There were some people who commented at Gotham Schools last night on various posts that UFT President Mulgrew stood up for his teachers against an unfair evaluation system.
Mulgrew's statements to the Delegate Assembly last night about the wonders of using student growth models to evaluate teachers ought to disabuse those people of that notion.
Mulgrew and the UFT, just like Weingarten and the AFT, believe "junk science" in the form of value-added measurements and growth models based upon test scores are the best way to ensure fairness in a teacher evaluation system.
Yes, Mulgrew seemed to indicate that the growth model the UFT was pushing would be used with portfolio assessment, but given the preponderance of Common Core tests coming down the pike in a year, does anybody who isn't a Unity shill or a member of Leo Casey's family actually believe that nonsense?
Had Bloomberg agreed to what Mulgrew was proposing, starting today you would be evaluated based upon student growth work and you can bet if you teach a class that ends in a Regents, that's the "assessment" that would be used, no matter what Mulgrew and Casey are saying.
Remember too that these are the same people who agreed to the wonderful Teacher Data Reports system that was used on math and ELA teachers 4th-8th grade - you know, the ones with the 52% median margins of error for ELA, 87% maximum margins of error ?
These are also the same people who claimed those scores would only be used for informational purposes to help teachers do their jobs better and would never see the light of day in public.
Of course the media FOILed those scores after former Chancellor Klein encouraged them to do so, the UFT lost those lawsuits and teachers were smeared in public with a scoring system so error-riddled it makes the Pearson Pineapple and the Hare test look like something designed by Thomas Edison.
I was going to refrain from criticizing the UFT leadership over the negotiations, figuring that it would be better to take aim at the mayor and the corporate deformers who are sure to attack us in the press for the next few months.
But after hearing Mulgrew's statements at the DA about the wonders of "growth models," I have decided instead that Michael Mulgrew and the UFT leadership are more dangerous to teachers, students and schools.
Just as so many teachers and parents in other areas of the country are banding together to put a stop to using test scores and high stakes assessments, the UFT was about to give Bloomberg and the NYCDOE a wonderful opportunity to use both state and local assessments to evaluate and fire teachers.
And you can bet that the '"growth models" the UFT would agree to here would be no better than the value-added models they agreed to as part of the Teacher Data Reports and that these growth models would be used as a bludgeon against teachers.
James Eterno at ICEUFT blog writes that he thinks Mulgrew will now go to the state and try and get the evaluation system put into place over Bloomberg's head.
Gee, wouldn't that be great?
Loss of state aid, hammered in the media, but the union leader STILL goes to Albany to give away the store and get nothing in return.
Michael Mulgrew and the UFT leadership are going to sell you out and make sure you are evaluated using an error-riddled test score system - it's only a matter of time.
Don't buy their jive that growth models are any more "objective" than value added - they're not.
And let me state again, these people pushing the wonders of growth models were the same people who agreed to the Teacher Data Report models.
We are lucky Bloomberg was too stubborn and arrogant to accept Mulgrew's terms of surrender last night.
But that only delays the inevitable unless the membership mobilize and send the message to these people in the leadership - you sell us out and YOU are out.
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