The United Teachers of Los Angeles reached an evaluation agreement that minimizes the use of test scores.
Perhaps they were burned by the inappropriate public release of teacher ratings devised by the Los Angeles Times.
I don’t understand how their evaluation system will work, but this is the key takeaway: AFT President Randi Weingarten called value-added modeling (VAM) by this term: “junk science.”
You read it here and here and here
This is the method whereby a teacher may be voted “teacher of the year” and rated “ineffective,” all at the same time.
You go, Randi!.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The adopted rules are MUCH worse than if they had agreed to use VAM as a measure of test performance. The test score portion of teacher evaluations will be based on students’ LEVELS of achievement, which creates many horrible incentives for teachers not to teach poor kids. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. These rules are a disaster … hopefully it won’t take long for the district and the union to figure it out.
What a difference a few years make. In 2009, DC teachers at her urging approved a contract that stripped us of seniority, due process, and tenure. A large number of teachers in DC lost their jobs due to the IMPACT evaluation that had a VAM component, and a predicted VAM score(s) and oh wait….that was during the time when scores went through the roof at some schools.
Those who support public education need to rip a page from the Conservative Think Tank playbook and get talking points to legislators who understand why junk science is bad… now… who ARE those legislators? THAT’s what we need! … Maybe we could get you to assume the role of Grover Nordquist and get legislators to sign a pledge saying they will not support any regulations that use VAM!
Then why is she on the bus riding around with Van Roekel and Duncan promoting The New Deal?
Randi has been riding Arne’s bus and endorsing Obama yet their policies require the use of VAM. She should have been speaking out against this a long time ago. That’s what she gets paid half a million to do.
The word ‘MOLE’ comes to mind. Everywhere we look! She does not sound like someone who supports teachers and education. Her representation is not fooling us. Why are we tolerating this?
It’s about time, Randi! Now it’s time to show some additional courage by renouncing RTTT, CCC, Charter Schools, & High-Stakes Standardized Testing.
If this is “junk science” why did Randi Weingarten support the “junk science” of merit pay in the new contract for Newark, New Jersey teachers? The response of Michah Lasher, executive director of StudentsFirstNY was:
“American Federation of Teachers head Randi Weingarten was instrumental in brokering the agreement. That means the AFT — and its affiliates, such as New York’s United Federation of Teachers — can no longer treat automatic tenure and lockstep longevity pay as sacred cows in future contract negotiations, such as the ones our next mayor will face early on.”
For the link to this quote and comment see Jersey Jazzman December 6, 2012 at:
StudentsFirst: Wrong About Newark AND Chicago!
http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2012/12/studentsfirst-wrong-about-newark-and.html
If she thinks VAM is “junk science,” why did she allow Chris Cerf and the NYCDOE to use it in the infamous Teacher Data reports on 4th-8th grade ELA and math teachers a few years ago when she was heading in the UFT? The median margin of error for the VAM in the TDR’s for English teachers was 52%. The maximum MOE was 87%. And yet Randi had no problem agreeing to use that formula to grade teachers – grades that eventually got published in the media.
More recently, she pushed contracts in Baltimore, New Haven and just last month Newark that use VAM to evaluate and “reward” teachers. She called these contracts “revolutionary” and has pushed them as models for the country at large.
Sorry, Randi as usual is full of it.
She wants to have it both ways – she wants to make believe she’s an anti-corporate reformer while still giving the corporate interests all the “reforms” they want -like VAM.
Do you know how you know when Randi Weingarten is full of it?
She’s talking – that’s how.
Ask people in the UFT who paid close attention to her double standards, hypocrisy and sell-outs what they think of anything Randi says.
As Norm Scott says, never listen to what Randi says – watch what she does.
Newark, Baltimore, New Haven, TDR’s, VAM – that’s what she’s been doing lately.
Why haven’t the AFT and CEA been flooding the media with alternative information and rebuttals to the corporatist, privatization agenda?
Karen Lewis is the Winston Churchill of education leadership. Randi Weingarten is, unfortunately, more like Neville Chamberlain.
I agree. And why did Ms. Weingarten agree to and praise the New Haven CT teacher evaluation system, which is based on JUNK SCIENCE?
That’s what we get when we have someone represent us who is only a union organizer and an attorney with connections$$$ in high places. The only consistency is power & $$$. Not what we need. Have enough of it making such a mess, and not listening to US.
All of your comments have merit: methinks the lady doth protest too much while talking out of both sides of her mouth. And now she wants teachers to take the same kinds of tests as lawyers and doctors. How does that help the teaching profession?
The TFAers won’t have to take them, anyway–just the real, certified teachers who are enrolled in and graduate from education (and additional) programs and, most likely, continue to take relevant courses and complete professional development throughout their careers.
The TFAtypes also tend not to join AFT, don’t enter EDU grad programs, and often stay (if that long) until their student loans are forgiven…working in urban Title1 schools. Serious teachers who came through reputable teacher training programs, often dedicate their professional lives to kids, join AFT…or others, and are the backbone to teaching. Much erosion of our profession has been caused by the notion that ‘anybody can teach’ and they did. You name it, and they came. Many, marginal at best, taking system PDs, online courses, attending off-shore programs, non-accredited programs, etc. Well, this is a no-brainer! Garbage in-garbage out!
Now! AFT single-handedly plans to lift teaching out of the t**let with Bar Exams? The TFAtypes won’t care…moving on. The highly trained teachers, who are being tested till they bleed…are being asked, once again, to prove that they are the real deal. What an insult!! AFT is not listening to teachers who know what is going on and need help. Oh, no…just follow the $$$ to AFT. Unions are supposed to make things better, not kick sand in our faces, again.