Vision and Core Beliefs

The 2013-14 school year marks the launch of New York City's new system of teacher evaluation and
development. This year, the NYCDOE will work with schools to implement a fair, meaningful system of
teacher evaluation and development that helps all teachers grow and advances our vision of an effective teacher
in every classroom for every student. We believe that to improve educator effectiveness and ensure our
students are college and career ready, we need an approach that includes measures of student learning and
provides meaningful information about every educators skills and performance.
Teaching is incredibly complex and challenging work. We want our teacher evaluation and development system to
support teachers as they set goals, measure progress, and provide meaningful feedback and support so that they
can continuously grow in their practice. Teachers are highly-skilled professionals and our evaluation system
recognizes them as such.
Our pilot work on teacher evaluation and development reinforced the importance of three additional core beliefs to
the success of this work:

Students: All children can achieve, no matter their life circumstances.

Teachers: Teachers are the key levers in influencing the achievement of students.

School Leaders: Leaders have the ability to lead the change necessary to implement effective teacher evaluation
and development practices in their school communities.
To live up to those core beliefs, we must support teachers in continuously developing their instructional practice
over time. To that end, the following principles guide Advance:
1.

Instructionally valuable: Supports educators in making instructional decisions

2.

Supports development: Helps educators improve their practice

3.

School-level Autonomy: Creates options to support school-level autonomy where possible

4.

Reliable and Valid: Provides consistent and accurate measures of educator effectiveness

5.

Fair: Does not disadvantage educators based on population of students served

6.

Transparent: Clear/understandable to educators

7.

Feasible: Can be implemented without undue burden

Advance is a powerful tool to drive continuous improvement of teacher practice across our system. Learn more
about how the NYCDOE is supporting all our educators to implement Advance.