Final Budget Agreement: No Changes To APPR Teacher Evaluations

From the Buffalo News:

Precisely how far the changes to Common Core will go was still being debated Wednesday at the Capitol. But lawmakers say they expect, at a minimum, that certain Common Core test results will not count against student records for a period of time, additional money will be pumped into teacher professional development funds to help them make the transition to the Common Core system, and there will be no Common Core testing before third grade.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan, said the final plan will include still-unspecified delays to the new English and math testing requirements under the Common Core program. But he suggested that the budget will not remove standardized Common Core test results from being partly applied to how teachers are evaluated under a new state system that judges the classroom abilities of teachers.

A rush is on with Common Core because students in grades 3 through 8 are due to take a second round of standardized tests next week across the state. “We’re probably going to include something that alleviates the trauma to students who are scheduled to take exams in April,” Silver said after the session with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and legislative leaders at the Capitol on Wednesday.

I called Silver's office to ask how it is that the CCSS tests are not good enough to be used on students but they are good enough to be used on teachers.

I did not get any coherent response from his office over the matter.

Perhaps the education deformers in charge of policy in the state think that by taking the stakes from the children's tests, they relieve the "trauma" from the system.

But with high stakes still attached to the teachers via these test scores, the "trauma" remains in the system because people are going to be worried about losing their jobs over these scores.

Which means some of the "trauma" is going to find it's way to the children even if the stakes have been taken from the tests for students.

Again, I ask how it is that teachers will be evaluated using test scores from tests that children have no stake in.

I am glad the stakes have been removed for the children.

I do not see how teachers can still be evaluated with those same tests, however.

You should call Shelly Silver's office and see if you can get a rational response to this Common Core conundrum:

 518-455-3791