A New Accountabilty System

I've worked out a new accountability system that I think will be fairer than the one Michael Mulgrew rubber stamped this past week. In that system, teachers will be rated highly effective, effective, developing, and ineffective. If you are rated ineffective for two years, you can be fired within 60 days. It all seems a little unfair to me, considering test scores are such a major part of it. Still, that seems to be the wave of the future, so I propose a system in which test scores DO count. It will have the following features:

• Teachers will have eight years instead of two to show improvement
  


• Test scores needn't go up; flatlining for those eight years will be considered "effective".


• You will not have to narrow the achievement gap between white and minority students at all in that time.


• Less than 30% of your students need to be proficient readers to pass.


• If you fail to meet these benchmarks, you will be given another four years to meet them. And maybe another four after that.
  

I know these standards may seem low to some. But this is exactly how NYC students performed on the NAEP test over the last eight years under "Accountability Mayor" Bloomberg. He claims to be doing a wonderful job as the education mayor with those lousy numbers. I'm sure he would agree that teachers should be held to the same high standards to which he holds himself . Wouldn't he?