I posted this morning that delaying a horrendous teacher evaluation system by a fewmonths is too little, too late in terms of change, especially since Tisch is adamant that the rest of the state's education reform agenda, including the Common Core testing that nearly two hundred thousand students opted out of last week (with more opt outs coming in this week for the math exams) continues.
Tisch can call for a delay and make it look like she's responsive to students, parents and teachers all she wants - the move does not erase the years of her autocratic imposition of the state ed agenda with nothing other than lip service paid to parents or teachers about their concerns.
I continue to echo the Journal News and NYSAPE in calling for Merryl Tisch to step down as chancellor or be forced to step down by the heavy hearts in the Assembly who ultimately can pull rank on her and let her know it's time to go.
Perdido Street School readers aren't fooled by Tisch's gambit either, with Michael Fiorillo calling it a "bad cop/worse cop" game she's playing with Andrew Cuomo:
With this transparent bit of misdirection, Tisch apparently wants us to be taken by a phony "Good cop, Bad cop" scenario.
But, as always, she's being dishonest; it's really "Bad cop, Worse Cop."
There is some conjecture out there that Tisch's delaying tactic is a way to ultimately defeat Cuomo over evaluations, but as one reader notes, that is something we can't count on:
Tisch is playing political games and the politicians and her fellow Regents might just be dumb enough to fall for it. Let's not forget that Tisch wrote a letter to Cuomo advocating for raising the testing component of APPR to 40% and lengthening the time it takes to get tenure, etc. In other words, Tisch is certainly no friend of public school teachers. Tisch has to go and the sooner the better.
A friend of mine who is a superintendent feels that the delay Tisch is advocating for will mean the end of the newly enacted evaluation law. He said he has seen things like this play out for 40 years. The delay gets it off the burner and then something else happens in the interim. I hope he is right, but I have serious doubts.
NYSUT and all of us have to keep up the pressure on the coward Assembly and Senate members, letting both groups know that we intend to hold them to account for their votes against us. It's the only thing these liars respect.
I agree - the pressure must be kept up, on the Assembly, on the State Senate, on NYSED, on the Board of Regents and on Cuomo himself.
The 10 month APPR delay is nothing more than a misdirection by Tisch to save herself and her precious ed deform agenda.
Tisch must go, the Tisch/Cuomo/NYSED ed deform agenda must be stopped and politicians that continue to support the Endless testing regime mus pay a political price for that support.
This is just a game so that Tisch can survive the pushback and so Cuomo can still come off as being tough but showing that he has patience especially in light of all the parents who opted their kids out of testing. Not for one moment should parents or educators back down in calling for Tisch's removal as chancellor. The only way that Cuomo is going to start really feeling the heat is if members of the legislature start speaking up on behalf of their constituents. Cuomo is a fighter and he'll find a way to sleaze his way out of the recent events ... politicians think that they can declare a cooling off period and then folks will forget. Well, not this time.
ReplyDeleteWake up Albany. Parents and teachers are sick and tired of your game. The future of our children is at stakes and they are not pawns. Take your game somewhere else. In the meantime, it's time to ramp up the pressure on the legislature and governor's office. We will not back down until Merryl is gone and until educational reform is unbridled from state aid for our schools. This is not Cuomo's money to dangle. I belongs to the residents of NYS who now demand that this blackmail stop!
What madness...as our students so eloquently say this is mad crazy......people working in the education industry (the troopers) are experiencing the biggest group of stooges supposedly at the "top" of the education wheel in New York. These people (tisch, king, cuomo, etc) are so screwed up that they are upside down and really its like they are flying a plane but they cannot tell if they are flying upside down or not.
ReplyDeleteJust got this press release in my inbox. What the legislature needs to do is to REMOVE Tisch. This will send a clear message to the governor that his policies have FAILED kids, parents and especially our public schools. For God's sake, how can the elected governor of the state pretend to know public schools when he has been estranged from the public schools of NY since taking office 5 years ago? Cuomo never counseled with the education committee. Instead he allowed Tisch and King to muster all those Regents "Fellows" and idiot faux educators to enact policies that have no place being in our schools. Hey, I'm surprised that Cuomo didn't single out all those law school students who SED hired to read and approve APPR plans the 1st time around. Blame THEM, Andy! What a moron.
ReplyDeletePRESS RELEASE
Senator Marc Panepinto Comments on Urgent Letter Sent to Chancellor Merryl Tisch Earlier Today
“Tonight’s announcement is essentially a band-aid to a larger problem.”
(Long Island, NY) Senator Marc Panepinto released the following statement on the urgent letter he sent to Chancellor Merryl Tisch earlier today:
“While I applaud Chancellor Tisch for finally putting policy over politics, she has not gone far enough. Tonight’s announcement is essentially a band-aid to a larger problem. It still does not address the fact that standardized testing was never designed or meant to evaluate teachers. It has always been intended to serve as alearning tool that actually improves the quality and equity of public education for every student. That is why I sent the Chancellor a letter earlier today calling for a two-year moratorium on the creation of any high stakes testing “evaluation” system until the impact of the Governor’s ill-vetted testing policy could be fully studied. This cannot be done by the June 30th deadline that the Chancellor acknowledged she still plans to enforce with the Board of Regents. That said, tonight’s announcement is a victory for the grassroots movement that has finally forced Albany to listen. It is my hope now that the Chancellor will take my letter and the pleas of millions of concerned New Yorkers seriously and actually give due consideration to the impact and rationale behind high stakes testing.”
Senator Panepinto represents the 60th Senate District, which includes parts of the City of Buffalo as well as communities in both the Northtowns and the Southtowns of Western New York.
The senator is not from Long Island.
DeleteQuick question: Chancellor Tisch's reappointment to her position is coming up in April 2016. She wants to push her horrific teacher evaluation to September 2016. Don't you think there's a reason why she's delaying it until then? Don't you think that she has a devious plan up her stringed pearls to make the horrific evaluation to completely downright catastrophe for the teaching profession if she can get reappointed? It would seem to me that given the Nov 2015 deadline and her inability to come up with an acceptable evaluation that will appease teachers, parents, union leadership will jeopardize her chances of staying the "doyenne" of NYSED? Your take on this?
ReplyDeletePS I strongly believe Tisch must go and the teacher evaluation flushed down the toilet.