Assemblyman Joseph M. Giglio (R,C,I-Gowanda) today supported legislation (Assembly Bill 7303-A) that corrects the botched language on teacher evaluations and standardized testing that was included in the recently adopted State budget passed by the Assembly Majority.

The legislation passed by the Assembly today allows the Board of Regents to extend the deadline by which the flawed teacher evaluation rubric must be developed. Current law requires the State Education Department to adopt the hastily prepared evaluation rubric by June 15th of this year. Additionally, the legislation de-couples the evaluation rubric adoption from financial aid for school districts, mandates that student disabilities, district poverty levels, and prior academic history be taken into account when determining growth scores, mandates a content review committee for standardized test items to ensure age-appropriateness and effectiveness, and makes outside observers a voluntary option for evaluations.

“Unfortunately, the Legislature included inappropriate and flawed education policy in the budget when it was adopted at the end of March,” said Assemblyman Giglio. “Parents, educators, administrators, members of the Board of Regents, experts in the field, and residents across the state begged the Legislature not to force-feed this terrible public policy to our students and teachers, and they were ignored. Today, we voted to attempt to correct the mistake and re-direct the ship, but more reform remains necessary.”

The legislation also seeks to correct the lack of transparency surrounding the current standardized tests, including concerns about lack of feedback on student results, which render the tests useless for teachers and parents to help students improve future scores. Additionally, the tests are not grade-level appropriate or aligned to current curriculum, which many argue makes them unreliable for measuring the performance of students and teachers.

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the Legislature should provide a strong financial commitment to education, and it should leave the policy to the experts,” continued Giglio. “We should not threaten the adoption of policy by withholding funding, nor should we measure the worth of our education system using standardized tests. The results of a few standardized tests do not, and should not, reflect the overall value of a teacher or the education of a student. I’m looking forward to additional reforms before any real harm is done.”