“Nobody knows better how our kids learn than their teachers — they’re there every step of the way with guidance and encouragement. Every young New Yorker deserves a quality education that will help them build a strong future, and that starts with giving teachers the flexibility to focus on their students’ needs, not test scores.

“To help us get closer to that goal, legislation I helped pass delinking test scores from teacher evaluations is now in effect (Ch. 59 of 2019). The law eliminates the mandate that state-created or administered assessments be used for teacher and principal evaluations, and gives school districts the option to either keep the current system of evaluations or establish a new system to evaluate their teachers and principals. Every child learns differently, and a standardized test score isn’t always the most accurate representation of a student’s knowledge or an educator’s ability to teach. This legislation reduces the unfair emphasis on testing so that our students can focus on learning.”