In with the New, out with the Old

Nearly a week after the 2015/2016 budget passed, lawmakers and Governor Cuomo are happy about the results. The two main points addressed in the new budget is a focus on education and ethics. Increasing the budget by nearly twenty-four billion dollars was the greatest increase in school spending in New York State history. Ensuring that the education system will be able to “thrive” has been a focus for Cuomo since his election to Governor in 2008.

Transforming the educational system was a top priority as was in the following year for the Governor.  Recruiting the best teachers for is something that New York State believes is their duty to the public. Providing scholarships to both SUNY and CUNY students who commit to teach in New York for a minimum of five years. This will help ensure educators are doing their best to increase their knowledge as well as their teaching abilities. A restructured Teacher Evaluation System was also included in the Educational Transformation Act of 2015. This transformation created a two category grading system based on student performance and teacher observations.  While the above is based on student test performance, the Governor and Legislature made recommendations to decrease the over all amount of state and local testing. These two ideas contradict themselves and could potentially create confusion down the road. The new transformation also includes tenure-performance, bonuses and promotions, teacher removal and to help transform failing schools.

While all of these ideas were created to help and benefit both the students and educators, parents and educators are unsure of how it is going to work. They suggest implementing this on a smaller scale as a test run before mandating it to schools across the state. If a school district refuses to abide by these new regulations, that school district will loose all state funding to its programs.  To read more information about the NYSUT rejecting the teacher evaluation system click here