King Standardized Test

The education reformers are crowing this morning over the NYSUT/UFT cave-in to Cuomo in the evaluation agreement.

As usual with the reformers, they lie about the things they are promoting.

Joe Williams of the Democrats For Education Reform says the following about the new evaluation system:

The much-maligned standardized test isn’t king. Under the new plan, the bulk of a teacher’s evaluation (60%) remains in the hands of the school principal, not in standardized testing. That’s as it should be. Implementing more meaningful classroom evaluations will help teachers improve their craft — especially for the four out of five teachers who don’t teach in tested grades or subjects.

That's a lie - the standardized test is king (as in John King!) - the state plans to roll out new tests in every subject in most grades and local districts can roll out new tests as well.

Soon EVERY subject in EVERY grade WILL be tested.

And since a teacher MUST be rated "ineffective" if they come up "ineffective" on the test score-based portion of the evaluation (40%). that renders the other 60% meaningless.

Essentially, the new teacher evaluation system is based 100% upon test scores.

If you teach a subject that is already tested, you can expect to be under these guidelines soon (perhaps by 2012-2013.)

If you teach a subject that is currently not tested, the city and state will soon have tests ready for those subjects and you will be under those guidelines by 2014-2015.

NYSED Commissioner John King bragged last May about all the wonderful new assessments the state is working on to tie to the Common Core Standards, so truly we can expect to see King Standardized Test very, very soon.