The State Education Department’s effort to collect information linking teacher and student data in the Student Information Repository

System continues to cause confusion among charter schools. Ken Wagner’s March 2012 memo, (here), and Sally Bachofer’s memo sent April

18th, (here), assert that charter schools, including those that did not sign a MOU to participate in the Race to the Top program, must report

teacher evaluation data in a specific form and format, and in a way that is consistent with the pillars of Education Law §3012-c

Specifically, SED wants all charter schools to "map" teacher evaluation scores into a composite score using the four rating categories found in

§3012-c: highly effective, effective, developing, and ineffective. More broadly, SED wants charter schools to use evaluations with at least 40

percent of the score based on student achievement, and to develop improvement plans for staff rated "developing" or "ineffective." While

§3012-c does not apply to charter schools, we believe charter schools participating in Race to the Top do have to comply with these

requirements. Non-Race to the Top charter schools are not required to do any of this unless it is in the charter agreement.

SED argues that a certain section of the Charter Schools Act and its accompanying regulations, along with Education Laws §215 and §3012-c,

give the department the legal authority to require charter schools to report on teacher evaluations using the four categories. We disagree.

Education Laws §215 and §3012-c simply do not apply to charter schools. While §2857 of the Charter Schools Act, and its accompanying

regulations (119.3) do apply, it is our opinion that they do not give the department the authority to insist schools must report data that is not

applicable to charter schools and that, in practice, effectively require a charter school to make up data it does not have.

From a practical standpoint, for many charter schools, teacher evaluation data in this format does not exist. We advise against fabricating

data to fit the four categories for two important reasons:

Categories used by a school’s existing evaluation system may not translate onto this scale. Attempting to "map" actual scores to "fit" into the

SED categories is a bad idea; the result would be contrived teacher scores. If the data does not exist, there is no legal obligation to provide it

to SED. Do not report made-up data.

Providing results that deviate from what the school actually uses will create misleading and inaccurate information that will become part of

the school’s permanent record. This data is being collected for a state-wide databank to be used for analysis. Faulty data should not be used

to draw conclusions about teachers and/or schools.

We suggest you skip the related questions (or input "n/a") if you do not have teacher evaluation data that fits into the four categories. As we

continue to advocate on your behalf, it will be useful for us to know how this data request could impact your school and we want to be sure

you understand the issue. We will be setting up calls in the next week to discuss this issue further. Please call Andrea Rogers at (518) 694-

3110 with questions.

New York Charter Schools Association

915 Broadway, Albany, NY 12207

(518) 694-3110

www.nycsa.org