American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten is also president of NY State's largest local affiliate, the United Federation of Teachers in New York City.
From The Wall Street Journal
By Barbara Martinez
The New York City teachers union is fighting the release of data that tries to gauge the effectiveness of 12,000 of its members, saying the measuring system is too flawed to make teachers' names public.
The city Department of Education was set to release the data Wednesday, spurred by public-records requests from news organizations, including The Wall Street Journal. But the United Federation of Teachers threatened a lawsuit, and the DOE delayed its plans. A DOE spokeswoman said that unless a court interferes, the city intends to make them public Friday.
The reports attempt to measure the progress that students in fourth through eighth grades make under a teacher by comparing their state test scores in math and English in a given year with the previous year.
The "value-added" data is a source of deep controversy in New York and in other districts nationwide. In New York City, the value-added scores of teachers are determined using a complex formula that attempts to take into account various factors outside of the teacher's control, such as poverty, class size and student disabilities. The reports compare the teachers to other teachers with similar students.
Proponents of disclosing the data say that parents have a right to know whether their children's teachers consistently move students forward. But critics argue that the science for figuring out how much a teacher affects a student—despite attempts to account for outside factors—is still too new to trust with wide-scale dissemination.
"There isn't a reliable value-add system anywhere on this planet," said union President Michael Mulgrew. He said he isn't opposed to developing such a system, but the current one produces scores that aren't ready to be publicized with teachers' names. He said of 20 value-added reports teachers have sent him, 13 had errors, such as listing pupils not in the class.
The DOE said there has only been a smattering of complaints, and they have been quickly resolved.
Mr. Mulgrew also found fault with basing the data on test scores, which the state this year acknowledged were flawed. In addition, the union provided a 2008 letter from a DOE official that promised that in the event a public-records request was made for the data, "we will work with the UFT to craft the best legal arguments available to the effect that such documents fall within an exemption from disclosure."
Natalie Ravitz, DOE's spokeswoman, said the agency does "not believe that any of the exemptions" under the records law "apply in this matter, which is what we told the UFT. But that will be for a judge to decide."
Mr. Mulgrew said the UFT will likely seek an injunction Thursday to prevent the disclosure.
The DOE used value-added data this year for the first time to help determine whether to give a teacher tenure. For some teachers, the DOE has up to four years of annual student test data on which to build a value-added score. Only 12,000 of the city's nearly 80,000 public-school teachers have such scores because they teach math or English to fourth through eighth graders. Testing begins in third grade, which provides a baseline score.
"Nobody is saying that value-added estimates tell the full story," said Timothy Daly, president of the New Teacher Project, a Brooklyn group that helps districts nationwide, including New York, recruit teachers. But it is "far more useful" than the current practice of "using one or two brief classroom visits by an administrator marking a checklist as an evaluation system."
Still, even proponents of value-added systems said publishing teacher names makes them nervous. "There are a lot of benefits to this approach, but the science of the methodology at this point isn't where it should be to attach teachers names to it," said Douglas Ready, a professor at Columbia University's Teachers College.
Write to Barbara Martinez at Barbara.Martinez@wsj.com
By Barbara Martinez
The New York City teachers union is fighting the release of data that tries to gauge the effectiveness of 12,000 of its members, saying the measuring system is too flawed to make teachers' names public.
The city Department of Education was set to release the data Wednesday, spurred by public-records requests from news organizations, including The Wall Street Journal. But the United Federation of Teachers threatened a lawsuit, and the DOE delayed its plans. A DOE spokeswoman said that unless a court interferes, the city intends to make them public Friday.
The reports attempt to measure the progress that students in fourth through eighth grades make under a teacher by comparing their state test scores in math and English in a given year with the previous year.
The "value-added" data is a source of deep controversy in New York and in other districts nationwide. In New York City, the value-added scores of teachers are determined using a complex formula that attempts to take into account various factors outside of the teacher's control, such as poverty, class size and student disabilities. The reports compare the teachers to other teachers with similar students.
Proponents of disclosing the data say that parents have a right to know whether their children's teachers consistently move students forward. But critics argue that the science for figuring out how much a teacher affects a student—despite attempts to account for outside factors—is still too new to trust with wide-scale dissemination.
"There isn't a reliable value-add system anywhere on this planet," said union President Michael Mulgrew. He said he isn't opposed to developing such a system, but the current one produces scores that aren't ready to be publicized with teachers' names. He said of 20 value-added reports teachers have sent him, 13 had errors, such as listing pupils not in the class.
The DOE said there has only been a smattering of complaints, and they have been quickly resolved.
Mr. Mulgrew also found fault with basing the data on test scores, which the state this year acknowledged were flawed. In addition, the union provided a 2008 letter from a DOE official that promised that in the event a public-records request was made for the data, "we will work with the UFT to craft the best legal arguments available to the effect that such documents fall within an exemption from disclosure."
Natalie Ravitz, DOE's spokeswoman, said the agency does "not believe that any of the exemptions" under the records law "apply in this matter, which is what we told the UFT. But that will be for a judge to decide."
Mr. Mulgrew said the UFT will likely seek an injunction Thursday to prevent the disclosure.
The DOE used value-added data this year for the first time to help determine whether to give a teacher tenure. For some teachers, the DOE has up to four years of annual student test data on which to build a value-added score. Only 12,000 of the city's nearly 80,000 public-school teachers have such scores because they teach math or English to fourth through eighth graders. Testing begins in third grade, which provides a baseline score.
"Nobody is saying that value-added estimates tell the full story," said Timothy Daly, president of the New Teacher Project, a Brooklyn group that helps districts nationwide, including New York, recruit teachers. But it is "far more useful" than the current practice of "using one or two brief classroom visits by an administrator marking a checklist as an evaluation system."
Still, even proponents of value-added systems said publishing teacher names makes them nervous. "There are a lot of benefits to this approach, but the science of the methodology at this point isn't where it should be to attach teachers names to it," said Douglas Ready, a professor at Columbia University's Teachers College.
Write to Barbara Martinez at Barbara.Martinez@wsj.com
