'Teachers need to be held accountable,' says a parent from Queens.
The teachers' union in New York City is fighting the city Education Department's plan to release internal ratings of more than 12,000 teachers in grades 4-8.
The city's public school principals have been instructed to use the 'Teacher Data Reports' in teacher evaluations and tenure decisions. The reports, which include each teacher's name and school, are based on how much their students improved on 2009 state standardized tests.
The city Education Department planned to release the reports in response to Freedom of Information Law requests from several major media outlets. "We believe the public has a right to the information," education department spokesperson Natalie Ravitz told reporters this week.
But Union officials said Wednesday they will go to court to request an injunction to prevent the release of this information.
United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew told the New York Daily News the ratings system is inaccurate, because it's based largely on exams the state has since said are 'overly predictable' and need to be overhauled.
The value-added ratings system utilizes a complex formula that also takes into account factors like class size, and student poverty and disabilities.
"We have invalid test scores being plugged into an unreliable system," Mulgrew said. "They're going to send this out to give parents more information that's completely useless."
"There are a lot of benefits to this approach, but the science of the methodology at this point isn't where it should be to attach teachers names to it," adds Columbia Teachers College professor Douglas Ready, in a Wall Street Journal interview.
Brian Rafferty, a father from Queens, says by fighting the release of this information the union is putting its members ahead of the children. Rafferty told The New York Post: "I realize there are privacy issues involved -- I don't think anyone wants their job performance made public -- but teachers need to be held accountable."
The media requests for the New York City teachers' ratings were made after The Los Angeles Times posted a database of ratings for 6,000 teachers on its website over the summer, the first time such information was made public.
New York Times reporter Sharon Otterman writes, if the ratings are released it, "Would propel New York City to the center of a national debate about how student test scores should be used to evaluate teachers and whether news media organizations should release the ratings of teachers to the public as a measure of their performance."
What do you think - Should the teachers' ratings be made public? How much should students' test scores factor into measuring a teacher's success? Leave your comments below.
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