Chancellor Klein says teachers never bow to administration pressure when filling out the DOE surveys about school quality.
I can't speak to pressure from the administration on how we fill out the survey, but they do keep reminding us to fill it out.
Apparently that was a weakness of ours last year - only 75% of staff filled it out.
Nonetheless I did not approach the survey in any way that could be described as "honestly."
I simply thought: What is the response to each question that makes the school look best so that I do not give Klein and Eva the excuse to close us down and use our 10 floor art deco building for a couple of charter schools and a condo?
That, I think, was the rationale for most teachers in my building.
That's because we understand that while the school and the administration where we work is not perfect, it is a pretty good place run by some pretty skilled people, but if you say ANYTHING even mildly critical of either the school or the administration in some official DOE survey, it will be almost certainly used against the school in the future.
And then Eva will write Klein and email saying we're hurting the kids and we need to be shut down and reopened as Chelsea Promise Charter Academy I and II.
So I would have to say, no, I did not fill out the survey honestly.
I bet with Klein trying to close 19 schools and the state trying to close another 16 related to President Accountability's RttT competition, a lot of other people didn't answer the survey honestly either.
There can be no honestly and no trust in an era of fear.
And Klein and Bloomberg rule by fear.
Wait! You mean we were supposed to be honest! I want mine back!
ReplyDeleteDid they do this as a blind survey or did they have to fill out their infromation so others would find out who put what answers on the sheet?
ReplyDeleteImo it would have been better as a blind survey this has better results and makes people a little more honest with the answers.
I wish that they asked us questions about how THEY are doing...if they were really interested in our opinions, then that would have been the most interesting....and all would have answered honestly!
ReplyDeleteThe surveys are supposed to be blind, Gringo, but if you're in a small school, they can kinda figure out who filled it out. Also, now that they are done online, I suspect IPO's can be tracked - so if you did it at home or in your department office, it shouldn't be too hard to track.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, they're just garbage. As Anon said, they don't ask for input on HOW to make things better. They just ask for WHAT you do not like. Then they use that as an excuse to close you down.