Schools

Pearl River Admins Address APPR, Cuomo's Budget

Pearl River Superintendent Dr. John Morgano, Assistant Superintendent Sue Wheeler and Director of Human Resources and Community Services Diana Musich spoke with Patch regarding the push for teacher evaluation in New York.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo continues to put a focus on educational reform.

Some of his efforts, such as claiming to be the only advocate for students in the state, met with mixed results.

Cuomo put education under the microscope again as he unveiled his proposed 2012-13 state budget last week, which included a renewed push for the state's planned teacher and principal evaluation system.

Find out what's happening in Pearl Riverwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The state accepted approximately $700 million in federal Race to the Top funds that was contingent on the implementation of such a system.

“If we are serious about education, we really have no choice," Cuomo was recorded as saying in his address.

Find out what's happening in Pearl Riverwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

On that, he and Pearl River Superintendent of Schools Dr. John Morgano agree.

"It’s done," Morgano said. "People need to stop talking about how it shouldn’t be happening and start talking about how we are going to make it work. It’s here. It is happening. I’m not a big fan of the goernor, but it’s happening. He’s going to tie the money to it. Then you have a choice. Do you stand in the way of it and wind up having to lay people off because you got less money in your budget? Then you have classes that are overcrowded and fewer teachers because you didn't want to cooperate with APPR.

"He's not a stupid guy, the governor. he's going to put the parents against the teachers and principals. He tried to do it with his, 'I'm going tob ethe lobbyist for the children.' and it didn't work out too well for him, but this will do it."

Morgano, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Sue Wheeler and Director of Human Resources and Community Services Diana Musich sat down with Patch recently to discuss Cuomo's plans, teacher evaluation in general and Annual Professional Performance Reviews (APPR).

"He wants APPR implemented," Morgano said. "He doesn't want to hear, 'We have a contract with the union.' Or that schools hare having difficulty because this group or that group doesn't like it."

Morgano said he recently spoke with former Pearl River Superintendent Dr. Frank Auriemma, who is helping with a 10-school pilot program for something similar to APPR. New Jersey did not accept the federal funding, so that state does not face the same pressure New York does to implement evaluations.

"They will pilot an APPR-type fo approach with the teachers, then they will look at the 10 pilot districts to see what works," Morgano said. "New York didn't pilot anything. They just went right into it and that's what I think some people are troubled by. But we're in it. As a state, we made the decision to take the money and now we have to deal with it and do the best we can with it."

They have to do all of this without knowing how many parts of the program will work, but needing to have it in place very quickly.

"There are many unanswered questions," Morgano said.

There are also many misunderstandings, which is one thing the Pearl River administration wanted to address.

APPR has drawn its share of strong reactions.  The New York State Union of Teachers (NYSUT) has filed a lawsuit against the Board of Regents and the New York State Education Department to try overturn at least parts of the new teacher evaluations.

Cuomo gave NYSUT and the NYSED 30 days to settle the lawsuit, saying if there was not an agreement in place for APPR, the state would impose one. 

"What happens if they don't settle it after 30 days is a good question," Morgano said. 

Also, over 1,000 principals in New York, including Pearl River High School's Bill Furdon, wrote a letter to the New York State Education Department voicing their concerns in December. 

Standardized Testing is Only a Part of APPR 

The primary concern in both cases is focused on the use of standardized testing to evaluate teachers and principals, but that only one part of the criteria that will be used with APPR in place. That was the focus of the principals' letter and the NYSUT lawsuit. 

"I think people's perception that the APPR is all about student testing and it is not," Morgano said. "People keep talking about testing, testing, testing. That's a part of it, but not a majority of APPR."

Each principal and teacher would be given a score from 1 to 100 based in APPR. Only 40 percent of that is based on test scores. 

"It is annual and it is multiple measures, both of teachers and principals," Wheeler said of APPR. "They consider two or more classroom observations and one more more school visits (by the administration).

"For 60 percent of it, we use the New York State approved rubric for teachers an for school leaders."

Rubrics set detailed expectations going into an evaluation, allowing the teacher or principal to know in what ways they will be evaluated and the criteria used in each area. Rubrics are widely used in classrooms to help guide students.

The comparison of the evaluation of students to that of teachers and principals goes beyond the use of rubrics. Just as students grade are based on multiple types of assessment such as tests, quizzes, essays, classwork, homework and participation, teachers and principals will be evaluated in many different ways. 

"The other things (beyond testing) are what impacts student performance," Wheeler said. "If you're not looking at the pieces that impact student performance, you can't change student performance."

For teachers, the NYSED-approved rubric is used to evaluate how well teachers meet teaching standards in the following areas.

  • Knowledge of students and student learning
  • Knowledge of content and instructional planning
  • Instructional practice
  • Assessment of student learning
  • Professional responsibilities and collaboration
  • Professional growth

For Principals, the Educational Leadership Policy Standards: ISLIC 2008 are used to see how educational leaders promote student success with the following:

  • Facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning
  • Advocating, nurturing, and sustaining as school culture and instuctional program conducive to student learning and staff professional growth
  • Ensuring management of the organization, operation, and resources for a safe, efficient and effective learning environment
  • Collaborating with faculty and community members , responding to diverse community inerests and needs, and mobilizing community resources
  • Acting with integrity, fairness and in an ethical manner
  • Understanding, responding to, and influencing the political, social, economic, legal, and cultural context. 

What Part Does Standardized Testing Play?

Testing will actually make up only 40 percent of APPR score of principals and teachers, with 20 percent of the total based on state assessments and another 20 percent on locally-selected assesments. The locally-selected exams are chosen by the districts from a list that are approved by the state education department. 

"The state approved list fo the 20 percent was contingent on which companies filled out the application to the state in order to be considered," Musich said. "There were many that missed the deadline."

That includes the company that produces tests currently used by the Pearl River School District.

The district will have to choose exams to make up 40 percent of teacher scores in subjects such as art and music that do not have state assesments.

Wheeler explaqined that a growth model, which the state calls student learning objectives (SLO), is also a part of the assessment. 

"(These) are not like we would consider a student learning objective," Wheeler said. "It is a pre-test and a post-test and you show a certain percentage of grwoth for a certain percentage of the class. Those are supposed to be in place for every course."

"Just another variable to complicate things," Morgano said.

That said, the use of standardized test scores to evaluate teachers is not that new, at least in Pearl River. The state exams have been in use for many years.

"They have been informally used to evaluate teachers," Morgano said. "When you look at the scores kids received from a particular class, you always kind of look at them with the teacher in mind. It wasn't a formal statistic that you arrived at, but we did look to see that Diana's kids did this way and Ryan's kids did that way."

"We've always looked at the performance data to identify what we are doing well and share those strategies across the board," Wheeler said. "That is how we come up with best practices." 

Morgano pointed out that Pearl River has built much of its success as a district on the use of data. In addition to exam grades, the district also sends out a survey to parents each June. They use the results internally, then share them with the public. The results of the 2010-2011 poll can be found on the district website here.

"We have always been a data-driven district, at least in the last 15-18 years," Morgano said. "Like Sue said, we've used the data to drive improvement. That's how we got the (2001) Malcolm Baldridge (Quality) Award happened. That's how we got from a mediocre school district to one that excels. There was a time when parents chose to send their kids to private and parochial schools rather than APearl River and that is not the case any more. That didn't happen by accident. It happened with hard work and it happened with data."

Morgano pointed out that testing data will look very different from district to district. 

"Generally the teachers and students of Pearl River are going to be fine with kids scores," Morgano said. "When you look at some fo the schools in the city and some schools, perhaps even one in this county, even the teacher that works really hard is going to have a difficult time doing well."

How Will the Scores Be Used and Shared?

One of the open questions is what the state will do with teacher and principal scores. The state is already collecting data on individual teachers. How that data will be shared with the public is uncertain. It is possible that each teacher's individual rating will be made public, but that is purely speculation at this point.

One potential issue could be teacher choice. Currently due to No Child Left Behind, in school districts that are listed as needing improvement, parents have a right to ask that their child be moved to a different school in the district if theirs is testing lower.

"It doesn't effect us, but it raises the question," Wheeler said. "Once these teacher scores get published, will there be that same kind of teacher choice?" 

When is This Coming?

Pearl River is already trying out one of the approved rubrics for its principals this year.

According to the state, only Pearl River Middle School Principal Maria Paese was to be evaluated this year, and that is because of the percentage of students in that buiilding taking standardized tests.

The thinking before Cuomo's speech was that APPR would wait until existing labor contracts ran out. For the Pearl River teachers, that would be after the 2012-13 school year.

"With the principals, they have nothing in their contracts about evaluations," Morgano said. 

The Pearl River administration was working under the assumption that it could wait until 2013-14 to implement teacher evaluations, but that may no longer be the case. The district would have to negotiate with the teacher's union to begin the evaluations under the current contract.

"We thought we had time to negotiate a new APPR because we have a couple of years before our teacher’s contract expires," Morgano said. "But after hearing the Governor's speech, that is not the case, as he intends to tie state aid next year to the APPR. Districts that fail to implement an APPR will risk losing state aid.

That is clearly not an option for the district, no matter how many questions remain about how the evaluations will work.

"I'm not sure how it is all going to play out," Morgano said. "I don't know, in the final analysis, what it's going to look like." 


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here