UFT President Michael Mulgrew told the Delegate Assembly on May 20 that the union is fighting hard to ensure that the mandated changes to teacher evaluation in New York City produce a system that is as fair, reasonable and simple to understand as possible under the circumstances.

The Board of Regents, which is tasked with issuing final regulations by June 30, held a summit in May on changes to the evaluation system that the Legislature included in the state budget.

Mulgrew said his message to the Regents was that local districts need to have influence over the shape of their evaluation systems to reflect the wide variation in student populations.

“We are not the Scarsdale school system,” he said. “We are not Buffalo. We are New York City, a diverse — the most diverse — school system.”

He said that bureaucrats at the State Education Department had come out with draft regulations that included “lots of crazy formulas.” It is crucial that the final system approved by the Regents “is simplified and that it makes common sense to teachers,” he said.

The final regulations should include ranges for how final observation ratings are determined, Mulgrew said. “And then give us the power locally to make the decisions that are in the best interest of our children,” he said.

Mulgrew told delegates that the evaluation system in New York City may be revised more than once over the next few years.

“It’s going to continue to change,” he said.

On the federal front, he noted, a bill that is the first reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act since No Child Left Behind sailed through a Senate committee on a unanimous vote.

That bill, if it becomes law, would not have the requirement that teacher evaluations must be tied to student test scores. The UFT is working with the American Federation of Teachers to continue moving the legislation, Mulgrew said.

Mulgrew also announced that the UFT and the Department of Education had agreed to an expanded set of standards to reduce excessive and duplicative paperwork, both paper and electronic. But he reminded delegates that members must follow the procedures set in the contract, which require them to try to resolve paperwork complaints first at the school level.