Sign The MORE Petition Calling For A Moratorium On APPR Teacher Evaluations

The MORE petition - in full:

Moratorium on Teacher Evaluations

We, the educators, parents and community members of New York City, call on State Education Commissioner King, the new Mayor of New York City, and the UFT leadership to implement a MORATORIUM ON THE NEW YORK CITY TEACHER EVALUATION SYSTEM.
This system disproportionately weights the use of high stakes test scores over qualitative assessments to determine the quality of teacher performance. Assessment is important, but using test scores to evaluate teachers narrows curriculum, places emphasis on test prep, and creates a climate of competition and fear that hurts students. The Value Added Measures (VAM) which will be used in the New York City system have been proven inaccurate, ineffective and unreliable, and therefore should never be used to make decisions about teacher performance.* Implementation of this system by the DOE has been so badly planned that it sets teachers and administrators up for failure and puts our children at risk.

*Board on Testing and Assessment. 2009. “Letter Report to the U.S. Department of Education on the Race to the Top Fund,” The National Academies. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12780&page=1

Head on over to the MORE caucus page and sign the petition.