At a heated meeting yesterday, the Néw York Board of Regents voted to approve changes to the teacher evaluation rules. The source of the contention was a harsh plan created by Governor Cuomo and jammed hastily into the state budget bill. Cuomo wants 50% of teachers’ evaluation to be based on state tests. It is payback for the failure of teachers to support his re-election last fall.

Recently a group of seven dissident Regents issued their own statement, proposing a year-long delay in implementation and increased focus on performance assessments.

At the meeting yesterday, the dissidents won some compromises–the main one being a four-month delay , which effectively pushes implementation off for a year.

But the seven dissidents who heroically defended students, teachers, and education, dropped to six as Regent Josephine Finn, a noneducator, joined the majority.

As I understand the details better, I will post them. From what I hear, the six dissident Regents are trying to craft a wise policy that will improve education, and they won significant compromises in the formula.

The majority clings to the vain hope that more testing equals better education. Call them the NCLB majority. Time is running out for their failed ideas.

Some 200,000 students–nearly 400,000 parents–refused the tests this past spring. Expect that number to grow as the Regents majority ignores the popular rejection of their failed policies.