Teachers Union Not Endorsing New CPS Teacher Evaluations

New evaluation system will count student performance in teacher assessment

After months and hours of discussions, Chicago Public Schools is moving forward with a new teacher evaluation program without support from the Chicago Teachers Union.

“This is an exciting and historic day for the Chicago Public Schools as we launch this new approach in recognizing and supporting our teachers for all the work they do on behalf of our students,” said CPS CEO Jean-Claude Brizard.

The new system, Recognizing Educators Advancing Chicago’s Students, will now count student performance as 25 percent of a teacher’s assessment, with the intention to raise that rate to 40 percent in five years.

The CTU released a statement Friday morning expressing disappointment with the decision to move forward with implementing the system without their support.

“This new system is deeply flawed, is unfunded and lacks an appeal process for educators who believe they have been unfairly evaluated,” said CTU President Karen Lewis.

In 2010, the Performance Evaluation Review Act was signed into law requiring CPS to install a new evaluation system that includes student growth as a “significant factor” for rating teachers in 300 CPS Schools by fall 2012. The law also gave CPS the ability to impose its “last, best offer” of a new system if an agreement could not be reached with teachers in 90 days.

CPS says the system is based on collaborative committee meetings with the CTU that began in November 2011.

CTU believes the evaluation system was hastily created and overlooked their plan to hire peer observers in addition to creating an appeals process.

REACH Students will evaluate teachers based on the follow three components: teacher practice, student growth and student feedback.

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