You're A Winner If You Predicted A Slight Increase In NY Test Scores

As many of us predicted, NYSED and the Board of Regents rigged the state testr scores this year to go up slightly so they could point to "progress":

One year after scores plummeted following the state’s adoption of Common Core-aligned tests, city students collectively outpaced the rest of New York on both the math and English exams. In math, 34.5 percent of city students met or exceeded the state’s proficiency bar, up 4.4 points from last year. In English, 29.4 percent of students met or exceeded proficiency, a two-point gain.

The city’s gains meant it shrank the test-score gap between its scores and the state’s to the slimmest margin since 2006. Statewide, 35.8 percent of students were considered proficient in math this year, and 31.4 percent of students considered proficient in English.

“It’s a story of modest but real progress,” Board of Regents Chancellor Meryl Tisch said.

Uh, huh.

Or it shows this:

Increase of scores within the students will demonstrate to the public and "special interests" that common core is working and common core is the way for college and career. Deception at its best! Parents and teachers need to continue this fight to stop high stakes testing and common core.

And this:

Rigged. Totally Rigged. The scores will be a little bit better. A rigged salve to those who want to dismantle the garbage CCSS. A sickening manipulation, totally scripted with the purpose of ramming the Core down the throats of the public.

I'm going to go with Number 2 and Number 3.

They fool nobody with their jive anymore.

Bloomberg Hires Propagandists For Final Months In Office

Buried in the NY Times story on Bloomberg's humiliating court defeat over Big Gulp sodas is this:

The mayor appears increasingly preoccupied with his legacy, and recently hired two public relations advisers — a former Times editor, Arthur Pincus, and a former television reporter, Andrew Kirtzman — to shape the public perception of the Bloomberg era. 

Asked on Monday if he was concerned that a drawn-out legal battle over the soda limits could spill into the administration of a successor who does not favor them, Mr. Bloomberg, sounding a bit irked, muttered, “All of our time is running out,” before saying, “I don’t know who is going to be my successor.”

Make no mistake, Bloomberg knows that he who writes the news (or he who owns the men and women who write the news) writes the first drafts of history.

He owns a lot of these people already over at Bloomberg Views, Bloomberg Businessweek and his other news and editorial outlets.

Now he's got a couple of more working directly for him at City Hall.

There will be a full court press on the press to get the Bloomberg View of everything out there as the right view.

This bears watching in these final months of the Bloomberg Reign of Error.

They are going to try and rewrite all the bad stuff - from the CityTime mess to the 911 mess to the Bloomberg/Boxer Day Blizzard mess.

But they are especially going to try and rewrite the history of Bloomberg's school stewardship.

They want to put down markers now that make people forget just how bad the test scores dropped under Bloomberg/Klein when the state stopped inflating the scores, how phonied up the graduation rates are with credit recovery and other "innovative" ways to move kids along.

They are especially going to look to dismiss the ELA and math scores this year after they drop the expected 30%.

That's what Kirtzman has been hired to do.

The Times calls it "shaping public perception" of the Bloomberg legacy.

That's a nice way of saying bullshitting people into believing their lies and propaganda.

The Most "Over-Looked Sign" Of Good Teaching

Oprah's Principal gives four "over-looked signs" of good teaching to OWN.

My most "over-looked sign" of good teaching?

Teaching kids how much bullshit the system is going to try and put over on them.

I think George Carlin put it best:

“Don’t just teach your children to read… Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything.” -- George Carlin

Carlin elaborates here:




The most valuable lesson you can teach children these days is that every time someone in authority opens his or her mouth and says something to you, they're either lying to you, jiving you or selling you some crap you don't want and don't need.

The education reform movement wants to drive this kind of teaching and learning out of the system.

The movement wants schools to churn out obedient workers and compliant consumers, but certainly not children who grow up learning to question the crap the people in authority are trying to pull on them.

That's why they have promoted the Danielson rubric, with its 57 page checklist of "good teaching" that makes sure there is no room or time for teaching critical thinking skills that would question a system that puts a rigid observation rubric as a major measure of so-called good teaching into place.

That's why they have promoted so-called "student achievement" as measured by standardized multiple choice tests and essay tests graded by Microsoft/Pearson computer programs as a method for detecting good teaching.

They want to make sure that the only teaching that goes on in the classroom is the kind that teaches obedience, compliance, and FEAR - fear of failure, fear of authority, fear of the future, fear, fear, fear. 

I say, teach children how full of shit humans are - especially those in charge.

Start with teaching kids how full of shit the politicians and the business leaders and the media figures and the so-called Best and Brightest are.

You know, the people who brought us a country with Third World economic inequality, a dwindling standard of living for all but the top 1%, an oligarchical political system rigged by the wealthy, and a nation with a poisoned food system, a polluted environment and an exploitative economy.

That's a lesson kids need to learn.

And it's one you won't get from the full of shit Oprah Winfrey or the neo-liberal propaganda she promotes on OWN.

You won't get it from many other media sources either or from our politicians or business leaders or media figures.

But that is the most "overlooked sign" of good teaching - teaching kids how to detect and avoid the bullshit.

UFT Takes Ads Out Against Data Report Publication But Inexplicably Supports Using A Similar Method For Teacher Evaluations

What jokers we have at the UFT:

The New York City Education Department will release the ratings of thousands of teachers on Friday, ending a nearly year-and-a-half-long legal battle by the teachers’ union to keep the names confidential.

The ratings, known as Teacher Data Reports, grade nearly 18,000 of the city’s 75,000 public school teachers based on how much progress their students have made on standardized tests. The city developed these so-called value-added ratings five years ago in a pilot program to improve instruction and has factored them into yearly teacher evaluations and tenure decisions.

Even before their release, the ratings have been assailed by independent experts, school administrators and teachers who say there are large margins of error — because they are based on small amounts of data, the test scores themselves were determined by the state to have been inflated, and there were factual errors or omissions, among other problems.

The union, the United Federation of Teachers, is responding to the release with a $100,000-plus newspaper advertising campaign starting on Friday. With the headline “This Is No Way to Rate a Teacher,” the advertisements will feature an open letter from the union president, Michael Mulgrew, that displays a complex mathematical formula followed by a checklist of reasons why the ratings are problematic.

“The Department of Education should be ashamed of itself,” Mr. Mulgrew said Thursday. “It has combined bad tests, a flawed formula and incorrect data to mislead tens of thousands of parents about their children’s teachers.”

Mr. Mulgrew is absolutely correct on all three counts - the tests were badly designed, the value-added formula has a high margin of error and wide swings in stability, and some of the data attributed to individual teachers is incorrect.

Those are some damned good reasons to oppose the publication of the Teacher Data Reports.

They're also some damned good reasons to oppose the new teacher evaluation system that bases 40% of a teacher's evaluation on similar data and value-added measurements to the TDR's.

Somehow Mulgrew and Company can run an assault against the TDR's as flawed and error-riddled, but defend their agreement with Cuomo to let the state grade every teacher in New York with a very similar method without any irony.

The teachers quoted in the NY Times article understand the problem with basing a teacher's evaluation on test scores and value-added measurements, however:

The New York Times, one of a number of media organizations that had requested the records, plans to publish the ratings on its education blog, SchoolBook, and has asked teachers to respond online. On Thursday, several posters on SchoolBook called the reports deeply flawed and criticized the city as well as the news media for making them public.

Marie Kallo, a sixth-grade English and social studies teacher at Intermediate School 234 in Brooklyn, said that even though she had received an above-average rating, she was troubled by a significant error in her report: It said she had taught 120 students in 2007-8 when she had actually taught more than 200.

“That makes me question the accuracy of all the data reports,” Ms. Kallo said, adding that she also did not understand how the ratings were calculated. “How is it fair to be judged on information that is not accurate?”

Karen Fine, a third-grade teacher at Public School 134 in Manhattan who previously taught fifth grade, said she and her colleagues believed that the ratings were an unfair and inaccurate measure of a teacher’s performance because they used an unreliable methodology that had been criticized by many respected researchers and statisticians, and because they did not account for factors that could affect students on the day of testing, like being tired, nervous, or scared.

“For many of us who teach in N.Y.C., this has been our life’s calling,” she said. “We are constantly attacked on so many levels for what ails education in our country when we know that it takes a community to help children learn: principals, administrators, parents, lawmakers, and yes, teachers. The responsibility cannot lie solely on us.”

Indeed.

But the new teacher evaluation system agreed to last week by the NYSUT and the UFT will help politicians, so-called education reformers, media elites and others continue to attack and scapegoat teachers for all that ails public education.

What's worse, because the unions failed to make Cuomo impose this piece of garbage evaluation system himself and instead held his hand onstage when he announced it, they co-own the evaluation system along with Cuomo, the NYSED, and the Regents.

No wonder they're sending out Leo Casey, the UFT's resident shill and used car salesman, to fool people into thinking the new evaluation system will be nothing like the madness that is the Teacher Data Reports.

But Leo can sling his bullshit all he wants and Mulgrew can take out all the ads he wants on the TDR publication - in the next year when every teacher gets the memo that states 40% of their evaluation is based upon test scores (20% from the state tests, 20% from the city tests), that over 20 high stakes standardized tests are going to be added to the school year in order to pull the new eval system off, and that if a teacher comes up "ineffective" on the 40% based upon test scores, they will be declared "ineffective" overall and slated to be fired in a year, the UFT won't be able to hide their capitulation.

Same goes for when teachers discover that they can be declared "effective" in all three components of the evaluation system yet still come up "ineffective" overall as a teacher and thus be slated for firing in a year, or come up "effective" in all three components and still come up "developing", which means hours of garbage PD to "improve" before the next eval.

Just wait, fellas.

You can fool people with bullshit for a long time, but eventually even the blind notice the overwhelming stench of fecal matter with the moniker UFT stamped on it when they're up to their necks in it.

Governor 1% Says He's Looking Out For Students

Unlike those greedy, lazy, nasty unaccountable teachers, of course:

Students have a new representative in Albany: Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Right now, Cuomo is delivering his second State of the State address today, titled “Building a New New York … with you.”

Education issues account for one and a half of the speech’s 33 pages of prepared remarks. As expected, the governor is calling for an education commission to propose reforms to the state’s education system. That commission will look for ways to boost “teacher accountability and student achievement” and “management efficiency” — both topics Cuomo targeted during his first address a year ago — and will work with the legislature.

He’s also appointing himself chief lobbyist for students, calling them the only group in schools that don’t employ lobbyists of their own.

“This year, I will take a second job — consider me the lobbyist for the students,” he says in the prepared remarks, which he has been known to depart from. “I will wage a campaign to put students first, and to remind us that the purpose of public education is to help children grow, not to grow the public education bureaucracy.”

If Cuomo REALLY wants a commission that will look out for students interests, he'd put students on the panel, parents on the panel, education experts who have not been bought off by Pearson and News Corp. and McGraw-Hill and Microsoft/Gates.

If Cuomo REALLY wanted to look out for the interests of children, he'd ask them if they want to take both city and state tests in every subject four times a year (a total of 20 standardized tests) so that their teachers and schools can be evaluated using these scores and Cuomo's corporate buddies can rake in the dough.

If Cuomo REALLY cared about kids, he'd make sure there was enough funding for all children in NY State to eat healthy food, live in a neighborhood safe from crime, go to schools with adequate funding that could be used IN the classroom as opposed to hiring consultants and developing data systems.

But Cuomo is NOT interested in that.

He is interested in helping out his corporate buddies finish off the Shock and Awe they've been doing on the public education system for the last ten years since NCLB.

He is interested in making money for his best buddy, Rupert Murdoch.

He is interested in adding tests to every subject at every grade level a couple of times a year so he can make money for his buddies at Pearson and he is looking to track that data so he can make money for his buddies at News Corp. using systems owned by Rupert Murdoch and he is interested in closing schools that are supposedly "failing" so that his charter school pals can reopen them as privatized charters and he is interested in firing teachers using test scores and value-added assessments to ease the Brave New Education System - one where students are educated in privatized schools by a teacher in a remote place over computer - into being.

That is what he is interested in.

Silver In The Clouds For Cuomo

Little Andy and his Republican allies are all excited about the tax cuts for rich people and pay cuts for government workers the governor has proposed. But Assembly Leader Shelly Silver may be a problem for them:

ALBANY -- Even as he publicly vows support for Gov. Cuomo's agenda to fix the state, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver refused yesterday to endorse three of the newly elected governor's key proposals, including ending the state's surtax on the rich.

The powerful speaker repeatedly ducked questions about whether he backed Cuomo's call to let expire an income-tax surcharge on New Yorkers making more than $200,000 annually, saying he first must see the new governor's budget proposal and confer with his Democratic Conference.

The $4 billion-a-year tax is set to expire Dec. 31, three months before the end of the fiscal year. Facing an estimated $10 billion budget gap, the state would have to cut $1 billion in spending to cover the loss.

"Collectively, we will get together and look at that budget," Silver (D-Manhattan) told Albany's WGDJ radio. "We'll make a determination whether those cuts should go into effect or whether that tax should continue."

The sphinx-like speaker stood in stark contrast to newly elected Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-LI), who said he "absolutely" supports letting the tax expire.

"The worst thing we could do is more taxes or send the message that we're going to continue to tax our way out of economic problems," Skelos said.

Silver can't unilaterally prevent the tax from expiring, but Cuomo insiders fear he might hold up an overall budget agreement unless Cuomo keeps the tax and uses it to restore cut spending. The three-year surcharge was first approved by Gov. David Paterson in 2009 at Silver's urging.

"We want everyone to contribute to getting the state out of its budget mess," Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens), a Silver ally, told Fox Business News yesterday.

The state's top income-tax rate -- that paid by taxpayers earning more than $500,000 -- would fall from 8.97 percent to 6.85 percent if the surcharge expires.

Silver's silence came a day after Cuomo delivered a rousing State of the State Address in which he called on lawmakers to end the state's status as the "tax capital of the nation."

Cuomo said fiscal discipline, as well as capping local property-tax hikes at 2 percent and overhauling the state's ethics laws, was essential to restoring confidence and improving the business climate.

I hope Shelly and the Assembly Dems stick to their guns on this.

Cuomo keeps saying he is in favor of "shared sacrifice," but as far as I can see from his plans (and the Republican approval for them), he seems to think that means he sacrifices middle and working class people so that his hedge fund/education reform/Wall Street criminal friends can rake in even more money than they already have.

Consumer Reports: New Apple iPhone Piece Of Shit

Quick, where's the accountability for Steve Jobs, Apple's arrogant CEO/ chief bullshit artist, over this mess?

Consumer Reports said in a blog post and accompanying video on Monday that widely reported signal problems with the iPhone 4, Apple’s latest mobile phone, were a result of a flaw in the phone’s antenna design and that it could not recommend purchasing the phone. That contradicts earlier claims by Apple that the problems are a software issue.

The magazine said its engineers performed a series of tests on three separate iPhone 4s inside a controlled lab environment known as a “radio frequency isolation chamber.” They found that when the bottom left corner of the iPhone was touched, it could sometimes lose enough signal strength to drop calls.

Consumer Reports said the tests led it to conclude that it could not recommend the iPhone 4 to consumers until Apple fixes the hardware problem. It also questioned Apple’s honesty on the antenna issues:

Our findings call into question the recent claim by Apple that the iPhone 4’s signal-strength issues were largely an optical illusion caused by faulty software that “mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength.”

When reports first surfaced of a reception flaw in the new phone, Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, said to a customer in an e-mail that he was simply holding the phone incorrectly. Technology writers lambasted the company for this comment.

Earlier this month, Apple released a statement saying that it had looked into the signal problems and was “stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong.” The company also said it would release a software update to fix the issue and would make “bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see” on the phone’s signal display. It did not acknowledge any problem with the phone’s hardware.

Consumer Reports also tested several other phones, including the earlier iPhone 3GS and Palm Pre, and reported that “none of those phones had the signal-loss problems of the iPhone 4.” The report also said AT&T’s network did not appear to play a primary role in the iPhone 4’s signal woes.

There are 14 pages of complaints about the new Apple iPhone over at Consumeraffairs.com.

Jobs - like his counterpart at Microsoft Bill Gates - is very big on getting "bad teachers" fired.

Turns out that just like Mr. Gates, Mr. Jobs is also a liar and a purveyor of shit products.

Maybe both Jobs and Gates should stay out of education reform and make products that, you know, work?

Or, if they continue to make shit products that don't work (and are made by slave labor in Chinese factories with high suicide rates), take responsibility instead of jiving about the problems.

Just saying...