Teaching Profession

New York City Advances Tenure Reform Tied to Scores

By Stephen Sawchuk — February 12, 2010 1 min read
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Leave it up to the Big Apple to make me look silly. I just got done writing how few examples there are of test scores being used for teacher dismissal and lo and behold, New York City is also moving forward on this front.

GothamSchools has the scoop, including details on how the process would work. In general, teachers in the bottom quartile of effectiveness would be “tenure doubtful,” although a principal could choose to offer it anyway.

There was quite a kerfuffle a couple years ago when the United Federation of Teachers got an eleventh-hour provision in a state bill prohibiting the use of test-score growth for determining whether or not to grant teachers tenure.

But Randi Weingarten, then president of the UFT as well as the head of the American Federation of Teachers, ultimately brokered an agreement with city schools Chancellor Joel Klein to allow teachers and principals to receive reports with teacher-effect data, under the condition that it was to be used only for formative, instructional purposes.

Now, Klein says such reports will inform tenure, and the UFT is threatening to take the matter to the courts.

A version of this news article first appeared in the Teacher Beat blog.