The chancellor of New York's Board of Regents Merryl Tisch said she would give districts almost another year to implement the new teacher evaluation law, citing concerns about the fiscal implications for those that can’t meet the legislature's November deadline.
"Students should not be denied resources because of adult disagreements," she said in a statement.
The law approved last month said districts risked losing funds if their new teacher rating systems weren't submitted in September to be approved by the mid-November.
Tisch said school districts across the state claimed they wouldn’t be ready in time. So she extended the deadline for approval until September, 2016, directing education department staffers to meet with their counterparts at the governor’s office and the legislature "to find a solution consistent with the intent of the law."
In response to Tisch's announcement, Alphonso David, counsel to the governor, called on the chancellor and education officials to "do their job properly and competently and enact the regulations governing the process by the end of June as prescribed by the law."
He added that hardship exemptions were allowed but that they should be "the exception not the rule." But Tisch told WNYC the potential hardship for districts was real.
"Hardship can be financial hardship, hardship can be timeline hardship, hardship can be capacity hardship," she said.
The new law requires teachers to be rated through a combination of observations and growth measurements, with more weight given to test scores than the current evaluation system. A teacher who scores poorly on one cannot get a high rating overall. But districts are waiting to hear from the Regents exactly how weight will be given to each part. Then they'll meet with their unions and negotiate new plans or revisions to their current evaluations.
Giving districts until September of next year to have their plans approved by the state means they'll need to submit them in June.
"The first time around school districts found the timeline very challenging and they had twice as much time as they do now," said Dave Albert, director of communications for the New York State School Boards Association, referring to the evaluation law enacted in 2012.
The chancellor’s decision was applauded by the head of the statewide teacher’s union, Karen Magee, who called it a responsible first step.
“It affords a little breathing room,” she said. “Hopefully, the Regents can mitigate some of what’s been rolled out as result of the budget, and can work toward establishing a fair and objective evaluation plan.”
New York City schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña agreed. "I think she’s hearing what I’m hearing," she said of Tisch. "That to radically change what we are doing now and to do it so quickly, would not lead to a good job."
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie has said he trusted Regents members to interpret the new regulations. Meanwhile, State Senator John Flanagan, who heads the education committee, said he expects the legislature to step in later, to amend the law.
“I would be shocked if there were not some modifications,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Regents have invited representatives from school boards, unions and parent groups across the state to a May 7 summit on the new teacher evaluation law, before the regulations are finalized.