NY Times: Cuomo Reportedly Set To Reduce Role Of Testing In His Vaunted APPR Teacher Evaluation System

It's amazing what 220,000+ opt outs and poll numbers mired in the very low 40's will do to a politician's take on a particular issue:

Less than a year ago, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York proclaimed that the key to transforming the state’s education system was tougher evaluations for teachers, and he pushed through changes that increased the weight of student test scores in teachers’ ratings.

Now, facing a parents’ revolt against testing, the state is poised to change course and reduce the role of test scores in evaluations. And according to two people involved in making state education policy, Mr. Cuomo has been quietly pushing for a reduction, even to zero. That would represent an about-face from January, when the governor called for test scores to determine 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation.

There's some conjecture on just what this "reduction" will be:

The idea that Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, is pushing for the changes comes from several different avenues. According to one of the education policy makers, Mr. Malatras said in a conversation that the administration wanted to decouple test scores and evaluations. The other person reported having spoken with people who had similar conversations with the administration.

Two members of the Board of Regents, the body that sets state education policy, said they had heard that Mr. Cuomo was pushing for a moratorium on the use of test scores in evaluations. The two board members, Kathleen M. Cashin and Betty A. Rosa, both said they would heartily support such a change.

There's a big difference between "decoupling" tests scores from evaluations and having a "moratorium" on test scores being used in evaluations, so as always with this stuff, the devil is in the details.

Cuomo, through shill Malatras, is claiming nothing has been determined yet, that they're waiting for findings from the vaunted Common Core Review task force that Cuomo announced in September - but that's jive of course.

Cuomo has controlled every commission, panel and task force he's put together, from the two Moreland Commissions (one after Sandy on utilities, one on corruption that has him under federal investigation for witness tampering and possible obstruction) to the other two education commissions he put together (just ask Todd Hathaway who disagreed with the findings of the task force he sat on but had his name signed to the pre-determined report nonetheless!)

So what Cuomo wants, Cuomo's Common Core Review task force will find.

And it looks as if the governor, reeling from the bad press and bad polling on education, has perhaps decided the suitcases full of cash he gets from ed deformers aren't enough to keep him pushing ed deform policies in toto:

In New York, Mr. Cuomo’s push to give test scores more weight in evaluations helped propel a widespread test refusal movement this year, centered on Long Island. More than 200,000 of the nearly 1.2 million students expected to take the annual reading and math tests did not sit for them in 2015. At some schools, as many as 75 percent of students opted out.

Long Islanders tend to be swing voters, and education is a top concern of theirs, given the high percentage of school-age children and the role that local schools’ reputations have on real estate values, said Lawrence Levy, the executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University.

“Considering how his numbers fell off in suburban communities in the last election, I thought that the governor had to pay close attention to the desires and the demands of these suburban swing constituencies,” Mr. Levy said.

One final point to make on this - there's a likelihood that all they're going to do is call for a "moratorium" on test score use in APPR or a "moratorium" on the "penalties" teachers would suffer for low scores:

“A moratorium is under consideration,” said State Senator Carl L. Marcellino, a Long Island Republican, chairman of the Education Committee and a member of the task force.

The Board of Regents would quite likely approve a moratorium or any other step to reduce the role of test scores in evaluations. Until recently, a majority of the board supported tying test scores to evaluations, but the Legislature elected several new members this year who are critical of that policy.

This "moratorium" could come based upon the 50% test score criteria Cuomo imposed in the budget or it could be lowered to something like 20% (which is apparently what NYSED MaryEllen Elia thinks it ought to be.)

In any case, the "big changes" to education policy Cuomo promised look to be coming.

Whether they're substantive changes or more jive made to look like substantive changes remains to be seen.

Having watched Cuomo closely now for a few years, I remain skeptical.

But the low approval numbers in the polling, the especially low education numbers in those polls, the high opt out rates (with the numbers set to go even higher this year if the status quo continues) and the even higher "hardship waivers" districts got on Cuomo's vaunted new APPR teacher evaluation system with the 50% test score component seem to have weakened some of Cuomo's resolve to continue to scapegoat teachers for all the ills in the education system.

Be A Teacher! Read A Script! Administer Tests! Fear For Your Job At All Times!

That's the message that young people have gotten in the Era of Education Reform about the teaching profession according to Stephen Mulcher, director of the Bard College Master of Arts Teaching Program in Los Angeles:

Finding candidates to fill this role, especially good candidates, may be more difficult than policymakers are willing to admit. Despite their clear interest in public service, the students I meet betray little enthusiasm for teaching as it now exists. And I see even less indication that major trends in public education—standardization, the proliferation of testing, the elimination of tenure and seniority, and expansion of school choice—have made teaching any more attractive as a career option.  Prospective teachers, much like the young educators already working in schools, are especially skeptical of accountability measures that tie a teacher’s job security or pay grade to student test scores. And many are bothered by the way teachers are blamed for much broader social problems.

As a result, today’s college students, including those currently marching on campus, are significantly less likely than their parents to see teaching as a viable way to become agents of social change. Of all age groups, voters 18-29 are the most pessimistic about the teaching profession. Only 24 percent are “very likely” to encourage a friend or family member to become a K-12 teacher today.

...

In a comparison across 14 professions, teaching ranked last among respondents who felt that their “opinions seem to count,” or included workplaces with “an environment that is trusting and open.”  Three out of four teachers complain that high stakes testing takes too much classroom time away from actual teaching. Nearly 9 in 10 teachers feel that linking teacher evaluations to students’ test scores is “unfair.”

...

“All teachers do now is read from scripts and administer tests all day,” a Senior psychology major at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro told me last spring.

Why would anyone in their right mind go into teaching these days when you are evaluated via test scores (often the scores of students you don't even teach!), you can be "drive-by evaluated" at any moment by an administrator who will come into your classroom for fifteen minutes and rate you using a rubric that you cannot possibly fulfill in that fifteen minute snippet of teaching, your seniority and tenure protections are stripped from you, your pay is increasingly tied to "student performance" as measured by standardized tests and you have no autonomy to teach what you want to teach or how you want to teach but must read from pre-approved EngageNY scripts that suck the soul and life out of education?

Seriously, why would anyone want to go into that king of "profession"?

I'm not sure if education reformers, whose goal has always been to destroy public education and privatize schools, wanted to create teacher shortages and disdain for teaching among young people or not.

I know they wanted to drive down perceptions of teachers within the culture (thus the decades long "Teachers Are Criminals!" public relations extravaganza in the media) and I know they wanted to diminish teacher autonomy, work protections and compensation so as to exert more control over schools while simultaneously lowering labor costs.

But if they thought that young people wouldn't notice how shitty a job teaching is these days and decide they'd rather do anything but that for work, they were mistaken there.

Teacher shortages are already a problem in many states (google the phrase "teacher shortage" and you'll see) and they are only going to get worse in the near term as the economy continues to improve (and it is - the Fed is finally going to raise interest rates next month for the first time in nearly a decade) and the job market gets better.

It will be interesting to see how the education reform movement responds to widespread teacher shortages.

The shortages haven't come to New York yet, but they'll get here too and once they do, pushing shitty contracts that strip teachers of autonomy, seniority, and work protections while imposing longer days/hours/health care costs on them isn't going to be the way to attract younger people to the profession.

Reformers may think technology will replace the human teacher, but I have a hard time seeing that working well over the long haul state-wide.

And the way things are going now, they're going to have an awfully hard time finding enough younger people to become teachers to replace the retiring older ones (or fleeing ones!)

Teacher Shortages Should Be No Surprise

Tony Lux at NWI.com:

It is amazing to read about the blue ribbon committees being formed at the Statehouse to determine why there is a teacher shortage. The feigned ignorance and surprise of legislators is incredibly hypocritical.

Blame for the teacher shortage should be placed clearly at the feet of government officials in this state and across the nation who have scapegoated, demeaned and devalued the teaching profession.

...

If schools were failing, then teachers were ineffective. Teachers were not only ineffective, but overpaid as well.

The solutions were multi-faceted. Plans were formulated to evaluate teachers more stringently to get rid of the bad ones. The witch hunt to rid schools of weak teachers cast a pall over the credibility of the teaching profession. Teachers were seen as not just the most important variable, but the only variable that affected student learning. Any reference to the effects of poverty on student learning were dismissed out of hand as an effort to avoid accountability.

What followed was a legislative snowball racing downhill. An oversimplified, flawed system for grading schools on an A-F scale was created. School grades continue to be required despite major flaws in state assessments. State standards were raised to be the highest in the land, resulting in increased hours of testing time and diminishing teaching time. Laws dictated more stringent teacher evaluations tied to school grades and test scores. Laws dictated limiting salary increases so teaching experience and advanced degrees were devalued. New teacher and administrative licensing standards implied that anyone with a degree could be a teacher or administrator, even without training. Charter schools, unfettered by union agreements, were heralded as schools that could do better by hiring teachers at low salaries and cheap benefits.

Complexity index funding targeting the most disadvantaged underachievers was reduced and redirected. The effects of tax caps crippled property tax collections for many school systems, forcing them to use general fund dollars to pay debt rather than staff.

Educators are so demoralized they do not encourage their own children to follow in their footsteps, much less other students.

Today, with decreased funding for public schools, teachers cannot enter the profession with any kind of guarantee that in five to 10 years they will be earning very much more than they are now. 

Still surprised there is a teacher shortage? Really?

New York State hasn't experienced the same teacher shortages that states like Indiana and Nevada have, but the problem will get here too because there's an awful lot of teacher/bashing/scapegoating going on here that makes education a very unsavory career choice for college students of today.

For now, we have a "shortage" of "great" teachers willing to work in schools deemed "struggling" by the state and set to be handed off into receivership.

Indeed, NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia just decried this shortage and called for teachers with "heart" to come work in "struggling" schools.

Here are some Perdido Street School blog readers on the insanity of that:

This false wish for "great teachers" and "teachers who can rise to the challenges inside struggling urban schools" is just another Deform mantra. It is meant to shame teachers who are ALREADY "great" and who HAVE risen to challenges inside struggling urban schools. The dearth of teachers has been deliberately created by Deformers. They have shamed, demoralized and marginalized urban teachers. But they have done this for a very specific purpose. They want TFA's, alternate cetificates, and a general de-professionalization of teaching. So not be fooled by what they "say" they want. Look instead at what they are doing in urban districts. In Buffalo, teachers have recently been referred to as "dregs" and "the lowest form of human capital" by our superintendent/receiver. It doesn't get any clearer than that.

And:

"We're in the process now if looking for teachers who really have that heart ......" What? Are you @#$%ing crazy? If you gave me a 20K bonus to work in one of those receivership schools, I wouldn't take it. Why? Here's why. If you take it, your MOSL SCORES will be SHIT. In NYC where I teach, that's currently 40% or 40 points out of 100. Last school year I received a 17 and an 18 out of 20 for each piece. Obviously that's a total of 35 out of 40 which is very good. These shit schools that teachers with "heart" should go to are pulling 7's and 8's. That's around 15 out of 40. If you score below 65 total, which is very possible at one of these shit schools, you will be labeled "ineffective". You can be the BEST teacher in the world BUT if your at Lehman HS or Clinton HS or Any other, you literally have no chance. If you get 2 ineffectives in a row, a 3020-a process can easily remove you. You will be terminated. Your family, house, future, all destroyed because you were supposed to have "heart". What a @#$%ing JOKE. I HOPE SHE READS THIS IR SOMEONE GETS HER MY MESSAGE. The goal, find a small school to jump into and do your job, get your MOSL scores that these schools produce. If they really want teachers to work at "these" schools, they must eliminate the evaluation procedure because it's not reflective of the truth. Then again, I'm a Physical Education teacher at a really nice small school in the Bronx. My MOSL is based off ELA, nothing to do with me. This is also ridiculous because any schmuck in Bronx Science teaching Gym is riding the data wave. All BULLSHIT.

Indeed, it is all bullshit - teachers know it, the kids they teach know it and this is why, as we move forward into the future, fewer and fewer of those kids will look to follow in the footsteps of their teachers.

And why should they?

The system is rigged against teachers, the media and the political class take daily potshots at teachers, educators have been blamed for everything from the high rate of poverty and inequity in this country to the near economic collapse of the system in 2007/2008 and, as Tony Lux said in his NWI.com piece, the politicians and educrats have worked overtime to strip teachers of economic incentives (i.e., raises) based upon anything other than test scores and so-called objective "data" that really only measures how well a teacher's students' families are.

Add in the stripping of work protections from teachers, the imposition of the EngageNY teaching scripts onto educators and the increased linkage of test scores to teacher evaluations (now up to 50% in New York thanks to our "Student Lobbyist Governor") and you'd have to say any kid who thinks about going into teaching now ought to have his/her head examined.

Quinnipiac Poll: Voters Back Teachers Unions Over Cuomo, 54%-31%

Capitol Confidential reports on a Quinnipiac Poll out this morning that finds 65% of New Yorkers do not believe standardized tests are the best way to measure student learning.

The poll finds a split for opt out (48%-47%), with huge regional disparities - opt out has more support upstate and in the suburbs than in New York City.

And the poll finds voters back teachers over Cuomo generally on specific issues like tenure and merit pay as well:

Though what voters think of opt-outs is a mixed bag, they’re put more faith in the teachers unions, which pushed the opt-out movement, to improve education than they put in the governor (54-31). Voters also strongly rebuke the idea of teacher pay and tenure being based on how well students perform on standardized tests.

If you're an education deformer pushing an education deform agenda, the poll numbers are moving against you on a host of issues, from tenure to teacher pay to standardized testing to Common Core.

Even the opt out findings are a victory for the Opt Out movement.

Can you imagine 48% saying it was okay to opt children out of standardized tests just a couple of years ago?

Campbell Brown To Hammer De Blasio For Not Being Reformy Enough

Keshia Clukey at Politico NY:

ALBANY — Campbell Brown, the former news anchor turned anti-teacher tenure advocate, is hoping her keynote address Wednesday night to the Business Council of New York State's annual conference will spur its members to focus attention on education reform.

...

Brown said she will focus her speech on student achievement and income inequality and that the keynote, which she will deliver at The Sagamore Resort in Bolton Landing, will also take issue with New York City mayor Bill de Blasio, whose policies “not only have been inadequate but, in many situations, have made the situation worse.”

“We can’t afford to have incremental changes. We don’t need any more speeches. We need real change,” Brown said.

We can't afford incremental changes - we need drastic, sudden, dramatic change.

Interestingly enough, Brown gets lumped in politically with "conservatives".

In fact, her husband Dan Senor was one of the "conservatives" who helped bring drastic, sudden, dramatic change to Iraq. 

That went well, didn't it?

So you know the drastic, sudden, dramatic change Brown wants to bring to the education system will go just as swimmingly.

When Brown says de Blasio's policies “not only have been inadequate but, in many situations, have made the situation worse," she can look to husband Dan and the policies he helped engineer in Iraq as a model.

Chris Christie Says Schools Without Teachers Unions Would Be "Nirvana"

We must destroy the village in order to save it:

Governor Chris Christie said that the academic achievement gap can't be fixed until after a "fundamental fight" with the teachers unions.

"We know how to fix this, but we’re not doing it," he said Wednesday afternoon during an interview with Campbell Brown, of the Partnership for Educational Justice and the74million.org, at an education summit in New Hampshire. "We’re not doing it because the teachers unions and the educational establishment, not only in New Jersey but across the country, know that fixes to that take apart the monopoly they have on education."

"And until we have that fundamental fight in this country as to who’s going to run education in this country, parents or unions, until we fix that and come to a conclusion on that, we’re not going to be able to fix the achievement gap." (He later said that schools without teachers unions would be "nirvana.")

Schools without unions would be "nirvana"?

Well, at least he's honest about wanting to destroy teachers unions.

Nice thing is, his political future is destroyed, what with Bridgegate and a few other scandals related to Port Authority funds and his cronies hanging around his neck, New Jersey an economic and quality-of-life mess, and Donald Trump stealing the outrage vote from him in the GOP primary fight.

His latest poll numbers have him dropping out of the top ten in the Republican presidential primary battle, which means he may not get an invite to the next big table GOP debate.

As I posted after Christie said he'd like to punch the teachers unions in the face, his teacher bashing isn't helping him in either approval with New Jersey voters or GOP primary voters.

When he shows up at an unvetted event, people let him have it, Bronx cheer-style.

Quite frankly, Ralph Kramden and his big mouth are done, his political career is over (he's term limited in New Jersey and his chances of getting elected president are about as good as mine) and it couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.

Enjoy political obscurity, Chris.

Maybe you can ask George Pataki how he deals with it when you see him on the campaign trail.

Message To John Kasich: They Took Our Teachers Lounge

TPM:

Ohio Governor John Kasich said at an education summit in New Hampshire that many teachers believe that "we’re out to take their job" when schools evaluate teacher performance and that teachers' lounges provide an environment where this worry spreads.

"No we’re not out to take their job. If you need help, we’ll help you. If you’re a terrible teacher, then you should be doing something else because you’re going to find more satisfaction doing something else that you’re good at," he said. "We have to constantly communicate that."

He then suggested that teachers' unions contribute to educators' worries.

"I’ll tell you what the unions do, unfortunately too much of the time. There’s a constant negative comment, ‘They’re going to take your benefits, they’re going to take your pay,'" Kasich said. "So if I were, not president, but if I were king in America, I would abolish all teachers' lounges, where they sit together and worry about, 'Woe is us.'"

In my school we have no teachers lounge.

There used to be a teachers cafeteria, but that got taken and made into classroom space.

Individual departments sometimes have their own spaces, but those have been cut down or completely eliminated in recent years as well because space is at a premium.

Teachers share classrooms as well.

There isn't much private space for commiserating where I work, that's for sure.

Frankly, I don't want the private space to complain about things - I'd like it so I could get some work done (i.e., grade papers, plan those wonderful Common Core-aligned lesson plans, etc.)

Alas, it is sometimes difficult to get that where I am.

So I dunno what the hell Kasich is talking about, but I can assure him that we're not all sitting around in teachers lounges complaining about teacher evaluations tied to test scores and the like.

I can say that teachers certainly talk about topics and issues that affect them, just as any group of people talk about things that affect them.

Where I work, it ain't happening at the teachers lounge, however.

The bathroom, maybe, or the hallway, but definitely not the teachers lounge or teachers cafeteria.

Maybe Kasich wants to ban teacher bathrooms as well?

I mean, if he's so concerned about teachers commiserating over things and all.

Maybe he can make all teachers bathrooms one stall?

That ought to cut down on the commiserating, eh?

Teacher-Bashing Frank Bruni Can't Understand Why There's A Teacher Shortage

You can't make this up.

Teacher-bashing, "Won't Back Down"-loving NY Times food critic Frank Bruni thinks we need to study out why there's a teacher shortage across the nation:

"Fewer people are training to be teachers," reports @motokorich. We need to grapple w/ reasons and repercussions, http://t.co/12Ausvx3QQ

— Frank Bruni (@FrankBruni) August 9, 2015

I've already covered the main reason for why fewer are becoming teachers here, but let's do it in a serious of embedded tweets as well:

@FrankBruni Teacher-basher/Campbell Brown ally Frank Bruni wants to explore reasons why fewer become teachers.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) August 9, 2015

@FrankBruni Read your own columns - young people see the disdain elites have for teaching/teachers, say "No thanks..."

— rbe (@perdidostschool) August 9, 2015

@FrankBruni It's not rocket science. 10+ years of teacher bashing, ed deforms that scapegoat teachers have borne fruit.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) August 9, 2015

Bruni is pals with teacher-bashing Campbell Brown and writes edu-claptrap for a living, so it's not a surprise that he tweeted something inane in response to the article Motiko Rich wrote in the NY Times today about the teacher shortage problem across the nation.

Neither Brown nor Bruni can see (or want to see) that bashing teachers and public schools for all the ills in society, calling for diminished work protections and salary (e.g., based on merit pay) and pushing for reforms that sap the souls of teachers have real world consequences.

Who wants to go into a job where they blame everything bad in the world on you, continually abuse you in the newspapers, try and take away the salary and benefits you have, and impose new, odious and unfair ways to evaluate you?

NY Times Covers National Teacher Shortage, But Misses Point Of Why It's Happening

And so we've gone from "How do we fire teachers!" to "Gee, we can't find teachers!" in a pretty short period of time - even the education reporter at the NY Times noticed:

ROHNERT PARK, Calif. — In a stark about-face from just a few years ago, school districts have gone from handing out pink slips to scrambling to hire teachers.

Across the country, districts are struggling with shortages of teachers, particularly in math, science and special education — a result of the layoffs of the recession years combined with an improving economy in which fewer people are training to be teachers.

...

Louisville, Ky.; Nashville; Oklahoma City; and Providence, R.I., are among the large urban school districts having trouble finding teachers, according to the Council of the Great City Schools, which represents large urban districts. Just one month before the opening of classes, Charlotte, N.C., was desperately trying to fill 200 vacancies. 

But as is usual with the Times ed coverage, they screw up the story and miss why the shortage is happening:

Educators say that during the recession and its aftermath prospective teachers became wary of accumulating debt or training for jobs that might not exist. As the economy has recovered, college graduates have more employment options with better pay and a more glamorous image, like in a rebounding technology sector.

In California, the number of people entering teacher preparation programs dropped by more than 55 percent between 2008 and 2012, according to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Nationally, the drop was 30 percent between 2010 and 2014, according to federal data. Alternative programs like Teach for America, which will place about 4,000 teachers in schools across the country this fall, have also experienced recruitment problems.

Yes, it's true that a rebounding economy leads fewer people to go into teaching - there are more opportunities available for other kinds of work with "better pay and a more glamorous image."

But unexplored in the Motiko Rich Times piece is one big reason why teaching isn't a job with a glamorous image. - the consequences of 10+ years of corporate education reforms.

Every day you open the newspaper or turn on the TV, you see or hear some teacher-bashing crap, some politician like Christie saying he wants to punch teachers in the face, some rag like the Post blaming teachers for destroying the lives of children by using the Three Little Pigs as a DO NOW exercise to teach POV and bias.

Then there are the new "accountability rules" - the constant observations, the evaluation ratings tied to test scores (as high as 50%), the increased work load and stress for the same (or less) money, the decreased benefits, gutted pensions, and diminished work protections like tenure (Kansas is an emblem of this, but it's happening nationwide too.)

I'd say if kids are looking around at the job landscape and saying "Hell, I can do better than be a teacher!", they're right - and smart for saying it.

I teach seniors and I tell the ones who say they want to be teachers to think twice about the major - that teacher bashing and odious accountability measures (most of which simply add more work to a teacher's load without making them better teachers) make the job miserable these days.

I also tell them that teaching isn't really a career anymore, that the politicians and educrats and oligarchs who fund education reform see it as a McJob that can be filled by untrained temps who do it for a couple of years and move on (or get moved on by accountability measures) to something else.

To that end, the Times again:

Ms. Cavins, 31, who once worked as a paralegal and a nanny, began a credentialing program at Sonoma State University here in Rohnert Park less than a year ago. She still has a semester to finish before she graduates. But later this month she will begin teaching third grade — in both English and Spanish — at Flowery Elementary School in Sonoma. Ms. Cavins said she would lean on mentors at her new school as well as her professors. “You are not on that island all alone,” she said.

Esmeralda Sanchez Moseley, the principal at Flowery, said she could not find a fully credentialed — let alone experienced — teacher to fill the opening. “The applicant pool was next to nothing,” she said. “It’s crazy. Six years ago, this would not have happened, but now that is the landscape we are in.”

Before taking over a classroom solo in California, a candidate typically must complete a post-baccalaureate credentialing program, including stints as a supervised student teacher. But in 2013-14, the last year for which figures are available, nearly a quarter of all new teaching credentials issued in California were for internships that allow candidates to work full time as teachers while simultaneously enrolling in training courses at night or on weekends.

In addition, the number of emergency temporary permits issued to allow non-credentialed staff members to fill teaching posts jumped by more than 36 percent between 2012 and 2013.

At California State University, Fresno, 100 of the 700 candidates enrolled in the teacher credentialing program this year will teach full time while completing their degree.

“We don’t like it,” said Paul Beare, dean of the Fresno State school of education. “But we do it.”

Mission accomplished for education reformers - a cheap untrained temp workforce is soon going to be commonplace in schools, this will lead to an even bigger "teaching quality crisis" and allow reformers to promote privatization as the answer to the "education crisis."

Shame Motiko Rich missed the part of the story about how education reform has helped bring about the national teacher shortage.

But alas, this is another example of a Times ed article that only gets half the story: the "national teaching shortage" is reformer-generated and will serve the ultimate goal of may education reformers - to destroy the public school "monopoly" and privatize the public school system.

Beating Up On Teachers Isn't Helping Chris Christie: He's At Record Lows In Latest Poll

From IBTimes:

Only 30 percent of registered voters in New Jersey hold a favorable opinion of Gov. Chris Christie -- a candidate for the Republican Party’s 2016 presidential nomination -- according to a new poll conducted by the Rutgers University. The Rutgers-Eagleton poll was conducted prior to Christie qualifying as a participant in Fox News’ first Republican primary debate to be held Thursday.

“Asked to justify their negative assessments, 18 percent cite his character, attitude, and image as reasons for their unfavorable feelings; another 10 percent use such terms as untrustworthy, deceitful, and liar,” the Rutgers Institute of Politics said, in report outlining the findings of the poll.

...


According to the report, which also compiled previous polls, between June and August, the number of New Jersey voters who said their “general impression” of Christie -- who announced his candidacy on June 30 -- was favorable fell by nearly 10 percent. Over the past year, his favorability rating has fallen by almost 20 percent.

Christie’s overall job approval rating as governor has also shown a similar decline over the past year. Between August 2014 and August 2015, the percentage of people who disapproved of his work as governor increased to 59 percent from an earlier 39 percent.

In the good old glory days, Christie used to hold town hall meetings and have fights with union members and teachers, have his staff tape those fights and then put them up on You Tube.

Those You Tube moments were part of his initial national fame and helped gin up the idea that Christie had potential as a national political figure.

But the glory days are long gone - the Bridgegate scandal, along with the misery New Jersey residents live with daily in Chris Christie's economically-challenged, infrastructurally-decrepit state have ensured their demise.

That doesn't mean Christie hasn't tried to bring back the glory days, of course - just last week he said on ABC News he'd love to punch the national teachers union in the face.

That remark engendered much outrage among teachers and their families, which is not exactly a constituency Christie is interested in.

But if he thought that remark would win him some friends among other constituencies, well, he was wrong.

Not only have his poll numbers in Jersey continued to crater, his approval on particular issues have continued to fall to new lows as well - including on education:

Christie fared no better on individual issues, reaching a new low over his work on Superstorm Sandy recovery -- with only 46 percent approving of his work, down from his April 2013 peak of 87 percent. Additionally, Christie -- who recently said that the American Federation of Teachers, a national teachers’ union, deserved a “punch in the face” -- has also fallen to new lows over his work on education and schools in the state. His approval rating on the issue has fallen more than 10 percent over the past year, with 58 percent disapproving of his work.

He's down 41 percentage points on education in the last two years and three months.

That's a pretty big fall.

In a previous Rutgers-Eagleton poll, 69% of New Jersey voters said Christie wasn't suited to be president because of his temperament.

In a Monmouth poll, 57% of New Jersey voters wanted Christie to resign.

Coming on the heels of 61,000 booing him at Monmouth Park last week, these poll numbers should give Christie a good feel for how much people despise him and the job he is doing as governor.

And if he thinks beating up on teachers is going to help him bring back some of the glory days, he is sadly mistaken.

Chris Christie Booed "Mercilessly" By 61,000 People At Horse Race

Chris Christie said on TV today that he'd like to punch the teachers union in the face because "they are the single most destructive force in public education in America."

Christie then "got his" later in the day:

OCEANPORT — It was one long happy celebration at Monmouth Park for the great American Pharoah's latest victory. At least, that is, until Gov. Chris Christie stepped into the Winner's Circle to present the trophy.

And then, the record crowd of 60,983 booed.

Long.

Loud.

Sustained.

Maybe he should have hung around Bill Murray.

The cheering resumed as trainer Bob Baffert and owner Ahmed Zayat address the crowd and talking about their famous horse. Then Christie's name was mentioned again, and the booing started anew. 

So not even the popular Triple Crown winner, which went off as such a heavy favorite that a $2 bet won 20 cents, could improve the popularity of the Republican presidential candidate in his home state.

Lots of tweets about the booing, but here's my favorite:

Just won $85 and booed the shit out of Chris Christie #SundayFunday #AmericanPharoah

— Mike Deej (@mikedeej97) August 2, 2015

These days, Christie's popularity is somewhere between gonorrhea and jock itch.

The Daily News wrote the following about Christie in an editorial today:

Five years have passed since New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie killed a plan to build an additional passenger rail tunnel under the Hudson between his state and New York. He has done exactly nothing since then to face the most dire transportation crisis looming over the region.

Actually, that’s not true. Christie did divert $1.8 billion that the Port Authority had properly targeted for building the tunnel into improperly funding roadway repairs, including to the Pulaski Skyway.

Mr. Fiscally Prudent Republican Presidential Contender just didn’t have the bucks to cover the basics out of his own treasury.

Christie’s disastrous short-sightedness and financial mismanagement now threaten Jersey commuters with years of hell, and his state with a crippling economic blow that would be felt up and down the East Coast, including in New York.

And he thinks he has a shot at the White House?

Christie can replay old favorites and continue to beat up on teachers.

But that show isn't playing much anymore.

People in New Jersey despise him - he enjoys 36% job approval these days and 57% of New Jersey residents say he should resign.

Republicans who are polled about the primary despise him - he pulls in about 3% support.

And even the editorial boards at neo-liberal papers like the Daily News and the Newark Star-Ledger aren't buying his show anymore

Here's some advice from a teacher to Candidate Christie:

Have fun running for president, Chris, because that show will be over soon enough (most likely after you crash and burn in New Hampshire), and then its back to Jersey for a little hometown serenading.

You got a preview today. 

Teacher Shortage Coming

From the Associated Press:

GREENSBURG, Ind. – School districts across Indiana are having trouble finding people to fill open teaching positions as the number of first-time teacher licenses issued by the state has dropped by 63 percent in recent years.

The Indiana Department of Education reports the state issued 16,578 licenses to first-time teachers, including teachers with licenses in multiple subject areas, in the 2009-2010 school year. That number dropped to 6,174 for the 2013-14 school year, the most recent for which data were available, the Greensburg Daily News reported.

The dwindling pool of educators is raising alarm in some school districts as they struggle to fill open positions, especially in math, science and foreign languages.

...

School leaders say state funding constraints, testing pressures and a blame-the-teachers mentality have steered people away from education as a career.

Many education programs have seen their enrollments drop in recent years.

Enrollment in Ball State University’s elementary and kindergarten teacher-preparation programs has fallen 45 percent in the last decade. Other schools are reporting similar declines.

Indiana has been reformier than many states and they're reaping the rewards now - fewer people want to become teachers and/or are becoming teachers.

Reformers don't really care, of course, because one of the main goals of education reform is to deprofessionalize teachers, drive down pay and benefits, strip teachers of autonomy and replace them with Mcworkers.

It's starting to look like mission accomplished in Indiana.

Senate Dem: Cuomo Is Like Scott Walker, Out To Destroy Public Schools And Teachers

From State of Politics:

Queens Democratic Sen. Michael Gianaris in an interview on Monday compared Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s education reform policies to anti-labor measures being enacted under Republican Scott Walker in Wisconsin.

“Resources are being diverted out of the public school system to private schools, an attack on the teachers who sacrifice so much to work in our schools,” Gianaris said on NY1’s Inside City Hall. “If I wanted Scott Walker to be the governor, I’d move to Wisconsin. But we’re here in New York. I think we should be a progressive champion that stands up for working people who stand up for public schools first and foremost and then we should help the entire school system.”

The comment underscores the deepening level of antipathy from Senate Democrats in the mainline conference toward Cuomo.

Many of us in the education blogosphere and twitterverse have compared Cuomo to Walker before.

Now a member of the mainstream Democratic conference in the State Senate is doing it.

If I were NYSUT, I would take the clip of Gianaris comparing Cuomo to Walker, bundle it into an ad and run it all across the state.

Cuomo's at his lowest approval rating ever in the last Siena poll, but that number will be bounce back up after his minimum wage political ploy (and make no mistake, that's what it is - albeit, some good will come from it) and news his consort Sandra Lee has cancer.

But overall we want the trend to be downward.

It's imortant to keep Cuomo's numbers down - the unions should be running ads to do just that.

This Gianaris clip seems tailor made for that task.

They Can Keep Teacher Appreciation Week

From Answer Sheet:

Tuesday is National Teacher Day, part of Teacher Appreciation Week, which has taken on special resonance in recent years as many teachers feel increasingly dishonored by policymakers who have put them at the center of controversial reforms.

So what do teachers get during this commemoration? Some companies offer discounts to teachers for various items, and messages of thanks and appreciation to teachers — including from some of the very policymakers who have upset teachers — are posted on social media.

Dunno about you, but I could do without the platitudes and lip service we get during Teacher Appreciatino Week from the very same policymakers and politicians who spend the rest of the year teacher-bashing.

Thoughts?

Do you like the 20% off coupons we get during Teacher Appreciation Week or could you too live without Teacher Appreciation Week?

Who Will Become A Teacher In The "Age Of Accountability"?

A commenter on Arthur Goldstein's Daily News piece about Andrew Cuomo's sham evaluation system wonders just what kind of candidates will be attracted to teaching in the "Age of Accountability":

Mr. Goldstein, I could not agree with you more. As I sit here during my "vacation" with a stack of essays and exams to grade, I am also planning my lessons for the remainder of the semester. I have had a very successful career for over two decades and I am not about to allow student test scores from untested Common Core Standards to change what I and my colleagues know works with an underserved population.

If standardized tests are not shared with educators, how in the world are they to guide instruction? Unlike the old Regents exams that we scored in our own schools, we will never see what parts of an exam our students need to work at. All we get is a score that is arbitrarily set by the state to tell us which schools are "failing" or not.

 These evaluations mean nothing to me at this stage of my career but they mean the livelihood of so many others. I worry about what kind of teacher will replace our generation as we retire. Teacher retention is already awful and punitive evaluations will not attract good, caring, and intelligent people into the craft. If teaching is going to be tethered to a numbers game, all we will have for our children are people gaming the system to keep their jobs; no more, no less!

Reformers keep telling us getting a "great teacher" in every classroom is the goal of reform.

And yet, the "gotcha" reforms they keep shoving through, the teacher-bashing they engage in on a daily basis, the coordinated efforts they make to tie teachers to accountability measures teachers have little control over, the glee with which many look to cut our job protections and our wages (merit pay is so much better than salary steps!) - this will get a "great teacher" into every classroom?

More likely this will keep quality candidates from going into education because who the hell wants to deal with all the compliance and accountability nonsense that keeps changing by the year, that keeps being imposed on teachers from above by people with little or no education experience whatsoever?

The commenter is exactly right - awful and punitive evaluations are not going to attract good, caring, and intelligent people to teaching.

The cynic in me wonders just why reformers engage in reforms that are resulting in outcomes that are 180 degrees from what they say they want.

If they really want a "great teacher" in every classroom, why they do engage in a long-term, well-funded coordinated effort to disparage teachers, teaching and public schools?

How Dare Cuomo Say He Cares More About Students Than Teachers Do?

Governor Cuomo claims he cares about kids while teachers only care about their jobs and pensions:

Cuomo:"You know who I represent most of all? The kids.”Really?Then why hasn't he been in a public school in 3 years. http://t.co/Pz7iDtDmfe
— Martin Daly (@marty10707) April 7, 2015

More:

During a radio interview, Mr. Cuomo declared victory, too, saying “the most formidable political forces in Albany, the teachers unions,” were disrupted by his agenda.

“You know who I represent most of all, and who you should be concerned with as a taxpayer most of all?” he added. “The kids.”

He cares about the kids?

Who's he kidding?

He doesn't seem to care much for even his own:

Cuomo "never got out of the car" when watching daughter's soccer games in high school, says unauthorized biographer. #albany
— Azi (@Azi) April 6, 2015

More:

The Kennedys say the future governor spent family vacations when his children were young on the phone hammering out policy, and even in recent years watched his daughter’s high school soccer games from the inside of his black SUV, parking at one end of the soccer field and rolling down the windows instead of cheering from the stands like the other parents.

It infuriates me that Cuomo is allowed to get away with framing teachers as an "industry" who only care for their jobs and pensions while he cares about and is responsible for the children of this state.

This is a governor who has refused to properly fund the education system as required by the courts or the law.

This is a governor who has worked his hardest to ensure the school system in New York State runs under the Endless Testing regime wherein children are subjected to endless hours of test prep to get ready for the all-mighty state tests that are now tied to school closures, teacher firings and tenure.

This is a governor who has not visited a public school classroom in three years, not even for a photo op, even as he claims to care so much for children and understand so much about the education system.

Finally this is a guy who, if the Shnayerson biography is to be believed, isn't all that interested in his own kids but he's got the chutzpah to tell teachers that he cares more about their students than they do.

How dare he?

You want to know what I do as a teacher, Governor?

See here.

You want to know what some other teachers do in New York?

See here.

Tell us again, oh great man too busy to spend time with his children or visit a public school, how you care more about the kids than teachers do.

How Many Albany Politicians Could Pass The NYSED "Moral Character Determination"?

Earlier in the week I posted about the "Moral Character Review" clause that was stuck into the 2016 New York State budget that requires teachers to tell NYSED within 30 days when they move or change their name or risk a "moral character review" by the State Education Department.

The clause says:

Certificate holders shall notify the department of any change of name or mailing address within thirty days of such change. Willful failure to register or provide such notice within one hundred eighty days of such change may constitute grounds for moral character review under subdivision seven of section three hundred five of this chapter. 

Many of us have wondered just how this clause got into the budget, who put it there, what the rationale for it was.

I don't have any answers to those questions, but one thing I do know - teachers are now being treated like convicted criminals out on parole who have to alert the state about every move they make before they make it.

This is especially galling considering how many actual or alleged criminals there are in Albany, from former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who faces fraud and extortion charges, to State Senator Tom Libous, second in command for Senate Republicans, who faces criminal charges of lying to the FBI, to State Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, who is reported to be under investigation for corruption, to Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was warned by US Attorney Preet Bharara to stop witness tampering in the Moreland investigation and is reported to be under investigation for meddling in that commission.

When teachers file for certification, they have to fill out a "Moral Character Determination" affidavit which they sign pledging they have made no falsehoods or misrepresentations.

In that affidavit, teachers are asked seven questions, five of which are relevant to our Albany representatives:

Have you ever been dismissed from, resigned from, entered into a settlement agreement or otherwise left employment to avoid investigation and/or dismissal for alleged misconduct?

Are you the subject of any pending investigation and/or disciplinary charge(s) pertaining to employment?

Have you ever been found guilty after trial, or pleaded guilty, no contest, nolo contendere, or had adjudication withheld to a crime (felony or misdemeanor) in any court?

Do you currently have criminal charge(s) pending against you?

Are you the subject of any pending investigation and/or disciplinary charge(s) for professional misconduct in any jurisdiction?

How many Albany politicians could honestly reply "no" to those five questions?

We know Silver and Libous can't.

Based on reports that Skelos is under investigation by the feds, it doesn't seem likely Skelos could either.

Based on reports that the US attorney's office is looking into Cuomo's meddling into the Moreland Commission, it is quite probable Cuomo couldn't.

It's even possible Silver's replacement as Assembly Speaker couldn't honestly answer "no" to all five of those question - it's been reported the Moreland Commission that Cuomo shut down was looking into his campaign spending.

Here we have the current governor, the top two Republicans in the State Senate, the former top Dem in the Assembly and his replacement under varying clouds of suspicion and/or actual indictment and they just passed a budget that treats teachers like criminals on parole who have to register with the state when they move or risk loss of their license (and thus job) based on a moral character eview.

That takes some chutzpah, doesn't it?

Carmen Arroyo: Teachers Must Sacrifice Their Families In Order To Keep Their Jobs

Assembly Members who passed the odious Cuomo Deform Budget this week said a lot of stupid, self-serving words during the debate over the budget, but the winner of "Who Said The Most Insulting Statement About Teachers?" goes to Carmen Arroyo:

“Those teachers that are responsible and are doing their job, those teachers that sacrifice their families and themselves for the children they serve are going to be protected.  Those that are not good, better get a job at McDonalds.” — Carmen E. Arroyo, 84^th District

Wow.

Those teachers that sacrifice their families and themselves for their jobs will be protected, those who do not should work in McDonalds.

So says Carmen Arroyo.

I've heard education reformers say a lot of insulting things over the years about teachers and teaching, but I don't think anything I have ever heard anything from a deformer that quite matches what Arroyo said this week for sheer heartlessness and thoughtlessness.

Teachers must sacrifice their families for their jobs?

What are we, Christ figures?

I know it's Good Friday and all, but what the hell is this idea that the only way we can expect job protections is if we "sacrifice" our families and ourselves in the service of our students?

Is Ms. Arroyo aware that teachers are already giving above and beyond the call of duty for their students?

I work very hard at my job and I would do almost anything to help my students succeed.

Over the years, I have helped students with their financial aid, I have helped students with their taxes, I have gone to colleges to advocate for students over a variety of matters, from getting "independent status" because their homophobic parents had thrown them out onto the street and wouldn't provide financial information for the FAFSA form to trying to find them housing because they were forced to live with a sibling and her boyfriend who were using the apartment for prostitution.

I have worked tirelessly every year to write as many college recommendations and scholarship letters as I can, despite the increased volume of compliance paperwork that has come with the new evaluation system.  I have spent hundreds of hours on the phone over the years with colleges trying to help students fix some problem that has arisen over their admissions applications or financial aid.

When former students have reached out to me with various problems, from issues with their jobs to concerns they have had over health, I have taken the time and the energy to try and resolve their problems and if I couldn't do that, I have tried to steer these former students to the individuals or entities that could.

In addition, I have "sacrificed" my lunch period or prep period countless times when a student has needed help with something, whether it be tutoring for a Regents exam or counseling over a matter dealing with their families, friends or growing up.  I am always available to talk to students, no matter how frenzied my workday is, because my job is to help my students as best I can with the talents, skills and knowledge that I have.

I do all of this while teaching five classes every semester, a total of 340 students a year, attending two focus groups a week, doing the PD that's forced on us and mostly soul-sucking and worthless, attending department meetings, lesson planning, and reading and grading student work.

When I come home at night, I am physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted from my job, and this exhaustion grows worse by the year, not because I am getting older but because the job is getting harder.

And much of the difficulty that has been added to my teaching job is nothing more than compliance work that doesn't help either me or my students.

For example, it doesn't make me a better teacher to have to document every bloody thing I plan to do in all three of my preps on three different daily lesson plans in case an administrator comes in for a drive-by observation. 

It does take extra mental and emotional energy to do it, however - mental and emotional energy that would be better used helping my students but alas, that gets harder to do in the Era of Reform.

Given all of this, you can imagine how insulted I feel when I see some thoughtless statement from some politician like Carmen Arroyo saying I must "sacrifice" my family and myself in order to keep my job.

I am already sacrificing much of myself for my students, but apparently that's not good enough for Ms. Arroyo.

She wants me to sacrifice my family too.

You should call Ms. Arroyo and ask her if she's sacrificing her family for her constituents.

After all, if teachers are expected to sacrifice their families for their students, the least Ms. Arroyo's constituents can expect is for her to sacrifice her family for them.

While you're at it, let her know what you think about her disdain for teachers.

Here's her contact info:

District Office

384 East 149 Street, Suite 301
Bronx, NY 10455
718-292-2901

Albany Office

LOB 734
Albany, NY 12248
518-455-5402

"People In The Party All Hate Cuomo"

Fred Dicker explains why Andrew Cuomo has no chance to be president:

Top New York Democrats are whispering for the first time that Hillary Rodham Clinton may not be their presidential candidate next year. And while they’re far from agreeing on who it might be, they do agree on one thing: It won’t be Gov. Cuomo.

“People in the party all hate him,’’ one of the state’s best-known Democratic operatives told The Post.

A prominent Democratic elected official added, “There’s an ABC factor at work here. It’s ‘Anybody but Cuomo’.’’

In a series of interviews remarkable for their hostility toward Cuomo, several top Democrats well known to the public told The Post that should Clinton be forced to abandon her quest for the presidency by the scandal over her private State Department e-mail accounts, there is no clear alternative for New Yorkers.

...

“But who it won’t be is Andrew Cuomo,’’ the activist added.

... 

Said another prominent Democrat, “Two years ago, there’s no question Cuomo was a serious contender for the nomination.

“But if he were to run in a primary today, I’m not sure his own brother would vote for him. From the Moreland scandal to his failure to champion progressive issues to his fight with the teachers unions, he’s screwed himself.”

Interesting to see the fight with teachers make it to the top of the list for reasons why Cuomo has no backing from Democratic circles to run for president.

In the past, bashing the teachers and calling for "tough reform" has helped some Dems - most notably Barack Obama.

But it's not 2008 anymore - this is the post-CCSS Era, the Opt-Out Era, when parents and students are rising up all across the country to fight corporate education reform.

Bashing teachers and blaming them for all the ills of society doesn't work as well in 2015 as it did in 2008 or even 2011 when Cuomo first took over as governor of New York.

Cuomo's reaping the consequences of his teacher-bashing - this is the best part of the Dicker column for me:

A national Quinnipiac University poll last week found Clinton backed by 56 percent of Democrats, followed by 14 percent for Warren. Cuomo, who received 4 percent last May, received no backing at all.

No backing at all for Cuomo.

Love it.

Teach For America In Recruitment Crisis

From the NY Times:

Teach for America, the education powerhouse that has sent thousands of handpicked college graduates to teach in some of the nation’s most troubled schools, is suddenly having recruitment problems.

For the second year in a row, applicants for the elite program have dropped, breaking a 15-year growth trend. Applications are down by about 10 percent from a year earlier on college campuses around the country as of the end of last month.

The group, which has sought to transform education in close alignment with the charter school movement, has advised schools that the size of its teacher corps this fall could be down by as much as a quarter and has closed two of its eight national summer training sites, in New York City and Los Angeles.

And I'm sure that recruitment crisis has nothing to do with this:

The economic momentum evident late last year carried into 2015, the Labor Department said Friday, with American employers adding 257,000 jobs in January as wage growth rebounded and more people joined the workforce.

With new figures on the last two months of the year, 2014 turned out to be the strongest year for job gains since 1999. The government revised upward the already-healthy figures for payroll gains in November and December, increasing their estimate by 147,000. All told, the economy added, on average, 260,000 jobs a month over the course of the year. 1999.

“This is the best employment report we’ve had in a long time,” said Guy Berger, United States economist at RBS. “The labor market looks like it’s in really good shape as we head into 2015.”

Average hourly earnings rose 0.5 percent in January, the biggest monthly gain in more than six years, though it followed a disappointing increase in December that left the average for the two months running at just over 2 percent, in line with the recent trend.

Still, the overall picture was so strong, Mr. Berger said, that the Federal Reserve might begin its long-awaited move to raise short-term interest rates in June, a step many economists had been expecting to be delayed until September.

And indeed, the Times reports that is one of the problems:

Leaders of the organization say their biggest problem is that the rebounding economy has given high-achieving college graduates more job choices.

“It’s so different from three years ago, where suddenly you have candidates that may have an offer from Facebook and Wells Fargo and an offer to join the T.F.A. corps, and clearly, the money is going to be radically different,” said Lida Jennings, executive director of the Los Angeles office of Teach for America.

But this might be the bigger issue:

When Haleigh Duncan, a junior at Macalester College in St. Paul, first came across Teach for America recruiters on campus during her freshman year in 2012, she was captivated by the group’s mission to address educational inequality.

Ms. Duncan, an English major, went back to her dormitory room and pinned the group’s pamphlet on a bulletin board. She was also attracted by the fact that it would be a fast route into teaching. “I felt like I didn’t want to waste time and wanted to jump into the field,” she said.

But as she learned more about the organization, Ms. Duncan lost faith in its short training and grew skeptical of its ties to certain donors, including the Walton Family Foundation, a philanthropic group governed by the family that founded Walmart. She decided she needed to go to a teachers’ college after graduation. “I had a little too much confidence in my ability to override my lack of experience through sheer good will,” she said.

And of course the biggest might be that after years of attacks on teachers, the teaching profession and teacher benefits and job protections, it's just not a very appealing career choice:

Teaching in general has been losing favor. From 2010 to 2013, the number of student candidates enrolled in teacher training programs fell 12.5 percent, according to federal data.

Andrew Cuomo's about to make teaching an even less appealing career in New York State if he gets his reform agenda.

I can't see Cuomo's desire to link 50% of a teacher's ratings to test scores, fire them if they're deemed "ineffective" on those scores two years running by an NYSED algorithm, weaken tenure such that few teachers will ever get it and streamline the 3020a discipline process so that teaching becomes an at-will position will make the career, such as it is, more appealing.

Ed deformers have been very successful at transforming the teaching profession over the past ten years into a data-driven career with little autonomy and few protections - so successful that few people want to become teachers either in TFA or out.