Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed legislation Monday that will require the public disclosure of teacher evaluation data.
According to a release from Cuomo, the new law will ensure that parents and the public have access to information about how the teachers, principals and schools charged with educating New York's children are performing, while also respecting educators' privacy.
"School districts across New York are still hashing out details of what will go into teacher assessments," Newsday [subscription required] reports. "Cuomo has said it's unlikely that any evaluations would be completed under the new system until 2014."
"This law strikes the right balance between a teacher's right to privacy and the parents' and public's right to know," Cuomo said in a statement. "New York's children deserve a top-quality education, and the state's new teacher evaluation system will ensure that teachers and principals are held responsible for student performance.”
The new law signed Monday by the Gov. Cuomo ensures that parents and the general public can assess how schools across New York are performing. The law requires school districts and BOCES to fully disclose their evaluation results to the public and require requires the State Education Department to post and make widely available important data that will allow the public to analyze and compare how schools are performing.
School districts and BOCES will also be required to notify and fully disclose to parents and legal guardians the final specific ratings and composite evaluation scores of the teachers and principals to which their student is assigned
