They were hoping to more closely align teacher-tenure decisions with student test scores, but the mayor of New York City and other proponents of that idea got the opposite: a two-year ban.
The New York legislature, as part of its final budget package, approved on April 9 a measure barring for two years school districts鈥� use of student-performance data to make teacher-tenure decisions. The law also creates a commission that will study the state鈥檚 teacher-tenure system.
In New York, new teachers are on probation for three years before the local school board decides on tenure.
The new law is a major victory for teachers鈥� unions, which had fought attempts by New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to hold teachers more accountable through student test scores. Even former Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, had championed the use of test scores in decisions about teachers鈥� futures. (鈥淢ayor Backs Off Plan for School Funding Method in N.Y.C.,鈥� May 2, 2007.)
It鈥檚 also a blow to the state school boards鈥� association, which was opposed to being told what its members can, and cannot, use to make tenure decisions.
The teachers鈥� union victory also suggests that new Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat, who accepted the ban as part of the budget package, may be more union-friendly than his predecessor. Mr. Spitzer was forced to leave office amid a prostitution scandal. The New York Times reported on April 12 that Gov. Paterson鈥檚 father is a lobbyist who has represented teachers鈥� unions, including the United Federation of Teachers, which represents 200,000 employees in the city鈥檚 public school system and helped get the two-year ban approved.
New York State United Teachers President Richard Iannuzzi insisted that linking test scores to teacher tenure is a bad idea.
But Mr. Iannuzzi, whose 600,000-member union is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, didn鈥檛 completely close the door.
鈥淭here clearly is a place for looking at how students perform when we try and determine who should be standing in front of schoolchildren,鈥� he said.
