It seems that principals in New York City will get to be evaluated by the teachers. The article on nytimes.com might make some teachers wonder if it's too good to be true.
Pressing the case for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's latest round of changes to the city school system, Chancellor Joel I. Klein yesterday detailed how the new powers being granted to principals would be accompanied by new evaluations of them: teachers for the first time would be able to rate their supervisors.
Mr. Klein outlines the change in a speech to the Partnership for New York City, a coalition of top executives from the city's leading corporations, a day after Mayor Bloomberg outlined a sweeping overhaul of the school system.
The mayor's plans include giving more power and autonomy to principals, requiring teachers to undergo rigorous reviews before earning tenure, and changing the financing formula for schools.
"Because of our deep respect for our teachers, we're looking for other ways to make sure that their wisdom becomes yet a more important part of each school's culture," Mr. Klein said. "Their views on how a school is being run are critically important, and we need to formalize the process by which those views are expressed and properly considered."
Tread lightly with this one, teachers. I have been patronized before, and this sounds familiar. We had the opportunity to evaluate principals in a district where I taught. They had an outside company conduct the evaluations for three years. Nothing ever changed, and the evaluations suddenly stopped. Let's see. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.