Imagine having your next work performance review made public. Thankfully,
most of us don’t have to worry about that.
But New York’s teachers do.
Lawmakers wrestled for weeks over how to give parents useful information
about the competency of their children’s teachers and principals. Some
lawmakers wanted everything about the evaluations out in the open, including
the educators’ names.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was especially interested in seeing evaluations
in their entirety released to the public.
But union leaders and many lawmakers were concerned about teachers’ privacy.
They argue that students’ test scores are influenced by such things as their
home life, not simply a teacher’s performance.
Governor Cuomo signed the teacher evaluation disclosure law yesterday, and
it is being hailed as a wise compromise. The evaluations will be posted on the
State Education Department’s website. The names of the teachers and principals
will not be posted online, but they will be made available to parents and
guardians.
At a time when adults are constantly reminding young people to use good
judgment about what they post on the internet, maybe it was the right approach.
But like so many aspects of the evaluation, it’s hard picturing how this is
going to work.
In a small town or suburban school, for instance, connecting the dots
between evaluations and teachers’ names shouldn’t be too difficult. And what’s
going to stop parents from disseminating evaluations that include personal
information about a teacher?
For people who want more teacher accountability, the compromise will have to
do for now. For teachers worried about seeing their evaluation and other
personal information being passed around to “friends” and “followers,” I’m not
sure their concerns are unwarranted.
This article appears in Bye bye unions?.
