New York City students have grown accustomed to the restless routine of state tests in math and reading every year. But soon they will face assessments in subjects typically spared from standardized testing, including art, gym and foreign languages.A new system for evaluating educators, announced by the state on Saturday, will reshape how teachers are hired and fired in the city. It will also have a profound effect on students, who will take part in a series of new exams designed to help administrators grade teachers in specialized subjects.
Under the new evaluation system, which was imposed by the state after months of feuding between the city and the teachers’ union, teachers will be graded next school year on a variety of measures. Student test scores will make up 20 percent of their rating, while classroom observations will account for 60 percent. Principals and teachers will work together to decide how to evaluate the remaining 20 percent.But many educators teach subjects for which there are no widely used tests. In response, the city is developing assessments in a range of subjects, including English as a second language, special education and music. City officials are also working on assessments for kindergarten, first grade and second grade, where exams are less common....The city said that it would begin offering training on Thursday to allay concerns among teachers, and that workshops would be held throughout the summer.Some principals are also uneasy about the new guidelines. Their role in schools is expected to change significantly as they begin observing teachers more frequently — as much as six times a year.
Ernest Logan, president of the union that represents principals, said he hoped the city would offer adequate training. “The burden falls on principals to implement something we really had no input in,” he said.
I am of the opinion that the designers of this system know it will not improve teaching and learning, just add a tremendous amount of burn and churn to teachers and administrators and move "talent" in out and out of the system at a much quicker rate.
If this was such a great evaluation system, you would think Andrew Cuomo and John King would impose it on their kids' private school teachers too or send their kids to public school where they can enjoy the wonders of All Year Round Testing.
But they didn't and they don't.
Their kids enjoy small class sizes, no standardized tests, and teachers not busy collecting "artifacts" and checking their VAM while playing CYA.
So the city will offer training to principals where many came from the Leadership Academy and have sub par qualities as educators and can be deemed as incompetent. What's to stop them from still doing a "gotcha" on teachers who are a threat to them because of their intelligence and union involvement?
ReplyDeleteEvery system or plan can be rigged to show that principals are following the evaluation plan on paper. Nothing will be fair or equitable for teachers when the livelihood of a principal, who has never taught or taught for less than 3 years, is at stake. It's the nature of the beast and Campbell's Law has proven it over and over when the stakes are high.
Here's a wondering: will our district rep., which teach one class a day, be evaluated under the APPR? What a teachers who have out of classroom positions in certain comp-time positions? Will their comp-time positions have to change where they must teach a class? Shouldn't principals be forced to teach at least one class of 34 students so teachers can observe their principal implement the evaluation plan using the Danielson?
Is it fair to impose this new evaluation plan on a certain percentage of teachers, but not on all? My fear that this will bring in-house fighting and tension among our colleagues.
I think the system is meant to do just that. The new principals' system is meant to put pressure on them to fire a certain number of teachers every year, further exacerbating problems between teachers and administrators - even one's who aren't Leadership Academy grads.
DeleteThis is divide and conquer by the oligarchs. They're setting us against each other - no different than the way the landed gentry sets poor white and blacks against each other in the South or the industrial class set immigrants and working class Americans against each other.
It's as American as a three fifth's compromise.
"It's American as a three fifths compromise."
ReplyDeleteCheck plus!