Initially on Saturday Thompson issued an "Everybody wins!" kind of statement, saying the system was fair to both the DOE and the UFT and was good for NYC school students.
Then on Sunday he said this:
Bill Thompson, a Democrat who once served as school-board president and city comptroller, called the 241-page plan "unworkable in its complexity and bureaucracy."
Perhaps Thompson was, as has been suggested, pandering to the UFT in order to garner support and an endorsement.
Perhaps.
Or perhaps as former head of the Board of Education, he looked at the 241 page plan and saw it for what it is - a cobbled-together system that is too complex and convoluted to ever work.
Or maybe he was doing a little of both - truth-telling and pandering.
In any case, he described the King plan to a tee.
KIng is running from the karma fairy but it's a race to nowhere. Whether you believe Abe Lincoln about screwing some of the people all of the time or the law of averages, this little corporate poop boy and puppet of the 1% is going to get pantsed and it's gonna be ugly, uglier than his portraits where he's standing in front of empty auditoriums. Wonder why that is ?
ReplyDeleteI just hope after it's all said and done, his goatee is saved...
DeleteIf I read the blogs correctly with regards to the imposed teacher evaluation agreement, then it can be undone by contractual agreement. Remembering that Merryl Tisch is a key member of the Thompson team, I find his quote both amazing and encouraging. Once Thompson receives the UFT endorsement and if he wins the primary and general elections, Bill Thompson will be able to rely on his years in education, appoint a true educator as chancellor and undo this horror of an agreement. By doing so he pays back mayor Bloomberg and Quinn for the third by scrapping one of his signature achievements and sets the department upon a much different path then the present administration. His comments could become a game changer for the Thompson candidacy.
ReplyDeleteI'm not ready to see him as championing that approach, but I did find it interesting that he issued the second comment after issuing the initial statement.
DeletePlease....Tisch runs this hack...hes just reading his scipt...
ReplyDeleteYou may be right. He might just be pandering. Hard to know, really. I still don't and won't support, but at least on this case, he's described the plan the same way I did - an unworkable mess.
DeleteBasically..the principals and supervisors will be in the state of "constant observation"...or writing them up...but a lot of their "observations" will be clicking a mouse. The program will total it all up giving the teacher score.
ReplyDeleteYou can bet many principals and assistant principals will take all the shortcuts they can - the workload amount is frankly undoable under this new system.
DeleteI'd like to know what the specific test data formula they'll be using in high school?
ReplyDeleteSay you teach social studies. Will they be only be using Regents exams, and how? What rate,of,improvement is base line?
Ask Reformy John. I didn't see that in the 241 page plan he sent out. I'd like to know it too.
DeleteDo not trust Bill Thompson. If he can flip-flop in one day, he cannot be relied upon. Judge Bill Thompson by who his friends are: Merryl Tisch, Alfonso D'Amato and soon to announce his allegiance, Mike Mulgrew.
ReplyDeleteThe last politician I trusted was Gary Hart. I was young and naive...
Delete7:15 anonymous,
ReplyDeletemy main thing is advocacy for teachers, but can't you see principals and asst. principals pulling their hair out over the huge number of observations that they'll have to do? Sure, they'll click a mouse but I bet Danielson observations will be time consuming with noting where teachers fall in the DF schema.
Those with the toughest time will be those at the new small schools. They usually have just one AP. Watch the principals and APs age faster and discipline nose-dive as the APs will be too busy to address discipline issues.