The State Education Department is getting a second chance to implement a complex and controversial piece of public policy.
SED has faced a tidal wave of complaints from parents, teachers, local school officials and politicians — including Gov. Andrew Cuomo — about its four-year rollout of the new educational standards and the tests that come with them. The firestorm was one of the major controversies in last year's state budget negotiation.
But now, thanks to the 2015-16 state budget deal — specifically, language inserted by the governor — the department is being tasked with devising a new teacher evaluation system that will be crafted under the baleful gaze of many of the same critics.
The department will do it without any extra money, and is beginning its work without a permanent commissioner in place.
And of course the governor himself is on record calling both NYSED and the Board of Regents, essentially incompetent:
SED's Common Core critics have complained that the department and former Education Commissioner John King were too slow to provide backup or explanatory material about the new standards, even as it was putting out new exams based on the changes.
Cuomo himself even said last June: "The reason we're in this situation is because the Board of Regents and Mr. King didn't handle it."
King left in December to take a top job at the federal Department of Education. Cuomo offered similar criticisms of the Regents just last month.
Now the governor has managed to impose a new evaluation system and other reforms onto the education system that will be crafted by one appointed body and one bureaucratic department that he's on record saying couldn't handle the Common Core roll-out.
This should go swimmingly.
Oh they'll F it up properly. I suspect another shoe will drop however...don't know what...that will streamline, ease, and simplify NYSED's task. Maybe some enormous sweeping deal with Pearson or whatever. Cuomo had to have forecasted te NYSED actually trying to do it piece. I can't believe that Cuomo would risk what he sees as a "legacy" piece of legislation to NYSED's track record of F'ing things up. He didnt become the state's douchewagon-in-chief by being sloppy (I also don't think he'll be arrested....too slick to get the stink on him...just all around him). So watch, something will kill that micro-ray of slight possible hope for teachers....NYSED incompetence. Cuomo will get them a competence pill.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I don't like the MECHANISM for my career destruction to be available and on the table, and depending on failed implementation to survive.
Along those lines, looks like another 24 hours will go by without a peep from NYSUT. Even their website is like 2 days old at this point and the tweets are like 15 hours old, and lame. Looks like they screamed "opt out had this now!" and left the scene. That's what institutional collapse looks like folks! Just watch NYSUT now....though it seems even the twitching has stopped.
Early spring break for Andy and Karen?
DeleteI don't believe competency or education or just plain human decency have had anything to do with this latest battle waged by the governor. It's all about brutal, naked political power. Machiavelli's "Prince" would approve of Cuomo's tactics.
ReplyDeleteTragically, our children will be written off as collateral damage as Cuomo stomps all over our public schools. Even if one is in favor of all these hairbrained ideas, the rush to implement them will cause chaos....confusion....lasting damage to our kids.
A week ago, I listened to the Superintendent of Monticello's schools give an articulate and well documented presentation that detailed all of the state's misguided, confusing and chaotic changes in education policy over the last dozen or so years....changes that have turned our schools upside down, again and again and again. The following Saturday I was sitting next to a retired Superintendent with 40 years experience who lamented how all these changes are endangering our democratic form of government. These conversations were in the course of just one week.
Of course, the leadership and staff at the NYS Education Department are now being tasked with an impossible job. Impossible and unethical. If those employees have a sense of decency as well as integrity they will either refuse to work on these new projects....or resign.
-John Ogozalek
NYS certified teacher
One thing I'd say is, even "The Prince" understood subtlety. Cuomo not so much. He took out a sledgehammer this week. We'll see if it comes back to bite him. He owns this systemic reform now. When it goes bad, he will be blamed.
DeleteEveryone presumes that the charge to NYSED is to produce the semblance of a "respectable" work product.
ReplyDeleteI believe the Governor's sole purpose, per his statement yesterday about the efficiacious effects of "disrupting" public education, is to create chaos in the public sector--this, the second, third or fourth move to change evaluations and testing in the last few years, I lose track--so that the charter sector will seem the perfect exemplar of stability and sanity and gain even more power and influence in destroying the public education sector.
Nice trick by Andy to say he's the only one "for the students" when I suspect the man doesn't give a flying f..k about public school students well-being or performance.
I agree, "disruption" is the goal. But one thing I would say is, Cuomo was saving face by re-doing the APPR system again. He was on record the past few years calling the current system state of the art, objective, scientific, blah blah blah. He took heat from his pals at the editorial boards when most teachers came up effective or higher. So he needed to go after another re-do in order to make his editorial pals happy. And judging by the editorials this week, he has done just that.
DeleteNYSED people are not philosophers or even people plagued with ethics. They are folks with admin certificates, some lawyers, a shit-ton of vendor contract people, and a smattering of meritocratic Ivy League people doing their time on "policy." These are not the people who got into the big books in college. These are the workaday folks that, you know, have always worked out the details and implemented the most people-hating legislation in the world. Not always well, but they try. These aren't the folks who worked out the details of the GI Bill or social security. Lets get that straight. They love corporate lingo. They love the antiseptic distance they have from the policy maker and the policy- F'd folks. They thrive in a sanitized world. So no ethical deliberations there.
ReplyDeleteI'd bet (I don't bet because I lose, always...) that the next commissioner of Ed for NYS will be a real get it done type and will be chosen almost exclusively for his or her ability to make this new teacher-destroying legislation a reality. Watch.
Lets start assuming that our opposing team will play a perfect game, and then fight as such. That way, if they F up, we are in a super good spot. Assuming the incompetence is a bad place to begin.
Their incompetence varies, but their malice is all too predictable.
DeleteThe more moving parts something has, the harder it is to get to work right.
DeleteThis new evaluation system has so many working parts that I have a difficult time seeing them get it right without some major screwups.
The three stooges are being sent to Albany to review and create the new evaluation system for teachers. Mo, Larry and Curly will delve into the details and come up with a complex evaluation to save the kids!!! You know how those stooges episodes usually end up - for example, in one episode the three stooges are sent to a bakery to bake cakes for a wedding. The result: cake cream and powder all over the place and all over mo and larry's forehead!!! lol cannot make this up....OK, ready, go
ReplyDeleteCurrently SED hasn't been able to show Sheri Lederman why she was rated "ineffective" on her state test component. The best they've been able to do is try and get the case dismissed. Stooges indeed...
DeleteAs mentioned, one word sums up how this will unfold: "chaos".
ReplyDeleteI agree. And that's going to be Cuomo's chaos. He cannot put this on anyone else, like he did with the Common Core rollout. He pushed this, his people wrote most of it, he owns it.
DeleteWhat about Tisch's comment that "high performing" districts should get a pass from the new system? She seems worried about those pesky Long Islanders...
ReplyDeleteYes, they're going to look to take some air out of the opt out movement with that.
DeleteRemains to be seen how Cuomo feels about that move.
Also remains to be seen if they can get away with it politically.
They would have to go back to the legislature to do it, I think.
I don;t think the budget bill allows for whole district exemptions.
RBE - Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the NYS Constitution enshrine with the Board of Regents the power to enact educational policy? So, if the Regents wanted to they could completely set aside what the legislature/Cuomo just did.
DeleteNow, it would certainly provoke lawsuits galore, but the possibility does exist that the Regents could override the action if it wanted to. I personally believe it should in order to re-establish the separation of powers the state constitution provides.
Where is NYSUT recommending this approach? Where are the saner members of the Regents recommending this approach? Why don't the Regents have their legal staff research the law on this?
Does anyone have any thoughts at all regarding this approach?
just read in http://tinyurl.com/n3zzrfe that Tisch wants to exempt high-performing (otherwise called rich) districts from the new eval rules. This is beyond the pail!!! We live in an Olicarchy - the land of people who don't have to work for a living and who own million dollar yachts! This is UNBELIEVABLE!!!
ReplyDeleteThe key to this entire white hot mess will be determined by the details regarding the criteria used to measure student "growth". This is the danger zone. The credentials of the NYSED employees who develop this must be questioned.
ReplyDelete