EdVANTAGE Blog

Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch announced that the state will attempt to track the performance of teacher education graduates once they begin their teaching careers.  She revealed this plan in a column in this past Sunday’s New York Daily News.

The column may be an attempt to address criticisms of New York State made by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and to strengthen our chances to win a share of the $5 billion federal “Race to the Top” (RT3) Fund that he controls.

Here are some excerpts from the Chancellor’s column:

We’re going to ask schools of education to track the performance of their graduates once they enter the classroom. Armed with this data, we – and they – will be able to see which programs are working and which aren’t, and make improvements in how we teach the next generation of teachers…

In a perfect world, you would know not just what grades these teachers-in-training get, but how well they actually do when the rubber meets the road. But as of today, the truth is, after you shake the hands of pre-service teachers at graduation, you have no idea how they go on to fare in the classroom… [I]n recent years, New York State has embarked on building a comprehensive data system that tracks the performance of individual students over time, links students to their teachers and links teachers to their preparation programs.

Once that data system is fully operational, hopefully within three years, it will be possible to unearth a wealth of information about how teachers prepared in different programs are really doing. We will be able to tell education schools how well their teachers are preparing students on standardized tests, in what kind of schools their teachers work, and for how long…

The Chancellor also questions whether the state’s teacher certification exams are rigorous enough, echoing concerns she has raised about student assessments.

Secretary Duncan recently said, “Believe it or not, several states, including New York, Wisconsin and California, have laws that create a firewall between student and teacher data.” He warned that such restrictions would hurt states’ prospects in the competition for RT3 funds.

As we explained in a prior post, Mr. Duncan’s comment was way off target.

New York has a law, due to expire in a year, which provides that teachers “shall not be granted or denied tenure based on student performance data.”  This does not preclude a district from using student data for other teacher evaluation purposes.  Also, student data may be used in tenure evaluation, so long as it is not a determining factor.  For example, it might be used to trigger more careful review by other means.

Even this narrow and temporary law which provoked the Secretary’s criticism is entirely consistent with the position he outlined in a recent speech to the National Education Association.  He said, “Test scores alone should never drive evaluation, compensation or tenure decisions. That would never make sense. But to remove student achievement entirely from evaluation is illogical and indefensible.”