On Sept. 9, the Movement of Rank and File Educators, a caucus of the United Federation of Teachers, issued a petition calling for a moratorium on the new teacher evaluation system. Advance, the new teacher evaluation system, is being implemented for the first time this school year. The system grades New York City teachers based on a combination of classroom observations and students’ performance on state tests. The teachers issuing the petition said the evaluation system relies too heavily on state standardized tests.
The group writes in the petition that the “use of high stakes test scores over qualitative assessments to determine the quality of teacher performance” is not an effective way to evaluate teachers. The caucus continued to write that the evaluation “puts undue weight on standardized testing, narrowing the curriculum, incentivizing teaching to the test and penalizing educators who work with certain populations.”
The Department of Education (DOE) held training sessions to prepare teachers and principals for the new system over the summer, according to the DOE website. The new teacher evaluation system replaces the “unsatisfactory” and “satisfactory” teacher rating system used in the past.