SUNY Professors: Cuomo, NYSED Setting Up Teachers To Fail

 From the Capital New York Education update:

UNION: CUOMO SABOTAGING PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS—Capital’s Jessica Bakeman: “A union representing SUNY professors, along with a member of the Board of Regents, accused Governor Andrew Cuomo and the State Education Department on Thursday of intentionally sabotaging prospective teachers in order to justify shutting down colleges’ teacher preparation programs.

“Fred Kowal, president of the United University Professions, which represents professors and other employees at SUNY’s 29 state-operated campuses, 17 of which have teacher preparation programs, [said,] ‘S.E.D.’s certification exams are invalid and deeply flawed ... There is a reason why: it was done on purpose. This is failure by design. Simply put, New York’s student teachers have been set up to fail by S.E.D. and Governor Cuomo. The governor has made no secret of the fact that he wants to close teacher preparation programs. Now he wants to justify that decision.’” [PRO] http://bit.ly/1AMjEOG

This is of course the strategy of the reform movement - to undercut what is "public" in order to eventually "privatize."  

To that end, they've created the public school crisis by cutting funding, increasing mandates, rolling out new standards before there was any curricula for them, tying those new standards to tests that nobody was prepared for, then setting the failure rates for those tests at 70% in order to be able to declare the public education system in "crisis" and in need of "dramatic reform."

Now they're aiming at teacher preparation programs too in order to prove those "failures" and impose "dramatic reform" on that sector of education.

It's a classic neoliberal blueprint being carried out here in New York State, one of the so-called "bluest" states in the nation, but really, just a playground for the Milton Friedman acolytes at this point.

Success Academy Registers As Lobbying Entity

Nick Reisman at State of Politics:

A day after a top aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo signaled plans to broadly overhaul the state’s education structure, Success Academy Charter Schools CEO Eva Moskowitz registered the organization as a lobby entity, a filing with state ethics regulators shows.

Moskowitz is a prominent figure in the charter school advocacy world and registering the group to lobby was likely done out of an abundance of caution as the coming legislative session was expected to be dominated by education issues.

The lobbying period will cover Jan. 1 of this year through the end of the current Legislature now seated, 2016.

Advocates are required to register as lobbying when they expect their activities to cost more than $5,000.

In the past, Success Academy Charter Schools have relied on several prominent lobbying shops in Albany and New York City, including Albany Strategic Advisors, Dan Klores Communications, Patricia Lynch Associates and Bender Cantone Consulting.

The NY Times reported that Governor Cuomo himself helped organize a Success Academy lobbying effort last year - and raked in donations from charter backers:

It was a frigid February day in Albany, and leaders of New York City’s charter school movement were anxious. They had gone to the capital to court lawmakers, but despite a boisterous showing by parents, there seemed to be little clarity about the future of their schools.

Then, as they were preparing to head home, an intermediary called with a message: Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo wanted to meet.

To their surprise, Mr. Cuomo offered them 45 minutes of his time, in a private conference room. He told them he shared their concern about Mayor Bill de Blasio’s ambivalence toward charter schools and offered to help, according to a person who attended but did not want to be identified as having compromised the privacy of the meeting.

In the days that followed, the governor’s interest seemed to intensify. He instructed charter advocates to organize a large rally in Albany, the person said. The advocates delivered, bringing thousands of parents and students, many of them black, Hispanic, and from low-income communities, to the capital in early March, and eclipsing a pivotal rally for Mr. de Blasio taking place at virtually the same time.

The moment proved to be a turning point, laying the groundwork for a deal reached last weekend that gave New York City charter schools some of the most sweeping protections in the nation, including a right to space inside public buildings. And interviews with state and city officials as well as education leaders make it clear that far from being a mere cheerleader, the governor was a potent force at every turn, seizing on missteps by the mayor, a fellow Democrat, and driving legislation from start to finish.

Mr. Cuomo’s office declined on Wednesday to comment on his role.

As the governor worked to solidify support in Albany, his efforts were amplified by an aggressive public relations and lobbying effort financed by a group of charter school backers from the worlds of hedge funds and Wall Street, some of whom have also poured substantial sums into Mr. Cuomo’s campaign (he is up for re-election this fall). The push included a campaign-style advertising blitz that cost more than $5 million and attacked Mr. de Blasio for denying space to three charter schools.

A lot was riding on the debate for Mr. Cuomo. A number of his largest financial backers, some of the biggest names on Wall Street, also happened to be staunch supporters of charter schools. According to campaign finance records, Mr. Cuomo’s re-election campaign has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from charter school supporters, including William A. Ackman, Carl C. Icahn, Bruce Kovner and Daniel Nir.

Kenneth G. Langone, a founder of Home Depot who sits on a prominent charter school board, gave $50,000 to Mr. Cuomo’s campaign last year. He said that when the governor asked him to lead a group of Republicans supporting his re-election, he agreed because of Mr. Cuomo’s support for charter schools.

“Every time I am with the governor, I talk to him about charter schools,” Mr. Langone said in an interview. “He gets it.”

Daniel S. Loeb, the founder of the hedge fund Third Point and the chairman of Success Academy’s board, began leaning on Wall Street executives for donations. Later this month, he will host a fund-raiser for Success Academy at Cipriani in Midtown Manhattan; tickets run as high as $100,000 a table.

It is not an accident that Success Academy registered as a lobbying entity one day after a Cuomo aide sent a broadside against the public education system.

You can bet there's some coordination between the charter industry and the Cuomo administration every step of the way this budget season already, just as there was last year when Cuomo championed the Eva Moskowitz Rent Bill, and that coordination will go all the way until Eva Moskowitz gets everything she wants this legislative session.

John Flanagan Signals There'll Be No More Local Negotiation Of NY's Teacher Evaluation System

From Capital NY's morning email on education:

Senate education chair John Flanagan said lawmakers should consider limiting school districts’ control over their evaluation plans. “Maybe we should be having a discussion about a statewide protocol,” he said on "The Capitol Pressroom," a public radio program. “Instead of having 700 disparate agreements, let’s have a menu where you have 10 or 12 options for school districts to get involved in, because all of these things have to be negotiated, and one of the things that the unions jealously guard, which I understand and respect, is the concept of local control. They want to be able to negotiate everything. And yet, I don’t really see anyone out there who is ... jumping up and down and saying everything is working really well.” Capital’s Jessica Bakeman: http://bit.ly/13u8zss; listen to the full interview, with host Susan Arbetter: http://bit.ly/1e0QTZP

No one should be surprised that Cuomo and his GOP and IDC allies in the State Senate will go at "local control" of the APPR system.

Their complaint is that not enough teachers were declared "ineffective" by the APPR evaluation system.

One way to rectify that is to minimize the differences between districts and standardize the whole thing (which really means rig it to increase the "ineffective" ratings.)

Yeah, they'll say there's a "menu of options" for districts to choose from, 10 to 12 options, but they'll all be rigged by the state to accomplish their main goal - increasing the number of "ineffective" ratings across the state and shedding the payroll of teachers.

Flanagan's on the take from StudentsFirst and other ed deform groups, just the way Cuomo is.

You can see that he's planning on doing the bidding of his owners in the coming legislative session.

Cuomo Employs Shock Doctrine To Blow Up New York's Public Education System

You claim the following:

The fact that only about one third of students are proficient on state tests in math and language arts was “simply unacceptable,” the letter said.

In fact, the test scores were rigged by NYSED Commissioner King and Regents Chancellor Tisch so that only one third would be "proficient."

Here is Diane Ravitch from 2013 on that rigging:

New York City’s chief academic officer–a testing zealot–here announces that scores will plummet on the new Common Core tests administered last spring for the first time. They will plummet because the state decided to align its standards to NAEP, which are far more demanding than those of any state.

Over the years, many researchers have maintained that the NAEP achievement levels are “fundamentally flawed” and “unreasonably high.” If you google the terms NAEP and “fundamentally flawed,” you will find many articles criticizing the NAEP benchmarks. Here is a good summary.

What you need to know about NAEP achievement levels is that they are not benchmarked to international standards. They are based on the judgment calls of panels made up of people from different walks of life who decide what students in fourth grade and eighth grade should know and be able to do. It is called “the modified Angoff method” and is very controversial among scholars and psychometricians.

Setting the bar so high is one thing when assessing samples at a state and national level, but quite another when it becomes the basis for judging individual students. It is scientism run amok. It is unethical. It sets the bar where only 30-35% can clear it. Why would we do this to the nation’s children?

Nonetheless, these “unreasonably high” standards are now the guidelines for judging the students of Néw York.

Consequently, teachers and parents can expect to be stunned when the scores are released.

The good news is that teachers and schools will not be punished this year. The punishments start next year.

This is Shock Doctrine in action from Andrew Cuomo and the so-called education leaders in this state.

They artificially lowered the scores by increasing the "rigor" of the tests (done before any of the new curriculum for the new tests was developed, btw), now they claim the lowered scores are reason for why they must blow up the school system and radically "reform" it.

They created the problem, now they use it to push through the policies they want anyway (i.e., school privatization.)

Open Thread: Does Any State Have A Quota For How Many Teachers Must Be Rated "Ineffective" Every Year?

The last 24 hours we've gotten an indication that Governor Andrew Cuomo and Regents Chancellor Tisch will look to impose some kind of "quota" on the percentage of teachers that a district must rate "ineffective" every year (see here and here)

This news comes after education reformers have complained that there weren't enough teachers rated "ineffective" either statewide or in New York City.

So here's a question I have for you out there:

Are there any states that have a quota for how many teachers have to be rated "ineffective" every year and, if so, how does that system work? 

NYSED: Teacher Evaluators Must Rate At Least 5% Of Teachers "Ineffective" For System To Be Valid

This story is behind a paywall at Capital NY (previewed in the Capital NY's morning education email), but if you're looking for an indication of where Governor Cuomo and Merryl Tisch plan to go to "strengthen" teacher evaluations and make them more "competitive," here's a hint:

“There’s a real contrast between how our students are performing and how their teachers and principals are evaluated,” Tisch said in a statement. “The ratings from districts aren’t differentiating performance. We look forward to working with the Governor, Legislature, NYSUT, and other education stakeholders to strengthen the evaluation law in the coming legislative session.”

The education department report includes recommendations for how to improve the system. For example, if more than 75 percent of teachers or principals are rated “highly effective” or fewer than 5 percent are rated “ineffective” on the component of the evaluation system that is based on observations, the lead evaluators in that district should be retrained and an independent audit might be appropriate, the department recommended. [PRO] http://bit.ly/1sByLgW

If they will "strengthen" evaluations next year by ensuring that school leaders rate at least 5% of teachers in every district "ineffective," that translates to ensuring that school administrators rate at least 5% of teachers "ineffective" in every building.

In short, they've come up with an arbitrary number - 5% - and are saying this is the benchmark we want to see for "ineffective" ratings handed out.

Just as NYSED and the Regents rigged the Common Core tests for 70% failing, they're now going to rig the APPR teacher evaluation system so that at least 5% of teachers are deemed "ineffective" every year and slated for firing.

Teacher Survivor: Cuomo & Tisch Edition - coming soon to a school near you.

Can you survive the next round?

Consensus Is, Cuomo Has No Intention Of Fulfilling Any Deal With Working Families Party

From Times reporter Nick Confessore:

What does it mean that press corps instant consensus is Cuomo has no intention of genuinely trying to fulfill the emerging WFP deal?
— Nick Confessore (@nickconfessore) May 31, 2014

What it says is that the WFP officials, politicians and union leaders pushing this deal are corrupt and/or short-sighted, the WFP rank-and-file who accept it are naive, and Andrew Cuomo is once again exposed as a lying, finagling, backstabbing corporatist weasel.

Teacher On Cuomo Common Core Panel: No Discussion Or Dissent Was Allowed

A tweet last night from the teacher on the Cuomo Common Core panel:

I will issue a further statement tomorrow on the sham of @NYGovCuomo CCLS implementation panel. No dissent allowed, no discussion allowed!
— Todd Hathaway (@toddjhathaway) March 11, 2014

That's Cuomo-style democracy in action.

No dissent, no discussion.

Findings decided beforehand.

Sign it or else.

As I noted when the Cuomo Common Core panel was first announced, the panel was loaded with CCSS supporters/education reformers and the fix was undoubtedly in.

It will be interesting to see what Todd Hathaway has to say in detail about his experience on the panel.

Some Reaction To Cuomo's Common Core Panel

Here are some comments left at the Capital Confidential reporting Cuomo's Common Core panel announcement:

Once again the Bully of New York fails to include the real experts in the field. Educators have been saying all along what is best for student achievement but it has fallen upont deaf ears. Sorry knuckle dragger but educators are not the blame here. Education policy has been and is set by the Regents and the Education Commisioners. These are ALL political appointees and donors. Educators are rule followers, The only reason there could be an person in the classroom that should not be there, is poor management ( the Administrator who is in charge of evaluations).

...

Another PANEL to STUDY the issue!!!! The make up of the panel is a joke. I’m surprised it doesn’t include a rep from Pearson. Our kids have taken enough. GOVERNOR CUOMO – what don’t you understand?? Enough is enough. DELAY, or better yet, ELIMINATE the Common Core now. For once our senate and assembly leaders have displayed some common sense on the common core. Can’t our governor follow their lead?????

...

So much for separation of powers. If NYS is so broke, why does Governor Andrew Cuomo appoint so many panels and hire so many consultants.

...

Another panel that will examine the facts and report out exactly what they are told to report. King Kuomo owns this – he pushed hard to roll out Common Core and then backed away – now it’s yet another panel that will…surprisingly recommend whatever King Kuomo tells it to.

...

Wow–the Governor put three people with backgrounds in public education on this Commission. It must be an election year. His last Commission on education reported back to him the recommendations he wanted so he could propose them as his ideas–but they kicked the can down the road on the most important issue (the equitable funding of schools). It is obscene that NY state schools with virtually no students from impoverished families spend almost $3,000 more per pupil than districts that have very high poverty rates–but that is how the Governor and the Long Island Republicans want things. What does that equate to–visualize walking through two buildings one with high rates of poverty–and one with kids from prosperous families–then remind yourself that the kids in each classroom you pass in the wealthy school have $60,000 more support than the kids in buildings with high concentrations of poverty. Cuomo fights to maintain this inequity. NY citizens should be outraged!

...

Stop fighting it, people. Corporations know what’s best for our children.

...

Who is the Governor kidding ? Yet another “Panel” of experts. What we need is local control over local schools, NYSED has been and continues to be a huge waste of taxpayer money. When will people stand up for their children and let the Governor know that they are sick of his double triple blah blah blah. The Governor like to hear himself bloviate on the issue du jour and not make any decisions. Fracking was less than a month away three years ago.  Vote the rascal out.

There was one comment in support:

The alternative to Common Core is to persist in the past…continue to produce high school graduates who are *not* ready for college. Over half of college students drop out. Even the SUNY Chancellor has weighed in that Common Core needs to persist. Growth without some pain is unrealistic. Improve or continue to further lag behind other countries. The USA is ranked in the 14th through 36th in the world in terms of high school education. It would be crazy to think that is acceptable. What is your alternative to Common Core? None!

As I wrote last night, the panel is almost completely stacked with Common Core State Standards proponents, so the chances of any meaningful reform of the state's education reform agenda coming out of this panel is nil.

Many of the commenters made the same point at Capital Confidential - the panel was rigged to recommend exactly what Cuomo wants it to recommend - continued implementation of the Common Core State Standards.

They may suggest a slower timeline in that implementation, they may propose a slight delay in the use of high stakes with the CCSS tests.

But in the end, they will reaffirm the wonders of the Common Core and tell us that the only way New York State children will grow up to be "competitive" in a "global marketplace" is under the "rigor" of the Common Core State Standards and the attendant testing that comes with it. 

NYSED, Regents Squeeze The ELA Regents Exam Scores

A comment Pogue left on a post here at Perdido Street School about the outrage that is this year's ELA Regents exam:

January 2012 English Regents = 45 conversion opportunities for a 75+

August 2013 English Regents = 35 conversion box opportunities for a 75+

January 2014 English Regents = 30 conversion box opportunities for a 75+

"The Squeeze" created by corrupt/lazy Regents personnel whose needs to manipulate are greater than the need to help children.

Hitting a 75 or higher on the ELA Regents exam is one of those so-called "college readiness" measurements the state uses to evaluate schools and districts.

It is not a mistake that the conversion opportunities for 75+ have fallen from 45 two years ago to 30 now.

They are looking to use this stat to bludgeon teachers, schools and districts and use it as evidence for why their reform agenda must continue to be implemented.

BTW, the content on this year's test is much trickier than that of two years ago as well.

More difficult content, fewer conversion opportunities for a 75+, fewer conversion opportunities for a 65+ - in short, the NYSED and the Board of Regents rigged the ELA test this year for higher failure rates and lower college readiness rates.

Was The Fix In On The ELA Regents Exam?

NYC Educator has a post up tonight about the outrage that was the ELA Regents exam.

Here's a bit of what he said:

Read the two passages and show a controlling idea about insights. That's what today's Regents exam asked my kids to do. The thing is, most of them have only been in the country a few years. And there are likely plenty of American-born kids who don't know what an insight is. Certainly insight is lacking on the part of the test designers, unless their goal is to fail as many New York students as possible. That's certainly what my buddy Reality-Based Educator thinks.

But I watched a bunch of kids struggle. One claimed the word was not in his dictionary. ESL students get to use bilingual dictionaries for these tests, and they also hear the listening passage an additional time and get 50% more time. But you don't have to be a tarot card reader to know that anyone who doesn't know what an insight is will have a tough time writing about it. Here's what the dictionary says it is:

in·sight  (ĭn′sīt′)

n.

1. The capacity to discern the true nature of a situation; penetration.

2. The act or outcome of grasping the inward or hidden nature of things or of perceiving in an intuitive manner.

 

Personally, that makes it even more confusing for me. It's when you have an "aha!" moment and figure something out. But I wasn't seeing that happen.

So here's what I'm seeing--in an effort to push more Common Core nonsense and make us think our kids will be stupid without it, they're throwing in notions kids won't easily grasp and making them write about them whether or not the kids even know English. You don't understand that? Then screw you, you fail.

Here's a comment I wrote on his post:

It was a deliberate doubling down, a "@#$% you everybody, we'll do what we want and there's nothing you can do to us because Bill Gates has our backs" instance. The failure rate on this test is going to be very, very high. Students need 20 on the multiple choice to be able to survive a 6 out of 10 on the writing. The Part 3 "insight" passage guarantees that lots of kids will get a 6 out of 10 on the writing component. Many kids had no idea what the word meant, and even if they did, they couldn't connect the passages to a decent controlling idea. The Part 3 is a badly designed task in the first place, but it's made a lot worse when the freaking passages don't easily fit together and one of the passages is about space aliens in the form of yellow dust.

I think we should make a big stink about this test with the politicians until they do something about these evil people at SED and the Regents. This test today was a total hammer job on kids, teachers and schools. I will wait to see what the grading material looks like tomorrow, but if it is as "rigorous" as I suspect it will, then we'll know they intended lots of failures and we should action to have the results of these exams either nullified or the grading chart changed after the fact.

I have been fuming since I first saw this test at 1 PM this afternoon. And the more I think about it, the angrier I get. But we have power to do something about it too. The pols are ready to make a move against King and Tisch - maybe high failure rates on the ELA Regents will be just the thing to make them do it.

We'll see what the grading materials look like and how the state wants the exams scored.

But I suspect the fix was in with this exam - they were looking to make the passing rates plummet.

They can do it by just rigging the Part 3 - unless students get a 2 out of 2 on either the Question #26 (Controlling Idea Paragraph) or the Question # 27 (Literary Element Paragraph), it pretty much means they fail the exam.

This exam is going to have many kids getting 1 out of 2 on both questions.

In order to pass, they will have to get a 4 out of 6 on their Part 4 Critical Lens Essays and at least 20 out of 25 multiple choice questions right.

This will be a hard task for many of them.

In my 13 years of teaching, I've never seen a more badly designed Part 3 component than this one.

Students literally can fail the entire exam because they do not have a complete understanding of one word.

Or, viewing it from another angle, the state deliberately rigged the exam by ensuring students will fail the Part 3 writing components, thus ensuring that they fail the exam overall.

How NYC Teachers Are Going To Be Rated "Ineffective" Based On Test Scores Alone

A piece from Carol Burris in the Washington Post about how one excellent teacher got dinged as "developing" after receiving 58 out of 60 points from her principal's evaluation is a must read for NYC teachers.

This is a cautionary tale that needs to be sent to all your colleagues.

This teacher Burris writes about works in a "small city district."

She received 5 points and 10 points respectively on her state and local test score components.

That's 15 out of 40 points on the test score components.

She received 58 out of 60 points from her principal.

Were she a teacher in NYC, she would have been rated "ineffective" on both the state and local measures, because John King made the cut scores higher in both of those components for NYC teachers when he imposed his evaluation plan back in June (see here.)

This teacher was rated "developing" overall in her district because she received 73 out of 100 points on APPR.

But were she a city teacher, she would have been rated "ineffective" overall despite the 58 out of 60 points she received from her principal because both her state and local test component numbers are in the "ineffective" range and per the Cuomo/Tisch/King decree in Feruary 2012 that both the NYSUT and the UFT agreed to, any teacher who comes up "ineffective" on BOTH the state and local test components HAS to be rated "ineffective" overall.

So, this teacher is rated "developing" in one district, but would be rated "ineffective" in NYC.

That's how King rigged the NYC system to ding many teachers here "ineffective" no matter how they score on the rest of the evaluation.

And the UFT leadership and Michael Mulgrew in particular hailed this rigged system as adding extra layers of protections for teachers.

The reality is, it is rigged to give the district the power to fire many teachers after two years of "ineffective" ratings.

This is what the system was developed and designed to do.

And our union leaders in the both the UFT and the NYSUT signed off on this thing.

They know it's rigged, but either because of political expediency or backroom deals or whatever, they have signed off on this new evaluation system that has been designed and developed to rate many teachers in NYC "ineffective" no matter how well they do on the 60% principal observations.

Don't think that a new mayor can change any of this either.

I dunno how much de Blasio would be willing to change in any case, but even if he wanted to scrap the system and start fresh, he cannot.

The NYSED has this system in place until 2016, it can be redone through collective bargaining, but only if NYSED Commissioner King - the man who imposed this system in the first place - agrees to the changes.

What is the likelihood that John King is going to allow any evaluation system in NYC that isn't rigged to replace the rigged one he imposed this June before the sun sets on the current system in 2016?

Not very bloody likely, in my opinion.

Get ready for a lot of bloodletting and chaos the next four years in NYC schools.

The system Cuomo allowed King to impose that the UFT hailed ensures that many of the teachers here in the system today will be gone by 2017 - either through quitting in disgust from all the insanity of the new evaluation system or through "ineffective" ratings.

And I do not think the word "bloodletting" is hyperbole for what is going to happen in NYC schools.

Remember, Cuomo has called for the "death penalty" for "failing" schools and "failing" districts.

"Bloodletting" is the perfect description for what APPR ADVANCE is going to bring to schools and the teaching profession.

Julie Cavanagh Breaks Down The APPR Decisions

A great post from Julie Cavanagh at MORE Caucus on the choices to be made both individually and collectively by teachers in the new evaluation system.

After going through the new system in a bit of detail, she concludes:

1.       Make decisions based on outcomes:  what will result in the best “scores” for your staff?  (What tool? Who will the target population be?  How will they be measured?)
2.       Make decisions based on what will bring you together:  do not allow these decisions to divide you.  Stand in solidarity together, take care of each other, and do what benefits students and teachers collectively. (What tools/population/measurement model can you choose that will impact teaching and learning the least and can be applied evenly and fairly across subject and grade level positions?)
3.       Decide to get involved:  I am convinced the overwhelming majority of educators, after navigating this evaluation system, will be moved to action.  Do not get discouraged; do not believe we cannot affect change.  Whether you donate, sign a petition, attend a rally, come to a meeting, run for office, or join an organization– the time is now to stand up and fight the tidal wave of attacks on public education.

If only our current union leadership could communicate to teachers how best to protect themselves in what is going to be a very challenging and dangerous school year for everybody - students, teachers and administrators - as well as Julie Cavanagh does.

NYC Passing Rates: 26% ELA, 30% Math

When you rig the exams to give you these kind of outcomes, well, these are the stats you get:

Large numbers of New York students failed reading and math exams last school year, education officials reported on Wednesday, unsettling parents, principals and teachers, and posing new challenges to a national effort to toughen academic standards. 

Across the city, 26 percent of students in third through eighth grade passed the state exams in English, and 30 percent passed in math, according to the New York State Education Department.

...

Under the old exams last year, the city fared better: 47 percent of students passed in English, and 60 percent passed in math. 

Statewide, 31 percent of students passed the exams in reading and math. Last year, 55 percent passed in reading, and 65 percent in math. 

Some educators were taken aback by the steep decline and said they worried the figures would rattle the confidence of students and teachers. 

Chrystina Russell, principal of Global Technology Preparatory in East Harlem, said she did not know what she would tell parents, who will receive scores for their children in late August. At her middle school, which serves a large population of students from poor families, 6.8 percent of students were rated proficient in English, and 9.5 percent in math. Last year, those numbers were 31 percent and 44 percent, respectively. 

“Now we’re going to come out and tell everybody that they’ve accomplished nothing this year and we’ve been peddling backward?” Ms. Russell said. “It’s depressing.”

The purveyors of the Common Core gospel say these tests required deeper analysis and more creative problem-solving skills than the old exams, but as was shown back in April, really what they did is add a whole lot more questions and cut the time given to students to complete the exams.

This is why I have called for the NYSED and the Regents to release the state's 3rd-8th grade ELA and math exams, in their entirety, with the grading rubrics and scoring charts and other methodology, so that parents and the public can see for themselves how the game was rigged.

The education reform establishment in this state, indeed in the nation, wants to blow up the public school system as it is currently constituted and usher in a new era of charterization and privatization.

Raising the standards beyond what is developmentally appropriate for children, then giving more difficult exams with shorter time allotments based upon those standards before teachers were even given the curriculum to try and prepare students, are two of the tools the reformers are using to bring about their Ayn Randian future.

This game was rigged from the start to get to this day - as Rick Hess noted at his blog on Ed Week:

When I ask how exactly the Common Core is going to change teaching and learning, I'm mostly told that it's going to finally shine a harsh light on the quality of suburban schools, shocking those families and voters into action.

This will apparently entail three steps:

First, politicians will actually embrace the Common Core assessments and then will use them to set cut scores that suggest huge numbers of suburban schools are failing.

Then, parents and community members who previously liked their schools are going to believe the assessment results rather than their own lying eyes. (In the case of NCLB, these same folks believed their eyes rather than the state tests, and questioned the validity of the latter--but the presumption is that things will be different this time.)

Finally, newly convinced that their schools stink, parents and voters will embrace "reform."

Getting parents and the public to embrace "reform" in the suburbs would give reformers the tools they crave to close schools, fire unionized teachers, open charter schools, hire non-unionized at-will employees, and bring all the free market education goodness Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and parts of New York City are enjoying.

But in order to get suburban parents to embrace "reform," they have to convince parents the current state of these schools is abysmal and the current crop of teachers are "failures."

Today is the day that they start that argument, hawking these Common Core tests scores as evidence that drastic and disruptive solutions are needed to fix the problems in the system.

But really, they engineered this crisis and the drop in scores themselves.

You won't see that story in the NY Times or the other corporate-owned media (except for Valerie Strauss's blog at the Washington Post, but that may soon end now that ed deformer Jeff Bezos owns the paper.)

But it is the truth.

Alas, in America, truth matters little.

Money, public relations, and power are what matter - and the deformers have all three on their side.

Merryl Tisch And John King Have Rigged The State Tests To Produce "Failing" Results

Diane Ravich posted this today:

New York City’s chief academic officer–a testing zealot–here announces that scores will plummet on the new Common Core tests administered last spring for the first time. They will plummet because the state decided to align its standards to NAEP, which are far more demanding than those of any state.

Over the years, many researchers have maintained that the NAEP achievement levels are “fundamentally flawed” and “unreasonably high.” If you google the terms NAEP and “fundamentally flawed,” you will find many articles criticizing the NAEP benchmarks. Here is a good summary.

What you need to know about NAEP achievement levels is that they are not benchmarked to international standards. They are based on the judgment calls of panels made up of people from different walks of life who decide what students in fourth grade and eighth grade should know and be able to do. It is called “the modified Angoff method” and is very controversial among scholars and psychometricians.

Setting the bar so high is one thing when assessing samples at a state and national level, but quite another when it becomes the basis for judging individual students. It is scientism run amok. It is unethical. It sets the bar where only 30-35% can clear it. Why would we do this to the nation’s children?

Nonetheless, these “unreasonably high” standards are now the guidelines for judging the students of Néw York.

Consequently, teachers and parents can expect to be stunned when the scores are released.

The good news is that teachers and schools will not be punished this year. The punishments start next year.

With state tests aligned to NAEP standards, you can bet thousands of schools will be declared "failing" and tens of thousands (if not a hundred thousand or more) teachers across the state will be declared "ineffective."

That has always been the goal of the reform movement - to get the public to believe that schools and teachers all across the spectrum, urban, rural, suburban, are failing and some drastic and disruptive solutions need to be imposed to solve the problems.

NYSED Commissioner John King comes from the charter school world and Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch has family in the online for profit education world.

It shoudn't be a surprise that two of the solutions these officials will promote if they get the public to buy into the horrific scores as proof positive the system is failing is to charterize much of the school system and provide more opportunities for the online for profit education entrepreneurs.

With Cuomo having put together an education reform committee ready to provide a blueprint for future reforms, you can see that we are now at the end game of the destruction of the NY State public education system.

They've got the new Common Core in place that ratchets up difficulty levels without actually providing teachers with the material they need to teach the children to be prepared for the new tests, they've got the new APPR teacher evaluation system in place that ties evals to test scores and puts much of the onus on teachers to prove competence and effectiveness, and now they've got the new Common Core tests aligned to unrealistic benchmarks that are, in Ravitch's words, “fundamentally flawed.”

The fix is in and NYSED Commissioner King and Regents Chancellor Tisch are licking their lips to take it to the district leaders and teachers and administrators tomorrow when the scores are released to the public and complete their work of privatizing much of the school system around the state.

That's why I have been calling for the state to release not only some of the test items from these vaunted new Common Core tests but the tests, in their entirety, along with the grading rubrics and scoring charts.

Let the public truly see the fairness and relevance of the tests, the rubrics and the scoring the NYSED and the Regents are using to declare students, teachers and schools "failures."

The ELA Regents Exam: Set Up By The Regents And The NYSED To Fail Both Students And Teachers

There are two good pieces on the brutal scoring chart that the NYSED and Regents are using for the 2013 June ELA Regents exam.

Gotham Schools covered the story yesterday:

Bronx Center for Science and Math Assistant Principal Stephen Seltzer sent a letter to State Education Commissioner John King expressing frustration about the new conversion chart that has made it more difficult for students to pass the English Regents exam.

Seltzer writes that “the rubrics and conversion charts must be aligned and consistent, and both should be made available when teachers are preparing students, not at the time of the exam.”

In the letter, sent Thursday, Seltzer writes that there is a four-point difference in the June 2011 and June 2013 conversion charts. He gives the following example to illustrate his point:

A student who scored a 23 in the multiple-choice and a 7 in the writing received a 79 in 2011 but a 75 in 2013; a student who scored a 21 on the multiple-choice and a 5 on the writing passed with a 65 in 2011 but failed with a 60 in 2013.

The change to the conversion tables was made without corresponding changes in rubrics, which makes it more difficult for teachers to identify where students’ must improve if they have to take the test again, Seltzer writes in the letter.

“A child can receive a higher raw score, meaning they’ve answered more questions correct, but receive a lower actual grade,” said Bronx Center Principal Ed Tom. “You’ve technically done better on the exam, but the score will reflect a lower grade.”

...

Tom said his school usually has about a 90 percent passing rate on the ELA Regents exams. But this year the school is at a 75 percent passing rate. Tom said he looked at individual student grades and the numbers don’t seem to make sense.

He said a number of students scored well on the multiple choice section, but they struggled to received credit on the short answer and essay sections, which require human grading.

“As we’re looking child by child, we’re noticing that it simply doesn’t make sense that a kid would know so much information to score almost perfectly on the multiple choice and not be able to write a short response or essay to get any points,” Tom said.

My Life As A NYC Teacher posted about the same issue:

As an ELA teacher, I have a stake in the results of these tests - stake through the heart that is.  Since teachers are now going to be evaluated based on student performance on these tests, we can be fired as a result of these results.  For this reason, we English teachers here at Jonathan Levin H.S. in the Bronx just took a look at the scoring charts for the June 2013 English exam and the January 2013 exam.  What we found is interesting indeed.  Here they are.

June 2013 ELA Scoring Chart

January 2013 ELA Scoring Chart

In June 2013 if a student scored 16 on the multiple choice section and 7 on the writing sections, the student failed with a 61.  However if that same student had been lucky enough to take the test last January 2013, scoring 16 on the multiple choice and 7 on the writing would have yielded a passing score of 65.

DOE formula #1: Fewer students passing = more teachers fired.

Going back to Aug. 2012, June 2012 and Jan. 2012, we find the following:

                        Multiple Choice          Writing           Score
Aug. 2012:               16                          7                     65
June 2012                 16                          7                     65
Jan. 2012                  16                          7                     68

In other words, the June 2013 ELA Regents exam is set up to fail more students than in the past.  Coincidentally, New York State has just "adopted" - read: had shoved down our throats - a new evaluation system that the UFT, rather than condemning, seems to be endorsing.  See Chapter 52: Open Season on Teachers.  Under this system, the "value" of a teacher is tied directly to student performance.

DOE formula #2: more failing students =  more fired teachers.

And that really is what all this is about - firing more teachers and being able to use the scores in the news media to "prove" that there are many "failing" schools and "bad" teachers as a reason for why we need more corporate education reformers like charter schools and online schools.

It is not a mistake that the chart has gotten so harsh in the year that accountability has been moved from the school district and the school to the individual teacher via the Cuomo/Tisch/King APPR teacher evaluation system.

Unless the NYSED and the Regents get hammered in the press by parents for the rig job they've pulled with this scoring chart, you can expect the August ELA Regents scoring chart to be as bad.

The fix is in with this scoring chart and the scores are going to plummet accordingly.

Expect King and Tisch to wring their hands in the media about all the bad teachers and failing schools and the need for more reforminess as a result of the Regents scores - even though they're the ones who ensured the scores would plummet by rigging the scoring chart.

Cuomo Issues Threat On Imposed Evaluation System On NYC Teachers

From the Daily News:

In a letter to Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott, Cuomo wrote that the city and union have until May 8 to reach a deal or submit paperwork to state Education Commissioner John King telling why they blew the deadline. 

King would then serve as a binding arbitrator in the matter in an “expedited” process starting May 29 if no deal is reached by then, with a final plan decided by June 1.

The deadlines were set in the new state budget.

“While the commissioner is ready to act as an impartial arbiter,  you have had ample time to reach an agreement,” Cuomo wrote. “I therefore urge you to finalize your (evaluation) plan prior to these statutory deadlines, as virtually every school district in the state has done,” Cuomo wrote.

“Our students deserve nothing less than the very best teachers, and it is critical that we provide our teachers with the opportunity to be the very best,” he added.

If "our" students, as the governor terms them, deserve the best, why did he cut $250 million from the NYC school budget and refuse to put it back in when the UFT and the NYCDOE failed to come to an agreement on evaluations?

Also, how is this APPR system that ties teacher evaluations to test scores giving students "the very best teachers"?

This system, with its inherent flaws, biases, wide swings in stability and large margins of error, will give students teachers who have to teach to the test and hope that's enough to save their jobs from the GREAT APPR BELL CURVE that insists 7% of teachers be ranked "ineffective" every year and fired.

And of course this new teacher evaluation system is based on the new Common Core tests with the ratcheted up difficulty levels, so the fix really is in on how many teachers get fired with this system.

Carol Burris told NYC Educator that we shouldn't worry, no one will be fired because the system is so badly designed that it will never stand up to court challenges.

I hope she is right.

But until those challenges are heard in the law courts, there is going to be a lot of churn and burn in schools all over the state.

Which is what Cuomo and King and Tisch and the all the education reform cheerleaders want.

There is a political agenda at work here to break up the school systems, fire as many teachers as possible and bring about the Friedmanesque fantasyland of choice that so many reformers talk abotu with glee.

Mulgrew's Re-Election Victory Speech

Sure his Unity caucus lost lots of support in high schools and middle schools.  

Sure MORE garnered 40% of the votes in the high schools.

Sure voter returns in the election fell 10,000 from the last time around.

Sure more retirees voted than active members.

But the important thing is, Mike Mulgrew won re-election with 84% and now it's time to party.

Mulgrew issued a victory statement on ICE-UFT blog via his spokesperson, Raving Lunatic.

Here it is:

What's important here is we win, you lose. 40% of high school votes yields you nothing, yet earns me another three years at 52 Broadway. Tomorrow, while you're all teaching five classes, I'll be going out to lunch. I will remain out to lunch until you vote us out, at which time I shall retire, collect two pensions, move to Boca, and continue voting for Unity.

Actually this was his real victory statement:

 “I’m honored that thousands of UFT members have supported my reelection,” Mulgrew said in a statement. “I look forward to working with them for the next three years as we continue to fight for the best for our students, their families, and our schools.”

Those of us who teach our five classes and do our hall patrols and bathroom watches and sit through weekly Common Core PD's and have our preps taken for "common planning time" and worry about Danielson and APPR and getting VAMMED know that Raving Lunatic's victory speech, while not the factual one Mulgrew gave, is actually the more accurate one.

UFT: Not A Union - A Benefits Collective For Retired Teachers

Pissed Off Teacher in comments:

Many UFT retirees have no idea what is going on. I mentioned MORE at a meeting and told them not to vote for UNITY as Mulgrew was selling out rank and file. Some asked who Mulgrew was.  Retirees, including me, have no business voting.

Love it - someone at the retiree meeting, someone who got to vote in the election, asked who Mulgrew was.

Don't worry, I'm sure they told him/her, just put an X on the Unity box on the ballot and all will be well.  Are you enjoying the free buffet?

Another commenter wrote this:

If the UFT represents the needs of retired employees, then isn't the UFT a benefits cooperative?

It is if that's all the UFT does, and given how they have sold active members down the river on APPR, on Danielson, on ATR's and closures, on Teacher Data Reports and the whole education reform juggernaut, I think you can certainly argue that about all they are these days is a benefits collective for retired teachers.

UFT Elections - Unity And New Action Support Drops Significantly From 2010 In Middle Schools And High Schools

James Eterno at Ice-UFT blog:

We have initial slate only numbers for the high schools and the middle schools in the UFT election and although Unity and New Action will hold onto their monopoly on power, the new Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) established itself as the main opposition group in the secondary schools by a wide margin.

Here are the slate numbers for the 2013 and 2010 elections in the secondary schools.

2013  High Schools   Ballots Returned: 3808   Votes Counted: 3595    
MORE: 1430 (40%)   NEW ACTION: 452 (13%)  UNITY: 1592 (45%)

The remainder are people who split their ballot.

2010 High Schools    Votes Counted: 5203
ICE-TJC: 1369                 NEW ACTION: 774             UNITY: 2595

2013 Middle Schools   Ballots Returned: 1879      Votes Counted: 17886
MORE: 398                NEW ACTION: 161                 UNITY:1185

The remainder are people who split their ballot.

2010 Middle Schools: Slate Votes Counted: 2881
ICE-TJC: 248                NEW ACTION: 421              UNITY: 1981  

2013 Functionals (non teachers)   Ballots Returned: 7704   Ballots Counted: 7113
MORE: 951                   NEW ACTION: 754              UNITY: 5167

The remainder are people who split their ballot

The retirees and elementary schools - reliable Unity voting blocs - have yet to be counted and Unity will win by a wide margin as usual.

But if you look at the returns from the high schools and middle schools, you see New Action and Unity losing a lot of support and MORE gaining a little more support in the high schools and a lot more support in the middle schools.

Not enough to win, of course, but enough to make it clear that many in the middle and high schools think something is rotten with the current leadership.

As James wrote:

In addition, Mulgrew's vote will more than likely drop in a major way compared to 2010 among active UFT members.  It appears many members did not vote for the opposition but they certainly didn't vote for the incumbent.  For the next election, those members need to be persuaded to vote.

He also wonders how it is that New Action can get 13% of the vote and get three executive board seats while MORE can win 40% of the vote and get none.

Of course that's a rhetorical question from Mr. Eterno.

The answer is obvious - because Mulgrew and the Unity/New Action leadership have the fix in.