NYSED Looks To Make 40% of APPR Evaluations Based On State Tests

The APPR teacher evaluation system in New York is split so that 60% is based on "subjective" measures like classroom observations and (in some districts) student surveys while the other 40% is based on "student performance."

The "student performance" APPR component is divided into 20% that is based on state tests and 20% that is based on "local assessments."

There has been much criticism of APPR from educators and parents because of the reliance on so much testing to rate teachers.

Some of the "overtesting" criticism comes because the "local assessments" part of the "student performance" component can force schools to use pre-tests and post-tests for every student in every subject in order to rate the teachers.

These pre-tests and post-tests (sometimes called "performance assessments" or some other edu-jargon) come on top of the state tests that children have to take, though unlike the state tests, the "local assessments" don't actually count for the students - they just count for the teachers.

All this testing has weighed down the system, forced teachers and students to spend many days on either test prep or testing and now even the New York State Education Department is hearing the criticism and responding.

Unfortunately, their response is going to cause even bigger problems for teachers.

It seems SED wants districts to get rid of as many of the "local assessments" as possible and just rate teachers on the state tests - even if the tests are NOT in the subject that teachers are licensed in:

The New York state Education Department is urging districts to eliminate as much local testing as possible for the purposes of teacher evaluations, and is committing federal money to help make it happen. But some educators are opposing the increased reliance on state exams.

...

There is no prospect of eliminating Common Core-aligned tests or other evaluations mandated by the state or federal government, and it is those that have drawn the most complaints. Rather, the state sent a report to every district in the state this summer, identifying locally-designed tests used for teacher assessment purposes and presenting alternate ways for districts to assess teachers without testing children more.

...

The state also urges districts to swap out locally-developed end-of-year tests in their Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) formulas for state evaluations that need to be done anyway. The overall goal is for districts to eliminate local tests and lean more heavily on the ones mandated by the state.

...

Sixty percent of APPR is based on a personal evaluation by a teacher's supervisor; it is the other 40 percent, based on data, that the state is hoping to nudge.

In classes without a Regents exam, the recommended changes would entail sacrificing subject-specific tests for broader, semi-related measures.

For instance, the state suggests districts could eliminate end-of-year music tests and instead assess music teachers on how well their students — or students in the school as a whole — did on the state English language arts test.

When APPR was first shoved onto teachers, the UFT pushed backed against criticism from some of their members over the testing component by noting that they had forced the state to break up the 40% "student performance" component into 20%-20%, with half based on state tests and the other half based on "local assessments" that would be created by the districts and subject to local negotiations.

But it seems the state is now moving to try and get as many districts as possible to just use the state tests to rate teachers - even when teachers don't actually teach subjects that have state tests.

According to the Democrat and Chronicle article, the NYSUT opposes the move to using just state tests to rate teachers:

A spokesman for the New York State Union of Teachers said that while the union supports less testing in general, it opposes a greater reliance on state exams.

But you can see what's going to eventually happen here if we're not careful.

The state is moving to have 40% of a teacher's evaluation based upon state tests only.

The "local assessments" part of the "student performance" component was always cumbersome and hard to pull off.

Some districts, according to the D&C piece, did pull it off and are happy with the "local assessments."

Many did not.

Indeed, in Rochester, the union is pushing to get rid of many of the "local assessments" and just use the state tests for ratings:

Rochester early education teachers, though, protested and filed a union grievance in June over unnecessary end-of-year testing for APPR purposes. Several teachers told the school board in June that they hadn't taught an actual lesson for more than a month because their end-of-year assessment demands were so burdensome. They described leaving entire classes of kindergarteners unattended while taking students aside one-by-one and administering a series of evaluations.

The Rochester Teachers Association is currently in negotiations with the district to amend the terms of its APPR agreement and remove as many local exams as possible, according to Adam Urbanski, its president.

"Our goal is to eliminate as much non-mandated testing as possible. To the best as I can discern, RCSD has a similar goal," he said. "Not because we think state tests are superior to local tests, but if you don't have local exams that are a significant improvement over state tests, then why do double testing?"

Local exams in Rochester are not superior to state exams by much, he said, because teachers haven't had sufficient time and resources to create them.

SED looks to be dangling out a little RttT money in order to get districts to agree to use the state tests for 40% of a teacher's evaluations.

Which can be a huge problem if you're a teacher who works in a school where students have not scored highly on the state tests in the past.

That was supposedly why the 40% "student performance" component was divided into 20% state tests and 20% "local assessments" - so that teachers who work in schools where students have scored low on state tests in the past would not be unfairly dinged on the 40% "student performance" component.

This is especially important because the SED and Regents, pushed by Cuomo, made it such that if a teacher is rated "ineffective" on the 40% "student performance" component, that teacher has to be rated "ineffective" overall no matter how they scored on the 60% subjective component.

With the state pushing to get districts to just use the state tests to rate teachers on the 40% "student performance" component, you're going to see an increase in teachers getting rated "ineffective" overall.

Cynics out there - including me - have thought that APPR was always devised to rate as many teachers as possible "ineffective" so that districts could fire them if they wanted (two straight "ineffective" ratings and a teacher can be subject to firing.)

The first batch of APPR ratings didn't bring a high number of "ineffective" ratings across the state, but in certain districts - like Rochester and Buffalo - where state tests were used two different ways to rate teachers, there was a high percentage of teachers rated "ineffective."

Don't think that isn't one of the strategies behind the state's move to get districts to use state tests for the whole 40% of the "student performance" component.

NYSED says they want to "reduce" testing and defend themselves from parent and educator complaints about "overtesting" and maybe even save districts a little money by killing some of the "local assessments."

And maybe that's so.

But a side benefit to all of this is that NYSED Commissioner John King, Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and their merry men and women in reform in Albany will get what they wanted all along when it came to teacher evaluations - 40% of APPR based on just the state tests.

And it looks like at least some of the unions in the state - including the local in Rochester - are going to help them.

I get why people want to eliminate as many of the "local assessments" as possible - as I wrote above, they're cumbersome and they require a lot of time and effort.

But be careful of what may be the consequences of that assessment purge - 40% of a teacher's rating based solely on a state test (albeit, with the numbers crunched two different ways.)

NY Post: Mulgrew, Farina Say Teachers "Should Embrace" New Evaluation System

This is buried at the bottom of a piece about the city paying three leases for Eva Moskowitz and Success Academies:

Meanwhile de Blasio, Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña and teachers union boss Michael Mulgrew spoke of “unity” at the United Federation of Teachers spring conference Saturday at the New York Hilton.

“For me this has been a natural partnership,” de Blasio said at the lovefest.

Mulgrew and Fariña agreed that teachers should “embrace” the new evaluation system — one critics say was badly weakened when legislators voted to delay tying student test scores to teacher assessment for two years.

Everyone was mum on ongoing contract talks between the city and the teachers union.

Was anybody who reads this blog at this thing?

Did Mulgrew actually say this?

Did Farina?

Because if they did, then they're completely divorced from the reality of what's going on in actual schools:

Constant observations that lead to reams of paperwork with meaningless "feedback" on it that nobody has any time to implement in any case because they're so busy with the other compliance mandates in the evaluation system. Administrators are running around buildings trying to get all the mandated observations in and going through dog-and-pony show observations to meet the mandates. Feedback doesn't have to come back to teachers for 90 days after the Danielson drive-by's, so some teachers don't even know what they're getting in their "mini-observations," which kinda throws the whole rationale from the ed deformers (Teachers need more frequent feedback!) out the window.

Performance tasks are being given that are meaningless to students but are being used to grade teachers - 20% of the total evaluation - "assessments" that take about a whole week out of instruction for both administrations and take weeks for teachers to grade. And if teachers are found not to have "grown" their students from September to now, well, that's a big problem, particularly if the same is shown on the state test score component of the evaluation system. You see, Governor Cuomo, he of the "I don't make education policy" statement, decreed that teachers who come up "ineffective" on both test score components MUST be declared "ineffective" as a teacher overall no matter how well they do on the rest of the evaluation.

And then there's my personal favorite abomination in the system - the fetishization of the lesson plan that in many schools is forcing teachers to spend hours a day writing plans that I described a few weeks ago like this:

Many teachers are still being told that lesson plans, while only "suggested," must contain specific criteria as "suggested" by administration (including AIM, learning objectives, standards met, timed activities, and assessments), must have all activities with exact times, must have assessments for all activities and all activity assessments must have expected outcomes/student responses in detail.

...

 Teachers are being told lesson plans are as important as the lessons themselves and even if an observed lesson is declared excellent during a Danielson drive-by, teachers can still be dinged "ineffective" or "developing" on the lesson plan component if the administrator decides the teacher's lesson plan does not live up to the "suggested" format.

The best way I can describe this to someone outside the education business is this - it's like seeing a movie and being wowed by it from start to finish but still declaring it a "bad" movie because the screenplay didn't live up to expectations.

Those are just three of the problems with the new evaluation system - there's also the Common Core test score "growth measure" problem for 3rd-8th grade teachers that Cuomo says he'll fix but so far hasn't and there's the test score problem for high school teachers, many of whom are being measured using two tests that don't actually align (e.g., PSAT and ELA Regents) or are being evaluated using a test given in a subject they don't actually teach.

In the end, everyone is exhausted and demoralized by this Kafkaesque system of compliance, one that is NOT helping anybody improve as a teacher because it is so soul-sucking and time-consuming to handle all of the compliance mandates and one that was never meant to help anybody improve as a teacher anyway because the people who created it believe all teachers suck and should be fired no matter what.

This system was created as a "gotcha!" system and that's how it has played out this first year in NYC.

If Mulgrew and Farina actually said teachers need to "embrace" this system, then students, teachers and even administrators are royally screwed because that means this insane system that is running everyone ragged and has sucked the lifeblood and spirit out of teaching and learning is going to continue.

Again, I ask: Was anybody there yesterday?

Did Mulgrew actually say this?

Did Farina?

Or is this Postie "journamilism" again, where they leave out something so important that it actually changes the meaning of the statements made?

I have a difficult time believing Farina, a career educator who worked as a principal for a long, long time, would think this system mad with compliance should be "embraced".

I also have a difficult time believing that Mulgrew, who in the past has "embraced" this system himself, is still doing so after all the criticism and cries for help the UFT is getting from teachers under assault all over the city via the ADVANCE evaluation system.

But after 13 years working in the NYCDOE and carrying a UFT member card, nothing would surprise me.

What's The UFT Doing About The DOE's Fetishization Of Lesson Plans?

From James Eterno's round-up of yesterday's UFT Delegate's Assembly:

Question: Principals asking for lesson plans and doctor's notes unlike in the past.  What can we do?



Mulgrew Answer: The administration could always ask to see a lesson plan but they cannot dictate format or collect them ritualistically. We are not publicizing what we are doing behind the scenes but we are working on reigning in onerous administration.  We are also waiting for a decision on the lesson plan arbitration.

Many teachers are still being told that lesson plans, while only "suggested," must contain specific criteria as "suggested" by administration (including AIM, learning objectives, standards met, timed activities, and assessments), must have all activities with exact times, must have assessments for all activities and all activity assessments must have expected outcomes/student responses in detail.

Some administrators are taking lesson plans on mini-Danielson drive-by's and handing out "ineffectives" and "developings" if the lesson plans do not meet the administration's "suggested" format.

Now I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me what I have just described in the two paragraphs above is dictating lesson plan format, collecting them ritualistically and using them in an onerous way against teachers.

I hope the UFT leadership works this problem out, either in negotiations with the de Blasio administration (which is the most preferable) or through the arbitration process.

One of the new delights brought to us by Sheriff Andy Cuomo's APPR teacher evaluation system as imposed upon us by NYSED Commissioner King per Cuomo's dictum has been the absolute fetishization of the lesson plan to the point of absurdity.

Teachers are being told lesson plans are as important as the lessons themselves and even if an observed lesson is declared excellent during a Danielson drive-by, teachers can still be dinged "ineffective" or "developing" on the lesson plan component if the administrator decides the teacher's lesson plan does not live up to the "suggested" format.

Now I have always written lesson plans throughout my entire career but I do not get bogged down in the minutiae that some of the "suggested" formats I have seen handed around get bogged down in - in particular including every expected student response for every question asked and exact times for every activity.

In short, I use lesson plans for big picture stuff - AIM, objectives, standards, activities - but not absolute scripts to be obsessively written and followed throughout lessons.

The EngageNY lesson plans promoted by NYSED are exactly that - obsessive scripts devised to be followed to the letter - and what I hear from teachers and students unfortunate enough to be using those scripts is that the lessons are stilted and boring and students feel disengaged from the material.

Part of the problem there is not just the planning format but the lessons themselves - the material there is close reading of the same text day after day after day with nothing but text-based questions for students to respond to with text-based evidence.

But the obsessive detail in those lesson plans (a one-day lesson plan can be 10 pages long) is a problem as well and points to a bigger problem overall with Danielson, APPR and the teacher evaluations.

This is all about compliance, plain and simple, and using these mechanisms to keep teachers in constant fear for their jobs.

A ten page lesson plan does not make for better teachers nor for better lessons.

It does ensure compliance in every classroom with exactly what John King wants taught, however, if every teacher is afraid to deviate from the lesson plan format in case of a Danielson drive-by.

I am happy to hear the UFT knows the lesson plan fetishization issue is a problem, but I am not so sure they understand just how big a problem it is.

Will Cuomo Allow Any Changes To NYC Teacher Evaluations?

I've posted the past few days about how much Andrew Cuomo likes to stick it to his "friend," Bill de Blasio, on issue after issue.

Anthony Weiner and Michael Powell of the NY Times both wrote about this earlier in the week, with "jerk" Anthony Weiner going so far as to call Cuomo a "jerk" over it.

Yesterday Cuomo got everything he wanted in the budget deal on the charter issue, in the words of the NY Post "sticking it to de Blasio" over his vow to charge charters rent for leasing space in city public schools.

The proposed budget deal also puts the city on the hook for co-locations or paying for space for all future charters.

In short, Cuomo took de Blasio to the woodshed over the charter issue for his buddy Eva Moskowitz and her allies, all big Cuomo campaign donors.

We're in the middle of contract negotiations here in the city and one of the items being worked out is the teacher evaluation system, which is a mess.

The system in NYC was imposed by SED Commissioner King as directed by Cuomo's last budget deal and is largely seen as onerous and odious by almost everybody involved with it - except for SED Commissioner King, who came up with it, and Governor Cuomo, who brags about it.

Whatever changes the UFT and the city agree to over evaluations in contract negotiations, don't be surprised if Cuomo doesn't stick his nose into the deal and try and have his way over the evaluation issue here in NYC.

As Cuomo has said over and over, he will brook no changes to the APPR teacher evaluation system, he believes it is perfect just the way it is and it is one of the prime items he plans to tout during his 2014 re-election campaign and his 2016 run for president (i.e., holding those lazy-ass teachers "accountable" for student performance.)

There was talk of de-linking the Common Core tests from APPR for two years, but Cuomo would have none of it and ensured those changes did not make it into the budget deal, though a moratorium on CCSS high stakes will be enacted for students.

Thus teachers will be held accountable for test scores that children will not, an odd twist that I hope will be challenged in court.

He also threatened the Regents when they suggested a minor change to APPR.

In any case, Cuomo has shown relish for "sticking it" to de Blasio over and over and I fully expect him to continue to do soon on issue after issue - and that includes teacher evaluations and contracts here in NYC.

Cuomo has already said he believes that the city contract pattern was set by the PEF/CSEA contract model he forced onto those unions in his first year in Albany, so you can see how he is already sticking his nose in where it doesn't belong.

If the city and the union agree to changes to the evaluation system that Cuomo doesn't like, don't be surprised if he doesn't try and "stick it" to de Blasio again and engineer some kind of kibbosh on the deal.

Cuomo has already circumvented mayoral control in this latest charter school rent/co-location budget deal.

He may do so again if the UFT contract/evaluation negotiation doesn't go the way he wants it to.

The Fight Over Teacher Evaluations

In the Times article on Cuomo's shrill reaction to the Regents CCSS delay recommendations is this:

A working group of the Board of Regents on Monday recommended several changes to how the state’s schools use the Common Core. It did not call for a moratorium as legislators have done, but it proposed letting teachers who earn the poorest evaluations — “ineffective” — to raise the bumpy Common Core rollout as a defense. Teachers rated ineffective two years in a row are at risk of losing their jobs. The full board is expected to approve the change on Tuesday.

In a conference call with reporters, John B. King Jr., the state education commissioner, who reports to the regents, said the idea was designed to ensure “that no teacher will be unfairly removed” as a result of students’ posting poor scores on the tests aligned with the Common Core.

In an email, Catherine T. Nolan, the chairwoman of the State Assembly’s education committee, said that the board’s proposal “sounds reasonable,” though she would seek more input, including from the New York City schools chancellor, Carmen Fariña.

The scores make up 20 percent of a teacher’s grade — principals’ observations and other measures make up the rest — but the inclusion of the scores and the provision for firing teachers who repeatedly rate poorly were major goals of education reform advocates, former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the governor.

Cuomo, of course, didn't want to see his vaunted APPR teacher evaluation law watered down at all - he planned on hawking it during his presidential run as one example of how he used an iron fist to get an intransigent government bureaucracy to hold government workers accountable.

But to be honest, this isn't adding much water to the law.

UFT President Mulgrew claims teachers could already raise the "CCSS defense":

Mr. Cuomo sees the regents’ proposal as weakening the teacher evaluation law, though Michael Mulgrew, the president of the city’s teachers’ union, the United Federation of Teachers, disagreed, saying teachers already could raise the Common Core defense. Mr. King “did not give us anything new,” he said.

NYSUT President Iannuzzi said the same thing in an NYSUT statement:

"Instead of listening to parents and educators who are grappling with the fallout from the State Education Department's disastrous implementation, the task force dismissed their concerns with a report that, in the end, adds up to a 'we know best' collection of minor adjustments," said NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi, who noted - contrary to a comment by the governor - that the Regents did not pause or delay anything that is not already in law.

But SED says no, this is new:

However, a spokesman for the state’s Education Department said, “it is our understanding that this is a new dimension; it changes the regulations.”

I say, it doesn't matter much because APPR is still a mess, still using the flawed VAM for teachers, still has a host of "local measures" that are so convoluted that hardly anybody can explain how they work, still forces a whole bunch of unnecessary classroom observations so that administrators are doing little more than running from room to room for Danielson observations and the Danielson rubric itself is a flawed review tool that is being used to force a "One Way To Teach Them All" methodology onto teachers.

The fight over teacher evaluations and APPR has just begun, and you can bet that Andy Cuomo isn't going to back down from it, you can bet that Mulgrew isn't going to fight him much on it, and you can bet that the changes the Regents announced yesterday will not solve the arious problems with the law and some teachers are still going to be "unfairly removed" as King put it yesterday at the Regents meeting.

All of which means the battle from the grassroots goes on.

Mulgrew, UFT Leadership Worried About Office Bugging

Your UFT dues money at work:

Something’s bugging teachers-union boss Michael Mulgrew — or, at least, he thinks so.

The United Federation of Teachers president blew a huge wad of union cash to play out a paranoid James Bond fantasy when he paid $17,849 for a security team to sweep his headquarters for bugs, documents show.

A crew from Protective Countermeasures & Consulting Inc. was hired to sweep for listening devices at the UFT’s offices at 52 Broadway, a review of union spending reports reveals.

The payments were made in January and March of last year, just as the union leadership grappled with key strategic decisions such as labor-contract negotiations and who to support as the next mayor.

The union would not say if any surveillance devices were found.

Some union members thought it was unlikely anyone would bug the union — and that it was ridiculous that Mulgrew is using Cold War tactics to play a game of “Tinker, Teacher, Soldier, Spy” in the UFT headquarters.

“I have no idea why they’re doing it. It’s very odd,” said James Eterno, a dissident UFT member who ran against Mulgrew for president in 2010. “I didn’t know we were like the CIA and have to keep secrets. I didn’t think we were that important. It’s not like someone is going to get killed if something leaks out.”

Let's dispense with the question of who they think might be bugging their offices for a moment and focus on this question:

What exactly are they discussing at 52 Broadway that they don't want to get out to anybody else?

Sure, I know the Post article says " key strategic decisions such as labor-contract negotiations and who to support as the next mayor," but doesn't it seem a little over the top to have the offices swept for bugs at least two times over that stuff?

Seriously, it didn't take a genius to see who they were going to endorse - I called it months before, and believe me, I'm no genius.

As for labor contract negotiations, which one's are they talking about?

If I remember correctly, they sent the contract negotiations to non-binding arbitration at the PEP board after years of impasse with Bloomberg and the DOE.

So what exactly were they discussing at 52 Broadway that they feared being overheard?

It's over a year ago that Mulgrew had 52 Broadway first swept for bugs, but Norm Scott did report last week that Mulgrew and his merry men and women at the UFT have launched a guerrilla attack against Dick Iannuzzi and the NYSUT Executive Board via the UFT/Unity slug at NYSUT, Andy Pallotta

Norm has more today that reports the fix is essentially in and Mulgrew and the UFT will probably get their way when the vote comes around in spring.

Now I don't think the counter-surveillance contracting was directly linked to the NYSUT machinations.

But I do think it does point to the kind of underhanded stuff they discuss at 52 Broadway that they don't want to get out.

If you watch the union leadership closely, you know they could give two hoots about the rank and file membership - they care only about their own power and privilege.

In the end, I don't know exactly what they were discussing that they didn't want overheard anymore than I know who they feared might be bugging them.

But I do know this - whatever conversations they were trying to protect and keep discreet were not one's that benefit rank and file members of the union.

Mulgrew had 52 Broadway swept for bugs because he was worried something he and his merry men and women in the leadership were doing would come back to haunt them.

UFT/Unity Shill Comes By To Say "Take What The Union Gets And Like It!"

Here's a response from some anonymous Unity/UFT shill to my post this morning entitled "Message To UFT Leadership - Raises, Not Bonuses" that has to be seen to be believed:

Isn't funny that the very people that call the UFT a dues collecting agency, are the very purple that reap the benefits from the UFT negotiations team when it comes to our prescriptions, dental, hearing, and vision. Our retirement pensions and TDA also play into this, but they do nothing to contribute towards this! Why be party of UFT if you're not happy? You do have a choice even if you still have to pay an Agency Fee under the law. There just won't be all the great benefits that the rest of us get! So when you want to complain about bonuses vs retroactive, think about what is it exactly that you have done to help with negotiations? And yet you judge?There's a word mother called people like that!

Yeah, help out with the negotiations by keeping mum with any thoughts of your own and hail whatever crap the UFT leadership gets for you as scraping the skies it's so good even when it's far, far from that.

That's the Unity caucus hackery I know and love.

Everybody I talked to about this yesterday and today said bonuses replacing raises is unacceptable, no matter what gloss Mulgrew and Company put on it.

We have gone five years without a raise and have seen our quality of work decrease exponentially as the teacher evaluation system and Common Core have been implemented.

That's what I heard from people yesterday and today when I broached this subject.

But now that a Unity hack has come around to tell us all that we have to take whatever they feel like giving us and STFU, my faith in the rightness of the universe has been restored.

Unity will sell us out and tell us it's our problem if we don't like it.

And they're right - until we get rid of these destructive sell-outs, it is our problem.

On The Commons: Bll Gates Is Responsible For The Teacher Evaluation Mess

Nice post that puts all the pieces together - the VAM, the bell curve that ensures a certain number of "ineffectives" every year, how the new teacher evaluation systems are based on Microsoft's stack ranking system, how destructive stack ranking has been to Microsoft, how Microsoft just got rid of stack ranking because it is so destructive but how school districts all across the country are stuck with stack ranking for teacher evaluations:

Just as public school systems have widely adopted the Microsoft model in order to win the Race to the Top, it turns out that Microsoft now realizes that this model has pushed Microsoft itself into a Race to the Bottom.

 In a widely circulated 2012 article in Vanity award-winning reporter Fair Kurt Eichenwald concluded that stacked ranking “effectively crippled Microsoft’s ability to innovate. “Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees,” Eichenwald writes. “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.”

This month Microsoft abandoned the hated system.

 On November 12 all Microsoft employees received a memo from Lisa Brummel, Executive Vice President for Human Resources announcing the company will be adopting “a fundamentally new approach to performance and development designed to promote new levels of teamwork and agility for breakthrough business impact.”

 Ms. Brummel listed four key elements in the company’s new policy.
 •More emphasis on teamwork and collaboration.
•More emphasis on employee growth and development.
•No more use of a Bell curve for evaluating employees.
•No more ratings of employees.

Sue Altman at EduShyster vividly sums up the frustration of a nation of educators at this new development. “So let me get this straight. The big business method of evaluation that now rules our schools is no longer the big business method of evaluation? And collaboration and teamwork, which have been abandoned by our schools in favor of the big business method of evaluation, is in?”

Big business can turn on a dime when the CEO orders it to do so. But changing policies embraced and internalized by dozens of states and thousands of public school districts will take far, far longer. Which means the legacy of Bill Gates will continue to handicap millions of students and hundreds of thousands of teachers even as the company Gates founded along with many other businesses, have thrown his pernicious performance model in the dustbin of history.

Once again, no accountability for the billionaire malanthropists who shove through their "innovations" and "solutions" to the ginned up "crisis" in public education in order to wreck the entire public school system and promote their free marketeer dream of so-called school choice, charterization and online schooling.

UFT Leadership Defends The ADVANCE Teacher Evaluation System Once Again

Excellent report from James Eterno from yesterday's Delegate's Assembly:

No speakers were permitted to oppose a Unity Caucus resolution reinforced the UFT's support for the evaluation law.  However, the UFT is calling for a moratorium on using the results of high stakes tests for teacher evaluations until alterations to the local portion of the Measures of Student Learning portion of the system can be worked out in contract negotiations.  The Unity sponsored resolution was on the regular agenda.  It was introduced a few minutes after Delegate Megan Moskop from MORE introduced a resolution for next month during the new motion period calling for the UFT to support legislation to scrap the entire teacher evaluation law.

When Megan raised the MORE resolution, Mulgrew had no choice but to allow her to speak on its behalf as it she had obtained the floor.  In Megan's speech, she emphasized how using high stakes tests to evaluate teachers is a huge step back for the teaching profession, our members and the students.  Megan skillfully pointed to some of the points made by Mulgrew in his Presidents' Report about how misuse of standardized testing and education profiteering is bad for kids as well as teachers.

MORE also had excellent literature in support of this resolution which noted that the UFT had a task force report in 2007 that completely opposed  using high stakes tests  in any way shape or form to evaluate teachers. MORE also was highly critical of the Danielson observation system in the resolution saying it "subjects teachers to a cookie-cutter observation system that limits professional autonomy and reduces teaching to a series of numbered scores." Megan received energized applause when she concluded her remarks by saying teachers need a voice and that the entire 3012c law needs to be repealed.

When Megan finished speaking, UFT Vice President Janella Hinds rose to defend the evaluation system law.  Janella said that MORE misunderstood the new system as it rates teachers based on multiple measures which the UFT likes.  This was also emphasized in the Unity Caucus literature that was handed out before the meeting. Janella argued that the new system took the power to rate teachers negatively out of the exclusive hands of principals.  She added that we do not want to go back to the old system where ratings were exclusively the purview of principals.  In addition, Janella objected to the criticism of the Danielson framework which she claimed was not part of the evaluation law. She also disagreed that tenure was weakened under the evaluation law as she pointed out that each teacher rated ineffective would be visited by an independent validator the following year.

Janella also said that the problem was not so much the law as the Department of Education's inept implementation of the law and that is why the UFT filed 17 grievances against the DOE on evaluations.  She closed by saying that how her students do on the Regents is a very important part of what she does and that MORE is trying to organize through fear which is not good. Her remarks were politely, if not enthusiastically, received.

There you have it - the current UFT leadership supports the teacher evaluation law, supports using test scores to evaluate teachers, supports the cookie cutter approach to classroom observations via the Danielson (Teach THIS way or be declared "ineffective"!), believes the evaluation system that they helped devise will be just swell as soon as they conduct some minor tweaks during contract negotiations.

MORE, on the other hand, believes teachers should not be evaluated using test scores (and used the UFT's own rationale from the past on that very issue to support their stance), believes the Danielson rubric does much harm as it allows for only one way of teaching and limits teacher autonomy, believes the new evaluation system destroys tenure and gives more power to the powers-that-be to  harass and fire teachers.

I can say that at my school, an overwhelming number of teachers are much closer to the MORE position on the evaluation system than the UFT leadership's.

If the UFT leadership continues to defend this evaluation system - especially test score-based ratings and Danielson - they are going to find that they have a major rebellion in the ranks on their hands.

There is a lot of FEAR and LOATHING out there over this system, a lot of damage being done to good, effective, professional teachers.

Pity the cronies running the UFT do not care about that.

Teachers will remember this betrayal from the leadership.

Mulgrew's Recess From The Tests Petition Went Into My Junkmail

Found this between the junk mail selling Viagra for 70 cents a pill and a plea from a Hong Kong banker telling me he has $300,000 of my own money he found in a bank account at HSBC:

New York's youngest students need teaching and learning, not standardized testing.

Sign the Recess from Tests petition »

Bloomberg-style "drill-and-kill" standardized test prep has sadly become the norm for our students. Now he's taking his testing mania to a whole new level, insisting that our youngest students in grades pre-K to 2 complete bubble tests that are wholly inappropriate for their developmental levels.
Prekindergarten through second grade are vital years for developing students' cognitive thinking, building their educational foundation and instilling a love of learning in them. Filling in bubble tests will not accomplish any of these goals.

That's why we have joined with our state affiliate NYSUT and education advocacy groups across the state to urge the governor, the state Legislature and the State Education Department of New York to ban standardized testing in pre-K through second grade.

Sign our petition now »

Sincerely,

Michael Mulgrew

Michael Mulgrew and the UFT leadership signed onto the Race to the Top application which required that teacher evaluations be tied to test scores, Michael Mulgrew and the UFT leadership helped to develop the APPR evaluation system that linked teacher evaluations to test scores and Michael Mulgrew and the UFT leadership concurred when Dick Iannuzzi and the NYSUT dropped a successful lawsuit against the Regents for expanding the testing component of the teacher evaluation law to 40%.

In short, few people in this state are more responsible for the testing problem than Michael Mulgrew and the UFT leadership.

In addition to a recess from the tests, we need a recess from such destructive and hypocritical union leadership.

Mulgrew's Recess from the Tests petition went to my junkmail where it belongs.

We don't need a recess from the tests.

We need to change the teacher evaluation law that requires all these tests in the first place.

Kill the law and there will be no reason to have the tests - they're only in place to grade the teachers.

Mulgrew: I Support Common Core

From Schoolbook:

At Tuesday's hearing before the state Senate's Standing Committee on Education, city teachers union president Michael Mulgrew said he supports the goals of the Common Core, which emphasize more critical thinking and writing.

"But the roll-out has been horrible," he said, referring to what he called a lack of curriculum materials and teacher preparation. Mulgrew said the state should have created a curriculum before the new tests were introduced this year. He also said the state should wait at least another year before evaluating teachers with these new exams.

Under the new teacher evaluation system, which has befuddled teachers, student performance on state exams counts for 20 percent of a teacher's rating. But because the exams don't start until third grade, and Mulgrew said some elementary schools have had to create brand-new "bubble test" assessments for their youngest students.

"A lot of children in kindergarten can't hold a number two pencil so I don't know how they're going to do on that test," he said.

The presumption seems to be that the Common Core implementation will get better after a couple of years and then it will be okay to tie teacher evaluations to the scores.

But the truth is, the standards are flawed, especially for the younger grades, the evaluation system is flawed (especially the testing component), the data tracking is Orwellian and the testing will not decrease so long as the evaluation system basing teacher ratings on tests stays in place.

So Mulgrew can say all he wants about the problems with implementation, blah blah blah.

Nothing will get better about the Common Core in a couple of years.

The standards need to be scrapped, we need to start the whole process over and everybody who was involved in developing, imposing and implementing the current reforms needs to be kept as far away from the re-do process as possible.

We'll see if hundreds of thousands of irate parents can force this kind of change across the state.

As for Mulgrew's undying devotion to the  Common Core, a line from the hospital scene with Captain McCluskey in The Godfather comes to mind:

"How much is the Turk paying you to set up my father, Captain?"

The UFT Evaluation Team Sends An Email To UFT Members

Dunno if you got this in your email box from Mikey Mulgrew and the "UFT Evaluation Team," but it arrived in my in-box this morning:

Teachers across the city are facing significant challenges caused by the Department of Education's poor implementation of the new evaluation and development system. To resolve these problems, the UFT introduced an online inquiry form for members to inform us of their concerns. The information you gave on these forms has been used in resolving many issues at the school level and as the basis for filing 17 union-initiated grievances over the DOE's implementation.

Now, the UFT is moving to the next phase.

A new online form went live on Monday, Oct. 28, to provide a formal way to address issues you may be facing with implementation of the evaluation system. We're calling it the Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) complaint form. You need to be logged into the UFT website to access the form.

Go to the form » 

Here is how it works: When you become aware of an issue that you believe violates your rights under the new evaluation system, you have up to five school days to fill out this complaint form online and give copies to your principal and your chapter leader. A copy of your completed form will be automatically forwarded by the computer system to your district representative. That will trigger a formal resolution and review process in which UFT staff will work with you, your school and DOE central to address the issue.

Remember that you have only up to five school days after you become aware of any issue to fill out the complaint form online and give a copy to your principal.

You can find the link to the complaint form in the teacher evaluation section of the UFT website.

This formal enforcement process is in place because the UFT insisted on it during arbitration. And, we were successful in having the commissioner include this in his order. The complaints filed through this process will serve as a guide to the changes we want while we negotiate our contract.

As always, please do not hesitate to contact your borough office with any questions.

In solidarity,

The UFT Evaluation Team

Wow - what a joke.

 You have five days to file a complaint if you become aware of an issue that violates your rights under the new evaluation system.

To be frank, you have very few rights under the new evaluation system to begin with, but if you find that one of those few rights is being violated, don't delay in getting that complaint over to the crack squad over at the UFT Evaluation Team.

There, don't you feel better about the new evaluation system already?

I'm sure the crack squad at the UFT Evaluation Team will make all the problems going away.

Except for the problems with VAM, and the insanity of using 22 competencies from the Danielson rubric for classroom observations and evaluations, the tons of extra documentation you have to do in order to prove you're not incompetent under the new system, the extra work associated with the performance assessments, the fact that you might be graded in your evaluation on test scores of students you don't teach in a subject you're not licensed in.

You see, those problems are built into the system and you have no right to do anything about those.

The crack squad at the UFT agreed to all of that garbage as part of the APPR agreement and the Race to the Top sign off.

So the UFT Evaluation Team complaint form is just another bunch of UFT jive mant to fool you into thinking the leadership is doing something to protect you when they are one of the main reasons you, your job and your professional reputation are in jeopardy.

They helped develop this system, they signed off on it and they have defended it from critics like Diane Ravitch and Carol Burris.

This is their baby as much as it is Cuomo's, Tisch's and King's.

MORE, on the other hand, has this saying: There is no right way to evaluate teachers by test scores.

See the difference?