A cover note from from Joseph Frey, SED’s deputy commissioner for higher education, explains that the standards will,

form the foundation of a cohesive system to prepare, select, develop, and retain teachers who are effective in improving learning for all students. These standards will be the basis for teacher preparation programs, assessments for certification, annual professional performance reviews, and professional/career development plans for New York teachers.

The Department will be seeking comments through August 16.  Readers may view the cover note and draft standards and complete a response form here.

We encourage our readers to offer reactions, either via the Department’s response form or by sending them to us.

This initiative commenced before legislation was enacted to alter teacher and principal evaluation and support the state’s application for federal Race to the Top funding.  Nonetheless, these standards are referenced in the new law and would be applied under it.

Commissioner Steiner gave his explanation of the initiative in a New York Post column on Wednesday.

Gothamschools.org reported on New York City teacher union president Michael Mulgrew’s presentation of the plan to his board, suggesting he had to dispel some skepticism among his members.

Mr. Mulgrew’s union has posted this Q&A piece on the proposal.

Here is a copy of the bill itself.

UPDATE (12:10 am, May 11):  Here is the State Education Department’s new release on the agreement.  Here is NYSUT’s release.

The changes are intended to enhance New York’s prospects for winning up to $700 million in federal Race to the Top funds.  At least some will require changes in state law, to be approved by the Assembly, Senate, and Governor in advance of the June 1 federal application deadline for Race to the Top.

The New York Times gives this summary of the proposed changes:

Teachers would be measured on a 100-point scale, with 20 percent points based on how much students improve on the standardized state exams. Another 20 percent would be based on local tests, which would have to be developed by each school system. After two years, 25 percent would be based on the state exams and 15 percent would come from the local tests.

The remainder of the evaluation will come from observations from principals and other teachers, and other measures. If teachers are rated ineffective for two consecutive years, they would face firing through an expedited hearing process that must conclude within 60 days. Currently hearings can drag on for several months.

The Wall Street Journal quotes Commissioner Steiner,

“We’ve never had anything like this before,” Mr. Steiner said. “It’s been nearly impossible to remove teachers for academic effectiveness reasons.” Struggling teachers would be given support, while “excellent” teachers would be rewarded.

We expect to have more on this later today.

Earlier this week the State Board of Regents voted to adopt three recommendations originating with the Council to help school districts retain good teachers who might otherwise be laid off.

Guidance on the new regulations has been released by the State Education Department.

SED sums up the intent,

Essentially, the changes from a certification perspective will permit general education and special education teachers currently in a school district to be reassigned by the district to teach in grades close to their current certification area; specifically, for kindergarten and the Middle Childhood grades, in order to avoid or mitigate layoffs. These new regulations address certification issues only. Hiring decisions or appointments to tenure areas continue to be governed by existing law and rules.

To give an example, a school district facing a need to layoff a proven effective 1st grade school could, under certain conditions, retain him or her to fill a vacancy for a kindergarten teacher.

We are grateful to SED officials Joseph Frey, Robert Bentley, Kenneth Slentz, and John King and the Regents for quickly responding to this request from superintendents.

Some districts have already sent out layoff notices due to collective bargaining agreement requirements.

I explained to some of the Regents that this initiative was less about saving money than about saving careers.

I’m quoted near the top of the article:  “To the extent that school district resources are used, then I think it’s fair to ask whether the district should share in the proceeds.”

The article has provoked an impressive volume of comments, many from teachers taking offense at the thought that a district would stake a claim to any earnings.  One called the idea “creepy.”  A blogger called me a “greedy – - – - – - -.”

A few comments took a different perspective, questioning the ethics of teachers either selling or purchasing lesson plans.

When the reporter contacted me, I said the issue had never come up in any of my interactions with superintendents, or anyone else.

I’m careful with words and meant nothing more or less than what the reporter faithfully quoted me as saying:  it’s fair to ask what would be a fair division of proceeds.  I also noted that initiative and resourcefulness deserve to be rewarded.  So it might be fair for a teacher to keep all earnings in at least some cases.

I mentioned to the reporter that higher education institutions have already wrestled with and resolved similar issues, then today looked up one example of a university policy.

The State University of New York Intellectual Property Policy provides, “Generally the members of the staff of the university shall retain all rights to copyright and publish written works produced by them.”

It goes on to say,

Staff members will be expected not to allow the privilege to write and retain the right to their work to interfere with their university duties. In those cases where an author desires the help of university facilities, arrangements should be made through the administrative staff of the author’s institution in advance with respect to the assistance which may be appropriately given and the equity of the university in the finished work.

The SUNY policy also makes an exception for cases where persons “are employed or directed within the scope of their employment to produce specific work.”

In those cases, “the university shall have the right to publish such work without copyright or to copyright it in its own name.”  Also, “The copyright will also be subject to any contractual arrangements by the university for work in the course of which the writing was done.”

The plain language of the SUNY policy seems reasonable.  But some aspects do require interpretation.

For example, one might interpret the preparation of lesson plans and lecture notes as something faculty are employed or directed to produce “within the scope of their employment.”  But my understanding is that, within SUNY, such items are generally deemed intellectual property of the employee.

He said, “By almost any standard, many if not most of the nation’s 1,450 schools, colleges, and departments of education are doing a mediocre job of preparing teachers for the realities of the 21st century classroom.”

The Secretary called for more emphasis on pre-service fieldwork, classroom management, and subject-matter competency.  He also said states should develop longitudinal data systems to track the impact of new teachers from each preparation program on student achievement over a period of years.

The speech won praise from New York State Education Commissioner David Steiner and Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch.

Gotham Schools summed up the reactions of the New York leaders,

“It was a clarion call to do what needs to be done,” Tisch said of Duncan’s speech. “The secretary articulated the vision that [Steiner] has been talking about.”

Plans are already underway to link student data back to teachers and their training programs, Tisch added. “It’s all done,” she said, noting that the state had already begun discussions with school districts, teachers unions, and universities.

Steiner cautioned that before the state began casting judgment on education schools, it had to revisit and perhaps rethink the state’s tests, which have been criticized for being too easy.

“The richer the data system, the more able we are to track back to the education schools,” he said.

Steiner noted that the purpose of linking student data to teachers and training programs is informative, not punitive. “The core of this is to give teachers tools,” he said.

Duncan exempted his host, Teachers College , from his criticisms, calling it “a citadel of teacher preparation.”

Writing in NYSUT’s bi-weekly New York Teacher (”Taking charge of our professions“), Mr. Iannuzzi observes,

Indeed, to take charge of our profession, we must be willing to develop and accept sound, research-based changes even when they make us uncomfortable; we must be willing to reject unwise changes; and we must develop the skills to demonstrate the difference.

He continues by addressing two issues that arise in New York State’s bid for a share of the $5 billion federal “Race to the Top” education reform fund — the roles of student performance data and charter schools.

For example:

If we wish to take charge of our profession, we need to actively participate in developing a model that includes student performance as one factor in measuring effective teaching practices.

and:

A similar role must be accepted with respect to charter schools. Research clearly shows that some charter schools exceed the performance of similar regular public schools.  While the research also demonstrates that the performance of most charters is the same or below (with some significantly below) similar regular public schools, we should not deny the successes.

The article concludes,

Taking charge of our profession will require us to lead in proposing and embracing needed changes.  Changes that can increase the chances that every child … will have an equal opportunity to receive an excellent education and changes that will increase our ability to close the achievement gap.  Taking charge of our profession also means offering cogent arguments for rejecting change — no matter who or where it comes from — if, in our professional judgment, that change will lessen the availability of quality educational opportunity.

As with education, each of our professions is at a crossroads that can only be traversed safely if, when given the opportunity, we have the will to take responsibility for our work. For all our professions, taking charge is not about defending the status quo because it is the status quo, nor is it about being the bluest of blue states or looking at the ideas of others — in Washington or Albany — through rose-colored glasses.  Taking charge of our professions is about being true to our mission, true to our principles, true to our professions and, most importantly, true to ourselves.

The dean of education at the State University College at Fredonia challenges some of his criticisms, the Jamestown Post-Journal reports.

Dr. Christine Givner, SUNY-Fredonia dean of education said,

”I think he’s right on that that [performance-based assessment] is a critical component of teacher education. What kind of troubles me is that he thinks that the majority of teacher education programs in higher ed still don’t take that seriously.”

The Post-Journal reports,

Dr. Givner said clinical, theory-to-practice experiences occur for students in the teacher preparation programs at SUNY Fredonia from day one. ”They have four semesters of rich field experience that is connected with their coursework even prior to student teaching,” she said. ”I don’t see very many universities where it’s just student teaching – that’s passe.”

At the news conference announcing his selection, Dr. Steiner also questioned the rigor of the state’s teacher certification test.

Noting that 92 percent of students pass the test, Dr. Steiner said, ”We have extraordinary teachers in New York, don’t misunderstand me. Nevertheless, it seems to me that a gateway certification test that has that high a pass rate should give us pause, and we need to take a look at that.”

Dean Givner of Fredonia notes that the test was not designed primarily as a final gateway to gaining certification, however.  Rather, the test’s purposes are to evaluate the preparation provided by teacher education programs and their ability to “weed out” incapable students before they make it that far into the pipeline.

Dr. Givner explained,

”There is a federal law, Title II, that requires that every institution must have at least 80 percent of its candidates in a specific program pass that test, or we will be considered schools of education in need of improvement,” she said. ”If we’re going to change the purpose of the test, then I agree that we need to look at a more rigorous differentiation. But if you analyze the test now, that’s not the purpose for which it’s administered. … This is the federal exit indicator for all teachers in the state of New York that demonstrates that they are competent to become beginning teachers. It would be like shooting ourselves in the foot to have a test where we only have 80 percent of our graduates pass – we should have 100 percent of our graduates passing.”

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.”

Education Week reported that, “Delegates applauded Mr. Duncan’s calls for continued federal funding for education, better training for administrators, and for improved teacher-mentoring experiences. But in an indication of the challenges that the federal government will face as it pushes for reforms to compensation and evaluation, they booed and hissed through those parts of Mr. Duncan’s address.”

Here are some excerpts from the Secretary’s speech:

I came here today to challenge you to think differently about the role of unions in public education because-when thousands of schools are chronically failing and millions of children are dropping out each year-we all must think differently.

It’s not enough to focus only on issues like job security, tenure, compensation, and evaluation. You must become full partners and leaders in education reform. You and I must be willing to change…

I am big believer in this program [extra compensation for teachers gaining certification by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards], but let’s also be honest: school systems pay teachers billions of dollars more each year for earning PD credentials that do very little to improve the quality of teaching.

We’re losing too many children today and incremental change won’t save them. We need dramatic change.  And we can’t continue to blame each other or blame the system. We are the system and it is up to us-you and me-to change it. So let’s talk about that.

We created seniority rules that protect teachers from arbitrary and capricious management-and that’s a good goal. But sometimes those rules place teachers in schools and communities where they won’t succeed-and that’s wrong.

We created tenure rules to make sure that a struggling teacher gets a fair opportunity to improve-and that’s a good goal. But when an ineffective teacher gets a chance to improve and doesn’t-and when the tenure system keeps that teacher in the classroom anyway-then the system is protecting jobs rather than children. That’s not a good thing. We need to work together to change that…

And I’m telling you as well-that when inflexible seniority and rigid tenure rules that we designed put adults ahead of children-then we are not only putting kids at risk-we’re putting the entire education system at risk. We’re inviting the attack of parents and the public-and that is not good for any of us.

I believe that teacher unions are at a crossroads. These policies were created over the past century to protect the rights of teachers but they have produced an industrial factory model of education that treats all teachers like interchangeable widgets.

At the same time, many schools give nothing at all to the teachers who go the extra mile and make all the difference in students’ lives. Excellence matters and we should honor it-fairly, transparently, and on terms teachers can embrace…

The Secretary praised the union’s past leadership on higher standards, civil rights, and health care.  He stressed his interest, and President Obama’s, in working with the union.  For example, he said, “We’re asking Congress for more money to develop compensation programs ‘with’ you-and ‘for’ you-not ‘to’ you-programs that will put money in the pockets of your teachers and support personnel by recognizing and rewarding excellence.”

Later this month, Secretary Duncan is scheduled to speak at a gathering of the other national teacher union, the American Federation of Teachers.

New York’s statewide federation of teachers unions — New York State United Teachers — has been affiliated with both national unions since the NYSUT/NEA-NY merger a few years back.  Before that, NYSUT was affiliated solely with the AFT, and still comprises about a third of the AFT’s total membership.

The AFT’s president is Randi Weingarten, who recently stepped down as president of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers.  Another New Yorker serves as the AFT’s Secretary-Treasurer, Antonia Cortese, formerly a long-time leader of NYSUT.

The New York Daily News praised Ms. Weingarten’s leadership in an editorial, saying,

“Her tenure has been driven by a fundamental trade, one that ultimately put the city schools on stronger footing: better wages for members in exchange for movement toward accountability and school reform.”