Education officials are for the first time urging school principals to factor student test score data into decisions about whether to grant tenure to eligible teachers.
The controversial move — which Schools Chancellor Joel Klein detailed in an e-mail to principals yesterday morning — brought an immediate backlash from the teachers union, which threatened legal action.
It may have also re-ignited the bruising battle fought in 2008 over the city’s right to factor student data into teacher tenure decisions, which concluded with state lawmakers siding with the union and passing a law that barred the practice for two years.
The city had argued that student test scores are a vital piece of data that should play a role in holding teachers accountable; the union countered that the state tests at the heart of the evaluation system weren’t designed to measure teacher performance.
