee the new plan. No way, that’s like the prisoners running the prison.
2 – They didn’t want the students involved. They now are.
3 – They still wanted to rate themselves. Preposterous.
Thanks Gov. Cuomo, Too bad it took so long.
Dr. Stephen Morris, DDS
North Hills
