Understanding How Cuomo’s Proposal Impacts Your Children An Overview

What Cuomo is Proposing 1.A new evaluation system for teachers 2.Funding changes 3. Merit pay for teachers rated “highly effective” In NO district where merit pay has been introduced has it improved teacher quality or student performance 4.Extend teacher probation period from 3 to 5 years 5. Eliminate due process for teachers Due process currently prevents administrators and districts from discharging teachers without just cause 6.Put low-performing schools in receivership 7.Increase number of charter schools

Just 2 years ago, testing wasn’t even a part of teacher observations. The new proposal raises it to 50% of a teacher’s rating. How does this impact our students?

Many teachers are evaluated on subjects and/or students that they do not even teach. Teachers with rating based on students and/or subjects that they DO NOT TEACH Teachers with rating based on students and/or subjects that they do teach What does this look like at PS 10?

US Dept of Ed has found that the margin of error in using student test scores to evaluate teachers can be up to 35%. Source: US Department of Education, “Error Rates in Measuring Teacher and School Performance Based on Student Test Score Gains.” (2010) “There is broad agreement among statisticians, psychometricians, and economists that student test scores alone are not sufficiently reliable and valid indicators of teacher effectiveness to be used in high­-stakes personnel decisions.” Source: Economic Policy Institute, “Problems With the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers.” (2010) “Most VAM studies find that teachers account for about 1% to 14% of the variability in test scores, and that the majority of opportunities for quality improvement are found in the system-level conditions. Ranking teachers by their VAM scores can have unintended consequences that reduce quality.” Source: American Statistical Association, “ASA Statement on Using Value-Added Models for Educational Assessment.” April 8, 2014

Funding Cuomo wants to tie his 5% education budget increase to his proposed demands. However, even if this passes, that 5% increase would not go directly to schools. The increased funding would be spread throughout the entire education system in NYS, including funding for increased testing, more charter schools, increased independent contractors to perform teacher observations, etc.

Since 2007, the NY state government has ignored the New York State Court of Appeals’ ruling to direct several billion dollars of funding annually to the state’s neediest school districts, specifically to NYC schools, which have been consistently under-funded through the state’s school finance system. The amount owed to PS 10 alone is $2,445, Cuomo’s 5% increase wouldn’t even come close to this amount. How does this impact our students? Funding

This isn’t about protecting teachers from a flawed, statistically-unsound evaluation system - though it could be. This is a fight to protect our kids and to preserve the rich, meaningful teaching and learning we value at PS 10. For further information, please contact Amy Schwartzman, chair of our PTEA Committee at or visit PS10.org. We have compiled several easy ways to contact your state politicians and identified other actions we can take and promote to PS10.org Public School Seventh Avenue Brooklyn, New York What Can We Do