After yesterday's cave-in to Cuomo, Tisch, King and the corporate education reform interests, the unions in NY State no longer serve any useful purpose for teachers.
They have allowed state tests to account for 40% of the new teacher evaluation system.
They have further allowed teachers to be declared "ineffective" overall as teachers if they come up "ineffective" on just that 40% measure.
In other words, the other 60% of the evaluation doesn't mean squat.
They have caved on appeals, allowing the chancellor to decide 87% of appeals of "ineffective" ratings.
They are allowing the city to add new standardized tests in every subject in every grade - not to measure student performance, but to grade teachers.
Indeed, the NY Times reported last year the city doesn't even plan to count the city tests for students.
They will only count for teachers.
Tell me, what exactly are these people at the unions doing for us?
I mean, other than collecting their paychecks and second pensions and collaborating with the corporate pols to destroy teachers?
The abomination that is yesterday's teacher evaluation deal becomes even clearer in the light of day this morning.
Neville Chamberlain and Michael Collins would be proud of Michael Mulgrew and Dick Iannuzzi.
They gave away everything and yet are declaring victory.
Heckuva job, fellas.
Starting next year, students will do nothing in school but prep for tests and take tests.
Principals will do nothing but observe teachers (since each teacher has to be observed at least twice a year - in my building, that means 240 observations a year.)
How will teachers who teach subjects that have no state or city tests be graded?
Who knows?
What kind of value-added measurement will the state use to grade teachers who teach subjects that are tested?
Who knows?
How will teachers know what other teachers they'll be compared to on the new evaluation bell curve?
Who knows?
The only thing we do know is that the UFT and the NYSUT both caved on EVERYTHING.
Actually, I believe that state tests will be 20% not 40%. It'll be 20% state and 20% city. Correct me if I'm wrong-but it's still the same result. If you don't get the correct numbers on the state tests, you're an "I"-and if you don't get the 20% on the city tests, you're an "I". So, if I'm correct, you can pass the state tests, but not make the city numbers, and you're still an "I" or vice versa. Please fill me in if I'm wrong.
ReplyDeleteNope - the state portion CAN be 40% if the district so desires. Frankly, I would rather that - do you want to have to give your kids both city AND state tests in every subject? I don't - after awhile they're just not going to care anymore.
ReplyDeleteThis is yet another catastrophe - like the continuing approval of mayoral control, the 2005 contract, overriding term limits and the passive endorsement of Bloomberg's reelection in 2009, all of which Unity is responsible for - that has been foisted on us by a collaborationist (Weingarten's term, not mine) leadership. Should it go forward as intended, it's the end of tenure and teaching as a career.
ReplyDeleteThe only possible ray of hope is the plan's potential unworkability. As you say, RBE, the principals will have little time for anything but observations: twice a year for the remaining tenured faculty, six times a year for probationary teachers, whose numbers are sure to increase. Since that's not viable, the question becomes whether the DOE will really hold principals to that requirement, or will they look the other way as drive-by observations become the basis for perfunctory Ineffective ratings?
Then again, never mind: the volatility and unreliability of the TDRs mean that everyone is potentially out the door.
This may be the the culmination of a long series of Unity betrayals. With a transient, highly stressed and distracted teaching force, the ed deformers plan to destroy the neighborhood public school and replace it with charters, bogus online "academies" and credit accumulation mills, is much closer to realization.
Dead right. The teaching profession is finished. It will consist of two year wonders. All institutional memory is being erased. The power, money and real
ReplyDeletelestate grabs are now complete. This atrocity will take another three years to execute. Who in their right mind would want to become a teacher. This is the time to strike. All of the corporatist gains of the last decade need to be reversed.
Cheers,
Angry Nog