ALBANY—Teachers and principals in New York's large, urban school districts received lower ratings on the first year of state-mandated evaluations than their counterparts in other districts, according to data released Thursday by the Education Department.
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The state education department released data in October 2013 showing statewide averages for teacher evaluations. At that time, commissioner John King said the district-by-district ratings would be released to the public, as required by law, by “late fall or early winter” 2013.
Capital informally requested the data on multiple occasions, but the department stalled, citing privacy concerns about individual teachers. The information released on Thursday follows a request by Capital in June for records under the state's Freedom of Information Law.
“Today's release of evaluation data will enable New Yorkers to see, for the first time, the results of their schools' teacher and principal evaluations,” department spokesman Dennis Tompkins said in a release. “The goal of the evaluation process has always been to improve teaching and learning by targeting professional development where it is most needed in order to improve student outcomes. When teachers and principals receive the right tools to improve their practice, their students benefit—it's really as straightforward as that.”
NYSED promises the district-by-district ratings by "late fall or early winter" 2014.
It's now August 28, 2014.
They're at least nine months late with the data.
Even longer if you hold them to the "late fall" deadline they offered last year.
How trustworthy is data that is this late?
Just why is the data this late?
And who does the SED flack think he's kidding when he says "When teachers and principals receive the right tools to improve their practice, their students benefit—it's really as straightforward as that"?
The data is so delayed, I could have had a kid faster than they got this released publicly.
More evidence of the APPR sham and the sheer incompetence of the educrats at SED.
NYSED has no idea what the hell they're doing. They're great at strict rules and policies, but can't back it up with logical, intelligent, timely information and feedback.
ReplyDeleteThey are constantly scrambling. They are constantly asking for more time and explaining their incompetence away. There is no accountability with them, whatsoever.
NYSED is run by non-educators ruining children and teachers, and again, I can't believe our teacher union leadership allows them to get away with this crap.
Any competent, non-self-centered union could battle this malfeasance and expose it and put a stop to a lot of it.
That they choose not to makes them more responsible for it than the reformer culprits, themselves.
Mulgrew, Weingarten, Magee...traitors to the teaching profession.
Disgusting.
AFT/UFT/NYSUT are clearly in cahoots over evaluations, CCSS, testing, etc. There can be little doubt of this after the AFT and UFT leaderships did in the old NYSUT leadership and the new NYSUT leadership got their double pension deal from Cuomo.
DeleteAside from everything else, the comparisons are of different systems, and the most draconian will surely result in more poor ratings. It's rotten apples and rotten oranges.
ReplyDeleteBut of course reported by the media as if the data has some value.
DeleteTimes had a piece that was framed as 69% of students fail tests, only 9% of teachers need improvement according to APPR.
Which is of course a b.s. frame.
As you pointed out on your blog piece this morning, teachers have anywhere between 1% to 14% influence on student test scores.
Except in the press, where teachers have a 100% influence.