Elwood Educators Oppose Evaluation System

principals joined hundreds of principals across Long Island challenging the state Education Department and criticizing new standards for evaluating educators.

Dr. Vince Mulieri of , Karen Koliadko of , Dr. Hugh Gigante of , and Pamela Fine of endorsed an open letter on Wednesday opposing the new state-mandated Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) regulations, addressed from a group called the Long Island Principals of Nassau and Suffolk. Northport-East Northport School District principals were not included among the signatures.

The new rules went into effect in September as New York State worked to win federal money under the Race to the Top program, which the White House said is designed to promote "innovation, reform, and excellence in America’s public schools." Teachers and principals are evaluated, in part, on student performance on standardized tests, a metric that Long Island Principals says may carry unintended negative consequences for schools and students.

“As building principals, we applaud efforts aimed towards excellence for all of our students. We cannot, however, stand by while untested practices are put in place without any meaningful discussion or proven research,” said the group on its website.

The Long Island Principals website lists several other objections to the system, arguing that tax dollars are being diverted from schools to testing companies, trainers and outside vendors; that the emphasis on evaluations will damage children as schools put too much focus on test results, and that educational experts say there is no evidence that such a system improves students’ education.

When the new regulations were presented at an , members and residents expressed disbelief and frustration at the sheer volume of detail involved in managing the data, as well as the added pressure that some students might feel in knowing that their performance could affect a teacher’s employment.

"It's almost as if you're forced to buy into a canned program which costs you money, and then you go into the assessment piece of it which costs you even more money," Elwood-John Glenn Principal Dr. Vince Mulieri said Thursday. "Our position is, let's take this slow and figure out what the assessment process should be and what is consistent across the board...what really makes the most sense to get the data and the results that the state, the teachers, and the principals need to become effective and make sure the end result is helpful to the kids."

The state Board of Regents approved the evaluation system in May. “These evaluations will play a significant role in a wide array of employment decisions, including promotion, retention, tenure determinations, termination, and supplemental compensation, and will be a significant factor in teacher and principal professional development,” the state Education Department said at the time.

Educators are rated on this basis, the department said.

• 20 Percent -- student growth on state assessments or a comparable measure of student achievement growth (increases to 25 percent upon implementation of a value-added growth model);
• 20 Percent -- locally-selected measures of student achievement that are determined to be rigorous and comparable across classrooms (decreases to 15 percent upon implementation of a value-added growth model); and
• 60 Percent -- other measures of teacher/principal effectiveness.

The open letter from Long Island Principals was written by Dr. Sean Feeney, principal of The Wheatley School in East Williston and president of the Nassau County High School Principals Association, and Carol Corbett Burris of South Side High School in Rockville Centre. In July, Burris sent a memo to U. S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan outlining her objections to poor evaluation systems.