Lots of divergent reactions to the teacher-data report cards in New York City, see here and here. Per Elizabeth Green over at Gotham Schools, the city wants to extend the initiative for another year. (Hat tip to Elizabeth for breaking this and following it up on her blog.)
These reports are based on teachers’ individual “value-added” contributions to student learning. They aren’t supposed to be used for accountability purposes, merely to help the teachers improve. (The United Federation of Teachers has OK’d the use of test score data in the city’s schoolwide performance-pay programs, but not for use in judging individual teachers.) I wrote a bit more about this issue here.
It’ll be interesting to see if this comes up in the debate about whether to renew the mayoral control of schools, an arrangement that has put NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYC Chancellor Joel Klein into power.