Dive Brief:
- Dr. Merryl H. Tisch, former chancellor of the New York Board of Regents, tells the New York Times she believes that she tried to do "too much too fast" over a Common Core rollout during her time as chancellor.
- Tisch is slated to step down at the end of the month.
- The controversial use of testing in teacher evaluations, supported by Tisch, is currently under a 4-year moratorium and New York leads the nation in a 20% student opt-out rate; looking back, she says that she wishes the Common Core rollout and teacher evaluation system hadn't been enacted at the same time.
Dive Insight:
The lessons learned by Tisch echo those learned by school districts that have also leapt into new testing or ed-tech programs too fast. Research, community and school buy-in and small sample pilots can be used before scaling up to prevent pitfalls. "The biggest advice I can give is to make sure there is communication in place and do your research," tech expert Ross Friebel told Education Dive. That same advice can be applied to the situation surrounding testing in New York.
Not only was New York's teacher evaluation plan poorly communicated, it lacked buy-in and mistakes were made in its execution. Errors in around 1% of the test-based ratings given to New York state teachers and principals were found and needed to be recalculated. New York continues to lead the way for the anti-testing movement. Most recently, the state Board of Regents voted to abandon the use of student test scores in teacher evaluations for the next four years.
