The Regents released recommendations on teacher evaluations yesterday that call for a "staggering amount of new assessments."
But the report also warned we shouldn't overtest.
Huh?
They plan to implement evaluations that call for state and local tests (they're not "assessments," they're tests) in every subject at every level.
These tests have to be implemented so that teachers can be held accountable for student performance.
The tests don't exist yet, the value-added models to use on those test scores to evaluate teachers don't exist, but we have to hurry up and implement this system NOW so that teachers can be held accountable and "bad" teachers can be fired.
This is the "accountability movement" taken to its logical conclusion.
There is no accountability - this is a chaotic mess straight up, but when you have people in charge of things who promote a particular ideology, this is the kind of thing you get.
Everything is about "accountability" and "market values" and "competition."
Teachers will be evaluated not only by student test score but also by comparison to teachers in their own school and teachers in schools with similar demographics.
Those who come up on the lower percentiles will first be humiliated in the newspapers as "bad teachers" and then will be fired after a couple of years.
Free market accountability and competition in action.
So what if the value-added modeling used to evaluate this way has a 12%-35% margin of error.
So what if the tests are badly designed and poorly implemented.
So what if the evaluation system is going to destroy what little vestige of education remains in the public education system by forcing an all test prep/all test-taking environment that will have teachers and administrators in fear for their jobs and their reputations every year.
This is about accountability dammit!
There are bad unionized teachers out there and WE WANT THEM FIRED.
Michelle Rhee proved it could be done.
Oh, wait -she didn't?
Well, so what! Bill Gates says this MUST be done, so THIS MUST BE DONE!!!
The next few years in education are going to be an absolute disaster for children, teachers and administrators.
It feels like this train rolling toward the cliff can't be stopped until it plummets down, but maybe, just maybe, after parents and fair-minded citizens see the craziness that Obama and Duncan and Gates have instituted through Race to the Top, people will turn on this stuff and these people the way they have turned on Bloomberg, Klein and Black.
Until then, we will suffer through a staggering amount of new assessments given every few weeks and people fired when the scores don't roll out the way Bill Gates wants them to.
Since Bloomberg has had mayoral control for many years now, when do we get to formally assess HIS data on improving test results?
ReplyDeleteLast I checked, NONE of his actions have improved ANYTHING. There are no miracles out there, with mini-schools, newbie teachers, OR charter schools- except for the scams his minions have perpetrated on the public.
When do we give Bloomberg HIS education assessment? Or is he exempt from public srcutiny, like most kings are? He has failed miserably.
Heard Duncan interviewed on NPR yesterday saying how they're going to bring up the percentages of students pursuing college degrees. The idiot NPR reporter didn't bother to ask him whether the 400000 Californians disenfranchised by reduction in community college funding will put a crimp in those plans.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great point, gDog. And of course it's another "Democratic" politician decimating the school system in California. Repub, Dem, they all do the bidding of the corporate overlords, don't they?
ReplyDeleteAnon, I was hoping there would be a place for that stuff on the DOE Teacher Survey - there was for both the chancellor and for the PEP board. But nothing for Bloomberg!