New York City’s Education Department has been working behind closed doors with 280 principals on a program that would put teachers under greater scrutiny than ever before, according to The New York Times. To date, the pilot program has been examining student test results to evaluate 2,500 teachers, some of whom had no idea they were being monitored. The data from the evaluations would be used to determine benchmarks for pay increases and tenure status for all of New York City’s 77,000 public school educators.
The teachers are outraged that the education department would collect this sort of information without their knowledge, and plan to take the city to court if the program is put in place, “There is no way that any of this current data could actually, fairly, honestly or with any integrity be used to isolate the contributions of an individual teacher,” said Randi Weingarten, president of United Federation of Teachers, the city’s teacher’s union.
Since it’s only a pilot program, it’s still too early to say whether the statistical analysis will be used for tenure decisions, if it is used at all. Officials expect to make a decision on the program by “early summer.”