Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Merryl Tisch Wants To Increase Test Score Component In APPR Teacher Evaluation System To 40%

This news is not a surprise:

Ms. Tisch said in a phone interview Tuesday that she and Mr. King planned to propose several changes to the state’s teacher evaluation system, including creating a more efficient process for firing teachers who receive two consecutive ineffective ratings.

They will also propose doubling the weight of state or district tests in the ratings, to 40 percent of the overall score, which Ms. Tisch said would actually reduce the amount of testing in schools. Currently, 20 percent of the ratings are based on those tests. Another 20 percent are based on additional tests created as a result of negotiation between local districts and their unions, tests that could be eliminated with the change.

Because of those 20 points, what happened was you got an increase in testing and an increase in focus on testing in these districts,” Ms. Tisch said.

Sixty percent of each rating is based on subjective measures, like principals’ evaluations, which in many districts were overwhelmingly favorable to teachers. Ms. Tisch said she and Mr. King would also propose changes to the scoring of principal evaluations.

I thought Tisch would look to do that - increase the test component to 40% and argue that doing so will actually "decrease" the amount of testing in the state's schools.

Here, of course, is the rub of all of that:

Any significant changes would have to be approved by the Legislature. The teachers’ unions, which have fought to limit the influence of testing, have support in the Democratic-controlled Assembly, and even some Republicans have been wary of the use of Common Core tests.

This is partly why there is now an attack on Assembly Speaker Silver, leaks to the NY Times about a federal probe into Silver by US Attorney Preet Bharara's office and such.

The monied interests have an enormous investment in destroying the public education system and breaking the teachers unions in New York State - they think that moment is now.

The only thing standing in the way of Andrew Cuomo getting to "break" the public education system as he promised to do before the election is Sheldon Silver and the Assembly Democrats.

John Flanagan has already signaled that Senate Republicans will go along with Cuomo's reform plans - including imposing a statewide APPR system.

The monied interests are looking to destroy Silver this legislative session and force through their school privatization and union busting plans.

Tisch's statements to the Times demonstrate just how far-reaching those plans will be.

In one piece of good news today, the Times-Union reports that Silver's expected demise may not come as planned.

I'll have more on that story later.

Suffice to say for now that Tisch, King and Cuomo are going to push a coordinated attack on public schools and teachers before King slinks off to his next gig and Silver and the Assembly Dems are all that stand between them and their goal.

38 comments:

  1. What phone interview? With whom did she talk? And how did you get the transcript? Or did you talk to her ?

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  2. The blogger is quoting a NY Times piece. Notice the indented text.

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  3. OK. I didn't realize the title was the link to the Times article.

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    1. New to this are you? Maybe change your screen name until you get up to speed? Christ on a bike.

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  4. Why not base the evaluation 100% on test scores? It would the be 100 % capricious and arbitrary.

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  5. 40% on one test already lost in court, did it not?

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    1. See below - that's only because the old APPR law was written for 20% and 20%. If they rewrite it to make it 40%, it will stand up in court.

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  6. 40% is already 100%

    If you score an ineffective in both state and local measures you are automatically ineffective overall regardless of observation component.
    And don't expect the district to explain how the powers that be came up with the state and local because you will be out of luck

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    1. yeah, we know all that but 40% on one test is what tisch is talking about. this did indeed get struck down by a judge a couple of years ago.

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    2. They'll write legislation that changes it to 40%.

      The reason why a court rejected the previous bait and switch pulled by Cuomo, Tisch and King to make it 40% was because the APPR evaluation law isn't written that way.

      Bet that they'll fix that oversight in the 2015 legislative rewrite.

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  7. Ps. Anon 10:22 am. U should know your State and Local MOSL measures. If not, that's your own fault.

    Let them go for 40%. It will be the legal demise of the system they claim uses multiple measures.

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    1. They'll write legislation that changes it to 40%. The reason why a court rejected the previous bait and switch pulled by Cuomo, Tisch and King to make it 40% was because the APPR evaluation law isn't written that way. But if they rewrite it to make it 40%, it will stand up in court.

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  8. Damn. Never thought I'd be lighting candles and flinging up Hail Marys to save Shelly Silver's neck. Ain't life strange?

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    1. Silver supports Tisch, of course, but he's also the only thing keeping Cuomo from getting 100% of his reform agenda.

      Yeah, I'm hoping Silver survives this latest storm - otherwise, we're screwed.

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  9. All members of delegate assemblies in Aft, Uft and Nysut should turn their backs on Weingarten, Mulgrew, and Magee

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    1. I don;t think the courtiers will turn their backs on the Royal Court figures and risk losing all their goodies.

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  10. 2015=D-O-N-E

    The media will aid Cuomo to nail Shelly. Game set match.

    Set it to DEFCON 1 for those remember War Games!

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    1. One thing undercuts your theory about Cuomo nailing Shelly:

      Moreland was investigating Silver over the outside, undisclosed income before Cuomo shut it down in return for the budget deal.

      If Silver is nailed, Cuomo's got complicity for shutting down Moreland and saving Silver further investigation in return for a budget deal.

      The WSJ insinuated that this morning:

      http://www.wsj.com/articles/assembly-speaker-silver-was-scrutinized-by-moreland-commission-1419992665

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    2. stop fear mongering. silver is going nowhere.

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    3. They're going for Silver, that's for sure. And I wouldn't be surprised to hear that it was Cuomo who dished the dirt to the NY Times on Shelly so that the story popped up right before the new legislative session in order to put pressure on Assembly Dems to push Silver aside.

      But Times-Union piece today reports that so far, Shelly is safe for the Speaker post. Also notes Silver has been investigated before by feds and survived.

      http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/For-Silver-clouds-but-no-storm-5986521.php

      The Post also had an editorial that seemed skeptical that anything will happen to Silver in the end.

      We'll see.

      Given the agenda Tisch just sent out, he's the only hope we have.

      Believe me, I want him around and I have my fingers crossed that he'll be around.

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  11. Replies
    1. Unfortunately all too believable to me. But I'm a cynic...

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  12. Parents will still be outraged even if scores don't impact their kids. Parents DO NOT want a test prep education for their kids.

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    1. Yes, I agree with you there. That;s what Cuomo & Tisch may not see with this reform agenda their pushing. I have no doubt that they know it will increase the terror around testing (and thus increase the terror for the children around it), but I bet they think parents won't be able to see that,

      They're wrong - most parents will see that. And that should be the first part of the pushback against the "toughening" of APPR - that it puts test prep on steroids.

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  13. Question: Are the expensive elite schools doing Common Core including testing?

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  14. What about all the PE teachers, art teachers, etc. These teachers are evaluated for tests we don't teach with students we don't teach. I see a massive lawsuit coming.

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    1. If they write this into the APPR law, then I'm not sure a massive lawsuit would be successful. If I remember correctly w/ one lawsuit around this issue (from Florida, I believe), the judge sided with the system even though he said the system was unfair. Because the legislature had written the unfair system into law, it was, well, law.

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  15. So let me get this straight...

    Teachers (at least in NYC) are not permitted to choose what reading and math programs we use, are micromanaged in how we deliver the material and then BLAMED when kids fail impossible tests!

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    1. Not just blamed but slated for an expedited firing, per the latest missive from Tisch:

      http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2014/12/merryl-tisch-to-andrew-cuomo-lets-fire.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

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  16. I can enjoy a little conspiracy-mongering as much as anyone else but I refuse to accept that Preet Bharara is looking into Silver's many and long-standing ethical "challenges" because someone from the reformistas woke him up at 4 am to give him him the "code word" that it was time to leak the details in order to "f...k" the teachers in NYS. Silver has been investigated a dozen times. This time, maybe he'll survive, maybe he won't but since it all derives from a Moreland referral I doubt very much that the "reformistas" had to activate their long-suffering anti-teacher cell in the US Attorney's office to get Bharara to act. Cuomo and Silver despise each other but since you "can't beat someone with no one" and since "no one" who's ever tried to defeat Silver directly has ever survived we'll have to wait a year of so to see whether Silver is still standing.

    In the meantime, he'll continue to do whatever he needs to do to keep his home-girl Merryl Tisch happy without carrying too much water for the governor.

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    1. Your missing the point.

      It's not that Bharara is investigating Silver based on the Moreland files.

      It's that the story was leaked to the NY Times just as Cuomo and Tisch are getting set to push their deform agenda and Silver has already indicated, via anonymous sources in Fred Dicker's column, that he's not willing to play ball this legislative session - esp. after Cuomo didn't come through with the pay raise for the legislature.

      You don't have to be wearing a tinfoil hat to wonder just who leaked that story to the Times.

      Sure, it could be Preet looking to squeeze Silver.

      But remember that the Moreland Commission members had the same info Preet now has on Silver and the Executive Director of the commission was reporting directly to the governor's office.

      Want to bet somebody in the governor's office had a hand in leaking the story to the NY Times?

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    2. What do you think will happen with any investigation on Cuomo?

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  17. I respect both the volume of your posting about breaking news and the substance of it.

    I can't blame you for wanting to read every tea leaf with regard to how it will affect education policy in the state.

    I don't think anything was leaked to the press about Silver because of education policy reform and I'm a pretty cynical guy. I think it was all leaked to the press because the governor despises the Speaker, it's a slow news week and Silver has been investigated many times before that it causes Andy & Co. great reflexive joy to hand trouble to him as a New Year's present. Of course, it all serves so many purposes to leak the news right now that one of them could involve education policy but just as much the fact that moon is in its waxing phase and this is what happens to Cuomoland when the moon gets full.

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    1. Harris it's not just education policy that was the reason for the leak. It's that Cuomo is on the defense as the new session starts and Silver was on the upswing. Somebody wanted to take Silver down a peg or two.

      Saw this in Vielkind piece on Silver:

      "Several Assembly members said they were waiting to hear his explanation, delivered as always in that low monotone, behind closed doors, before they make any judgments.

      And they wondered why the latest news came on the eve of a new legislative session and Silver's expected run for another term as speaker. He is theoretically heading into 2015 strong: His already unassailable conference gained members, while the State Senate will be contending with a razor-thin Republican majority and Governor Andrew Cuomo is grappling with staff changes after he a re-election that was less than impressive."

      LINK: http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2014/12/8559354/sheldon-silvers-latest-storm

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    2. To Anon 12:36 PM:

      At this point, it looks like nothing's going to happen to Cuomo regarding the Moreland/Bharara investigation.

      Some are going to go down when all is said and done - probably Greg Ball and George Maziarz (link below), maybe Marty Golden (link below).

      There's an outside chance Shelly goes down - Silver's survived plenty, so I wouldn't bet the mortgage on it, but the leaks emanating from the feds on Silver indicate they really want him this time.

      As for Cuomo, he may have dished some dirt to the feds on Silver.

      Remember, he knew (via Moreland Executive Director Regina Calcaterra) about the Silver income thing.

      Perhaps in exchange for not getting squeezed by Preet for killing Moreland in return for a budget deal, Cuomo gave something up that wasn't in the Moreland files.

      I'm just speculating, but it's certainly suspicious that the Silver leaks came so close to the new legislative session.

      In any case, I am not optimistic that anything regarding the Moreland mess.

      He may still have some culpability in Bridgegate, however (link below)

      LINKS:

      http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/nyregion/after-moreland-commission-shutdown-by-gov-cuomo-loopholes-live-on-in-albany.html

      http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2014/10/state-senator-marty-golden-under.html

      http://perdidostreetschool.blogspot.com/2014/12/does-cuomo-have-to-worry-about.html

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  18. Silver has been the control on who gets to be a Regents. Tisch isn't there it he doesn't give the OK.

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    1. They're old pals, going back to the LES days, I think.

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