Lisa Fleisher in today’s Wall Street Journal:
Principals at more than one in 10 New York City public schools didn't flunk a single teacher for at least eight years, according to an analysis of city data by The Wall Street Journal.
Teachers at 142 of 1,269 schools that have been open for at least the past eight years were all marked "satisfactory" on the city's pass/fail system for reviewing job performance...
The findings give ammunition to Department of Education officials who say the teacher-rating system should be changed. New York City is one of a handful of school districts statewide that hasn't adopted a new, more nuanced system of grading teachers. The city and its teachers union haven't been able to reach an agreement. Under the current system, teachers are either rated unsatisfactory or satisfactory. Annually, less than 3% of teachers citywide are marked "unsatisfactory."