Education Current Event

Title: “New York Joins Movement to Abandon Use of Student Tests in Teacher Evaluations”

Published: February 1st, 2019

    Four years ago, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo vowed that half of a teacher’s rating would be determined by student results on standardized exams. However, teacher unions and parents, especially those in New York’s wealthy suburbs and progressive urban pockets, resisted his plan. They protested on the basis that it would place undue stress on teachers and children, whose test scores are used for high-stakes admissions decisions and academic tracking. As a result, with Mr. Cuomo’s assent, the evaluation system was suspended only months after it had been adopted. Local school districts and teachers’ unions in New York will now officially be allowed to decide together how educators should be evaluated, with some oversight from the state Education Department, and no requirement that standardized tests must play a role. “Do student test scores actually indicate teacher performance? I’m not convinced,” said John Liu, a newly elected Democratic state senator. “An overreliance on testing can result in perverse incentives. The best evidence is teaching to the test.” The same situation was occuring in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, the city’s school district agreed to create a plan that would significantly reduce the use of standardized tests in schools. Furthermore, Michael Mulgrew, president of the city-based United Federation of Teachers, said Mr. Cuomo, “now understands what standardized tests are, and their limitations, and I give him credit for that.”