State education officials are set to release their plan on Saturday for how the city should evaluate its teachers.
Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered the state to impose an evaluation system after the city and teachers' union couldn't agree on a plan earlier this year.
While the new guidelines have been in the making for weeks, Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he thinks they will wind up in court.
On his weekly radio show, the mayor said similar plans upstate are not working because officials are making side deals with teachers' unions.
"All these upstate small districts signed evaluations agreements so that the governor wouldn't cut their money and then signed secret letters that have come to light saying to the union don't worry about it, we won't enforce any of it," Bloomberg said.
Not sure what these comment signal.
The mayor is worried the system won't be harsh and punitive enough for him and he'll have to sue King and the NYSED?
The mayor is worried that it will be harsh and punitive enough for him but the union will sue King and the NYSED?
The mayor was smoking crack with the Toronto mayor again?
Hard to know exactly - Bloomberg has been known to talk out of his ass on his radio show, just riff thoughtlessly, saying whatever comes to his increasingly senile brain.
Maybe these comments signify nothing other than Bloomberg filling air time.
Or maybe they signal that he really does think the new system will wind up in the courts.
I'm skeptical about that because I don't think the UFT wants to sue over this.
Not after they stood on stage with Cuomo, King, Tisch and Iannuzzi two Februaries ago and declared APPR the bestest thing in education since chalk.
And I seriously doubt that NYSED Commissioner/rookie teacher John King is going to unveil a fair system - not with his corporate reform agenda.
But these comments by Bloomberg are interesting.
It is a at-will firing scheme supported by the corrupt UFT senior leader Michael Mulgrew. It is designed to provide evidence for firing 7%-10% of teachers annually without a due process, ....without a formal legal hearing under 3020a. It will empower many corrupt principals to further their empowerment leading to increased theft of money and time from the DOE. These corrupt, unsavory principals will demand sexual favors from young female teachers in exchange for jobs and job security. It it is based on junk science and it is implemented as form of bullying and harassment. Bullying and harassment are the cultural norms established by Mayor Bloomberg. It is an unreasonable scheme, and is capricious and arbitrary. It will turn out to be a huge financial liability for NY city and the next mayor. They will have to face up to the huge financial mismanagement and irresponsible leadership of the current mayor.
ReplyDeleteThe VAM certainly is capricious and arbitrary. I haven't seen the SLO scheme yet, but I suspect that will turn out to be indefensible in court too. And if Carol Burris is right and a teacher can be rated "effective" on all three parts of APPR (the test part, the local assessment part and the observation part) and STILL be rated "ineffective" overall, APPR as a whole will not stand up in court as anything but capricious and arbitrary.
DeleteTo Michael Mulgrew:
ReplyDeleteWhy have you sold us out?
Regards, Your Under The Bus Members
He's hoping to follow Randi to the Washington money gardens...
DeleteMichael Mulgrew has been wined and dined by the uber-wealthy and he has been seduced. Both Randy and Mike believe in the pseudo-reform bullshit and they love corporate empowerment as a seductive force of change.. They both know where the money and power is at in the USA ... in Bill Gates bank accounts, and in Eli Broad and Michael Bloomberg's pockets. They want power , a piece of the action and lots of money. They are going for it by throwing teachers under the bus.
ReplyDeleteGet the point?
You're right.
DeleteThe question is, will we be able to throw Mulgrew and his minions under the bus in the next election after a few years of APPR?
Yes!
ReplyDeleteWhen members see their career was run over by the UFT bus, then they can hobble to their mailbox to cast their ballot in the next election.
Members only participate in a union election when they finally see that their career is truly, irrefutably at stake.
Nothing motivates the members more than a union selling us out.
The union has already sold out since early 2000s. Uuhh,the members have not been motivated to vote.
DeleteWhy are members waiting another three years to vote?
ReplyDeleteWhat is the viability of suing the union for decisions the members do not agree with. Also, if MORE was prevented from obtaining mailing lists, because the current union heads(refuse to use the word leadership as it does not apply to them) would not provide the list, why didn't they file a complaint with the DOL as is their right. Or did they?
It's truly sad that the members are sitting ducks, but members have to take personal responsibility for remaining silent and inactive. Their fear of losing their jobs that prevented them from being vocal and active will still place them in a position to lose their jobs because of silence and inactivity.
i guess being a sycophant will be the cultural norm.
This is a violation of the contract which states how teachers should be evaluated. Does state law agreed to by the UFT over ride the contract? Is there a membership move to sue everyone including the UFT for not allowing the members to vote?
ReplyDeleteOn the elections. Look at the numbers. If MORE had the lists of teachers would that have made a difference? MORE had ads in 2 consecutive NY Teachers plus stuffed mail boxes all over the city and the needle for MORE (compared to the ICE/TJC) barely moved but went up by a few hundred votes. People who go on blogs are feeling the pain but clearly the overwhelming majority of teachers are not feeling it deep enough to be willing to take a chance on an unknown group like MORE. At most people who voted for Unity in the past just didn't vote.
But where there were MORE people in the school, those schools voted. MORE needs reps in the school to communicate with their colleages information over the next 3 years about what is going on. While it doesn't have to be a ch ldr or del, the chapter leader/delegate elections in 2015 are more important than the elections in that if MORE people run and win it is a referendum on Unity. MORE did win in most places where they went head to head with a Unity CL in 2012 but that barely scratched the surface.