Carol Corbett Burris has been one of the leaders of the battle against the Néw York State educator evaluation system, which was developed after the state won a Race to the Top grant of $700 million. Burris helped created the principals’ rebellion against test-based evaluations of teachers and principals.
She also was recently selected by her peers as New York’s Principal of the Year. She is principal of South Side High School in Rockville Center.
Here Carol explains why she is disappointed by Teachers College’s decision to honor the Chancellor of the Board of Regents, whose policies Carol and her colleagues oppose.
I quoted TC’s press release earlier today, in which it saluted Merryl Tisch for her leadership in tying teacher evaluation to test scores. It applauded more for her support for judging education schools by the test scores of the students of their graduates. To ice the cake, the press release heralded Tisch’s willingness to permit museums and other non-traditional institutions to grant masters’ degrees. Odd that TC would like that.
But I mention the press release because I have heard that the press office is revising it to remove any reference to the state’s zealous devotion to standardized testing. It may have disappeared by now.
Carol Burris writes:
“As a proud TC grad, I am saddened. It appears to be one more more betrayal of the progressive ideals on which the college was founded. The fact that the press release hails her work in evaluating teachers by test scores (opposed by most TC scholars) and data that ties schools of education to public school results, confounds me. What does TC stand for? I guess in the future we can expect TC student teachers to be placed in Scarsdale so that the school gets good ratings. Which of the following statements make her worthy of the award?
–M Tisch saying that if educators are not prepared for CCSS they are –”living under a rock”
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/03/27/26newyork_ep.h32.html
–M Tisch saying in NYT that now that teachers are evaluated under APPR, the public will not dislike them so much
–M Tisch donates 1 million, along with Bill Gates and charter schools, to fund the Fellows who have pushed the corporate agenda and test score evaluation policies.
http://www.cityandstateny.com/cash-flow/
I feel most sorry for the idealistic young teachers who worked hard for their degrees. They understand what is happening.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sigh…and at TC no less.
http://gopublicproject.org/
vignettes that highlight the positive side of our public schools; focused on Pasadena (CA) Public Schools
http://gopublicproject.org/about-2/mission/
please view it. you may want to promote it through your blog.
it’s the antidote to superman and won’t back down.
Kadar…thanks for this post. I am interested in further info on this Pasadena project. Please contact me at
UCLApolicywonk@aol.com
Ellen
“I guess in the future we can expect TC student teachers to be placed in Scarsdale so that the school gets good ratings.”
If you examine what NCTQ is targeting, it’s actually the opposite. They want to see more student teacher placements in low income areas, so it’s very likely that the federal government will soon require that and tie it to eligibility for Title IV federal funds (i.e., Financial Aid). Ed Schools will be rated, too. That probably won’t be just about student teachers, since the feds want a long-range database. This is very likely to reach well beyond student teachers to the test scores of teachers’ students while in their career placements, which Ed Schools have no control over since graduates are free to select those themselves.
So what would be the long term goal of all of this? I hate to be so cynical, but I don’t think that everybody is getting that the point of all this collusion amongst neo-liberals from both parties is to divert public funds to PREFERRED schools, from P – 20, such as the new private “graduate schools” that are popping up, like Relay and Match, which train teachers in the military style approach, at charter schools, in order to create a population of compliant workers who will gratefully accept low wage jobs and see big business in a positive light.
It’s complicated, but the primary goal of changing public perceptions of business is in the Powell Memo, and you’ll see that another top of the list priority was transforming higher education. They’re actually getting to that last though, probably because educated people are the most difficult to manipulate. So, they’ve figured out a round about approach, based on the carrot and the stick, by remaking existing schools, creating their own schools, and by employing high paid lackeys to do their bidding, such as Tisch, Rhee et al: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs/campaign-blog/the-lewis-powell-memo-corporate-blueprint-to-/blog/36466/
I too feel sorry for the idealistic young teachers. But I am not sure they understand what is happening. My student interns seem indoctrinated with the educational deforms of standardized testing used to evaluate students, teachers and schools.
Universities, especially one’s with Columbia/TC’s “stature” should be the barriers against the rush to unroll CCS and RttT (and any other alphabetic attacks!) without proper testing and assessment. Regardless of one’s view on the Common Core, NY State has introduced it this year in the worst possible way. For Teacher’s College to honor Merryl Tisch, especially this year, says something about the institution I attended. I received a wonderful education from some brilliant professors who, though witty and funny, always stressed the seriousness of teaching. Why should TC rush to honor an architect of, at best, an unfinished house and at worst a community disaster?
Thank you Cosmic T. Sadly,
I wrote about Relay and Match here
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/is-filling-the-pail-any-way-to-train-teachers/2012/07/04/gJQADViVOW_blog.html
and here
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/some-scary-training-for-teachers/2012/07/25/gJQAzXyJAX_blog.html
I suggest that blog readers read these posts to understand what the above comment refers to.
I had forgotten about your insightful articles on Relay and Match, Carol..Thank you for providing the links!
Thanks Carol for referring us to these articles. As an educator and educational researcher of 40 years, who was UCLA trained, I can only imagine that Madelaine Hunter must be breathing fire these days sitting on her cloud in the Elysian Fields. She was a believer in positive reinforcement and would have been horrified at the terror used in classrooms today to punish and deride students..
She also made distinction between the supervision of instruction, which improves teaching, and evaluation which was a final less helpful documentation. Now every event is a measurement and evaluation.
I guess that $90K to $120K education at TC at Columbia is not exactly going to be fruitful for newly graduated teachers entering the public schools. It’s time to repay all that private university debt. Pay as much of it off now while you still are employed. . . in two years, if your scores are not high enough in the standardized tests, you might be dismissed, and if you are untenured, you can even be stripped of your NYC teaching license.
Oops. . . .There goes your career, in two easy years. But you’ll still be left with all that delectable, Ivy League debt.
Lucy Calkins, where are you in all of this?
As for the evil queen from Snow White, aka Merryl Tisch, what will be her legacy? She has poisoned every teacher’s red shiny apple and has reduced nearly every education professional down to a metric laden dwarf. She has set the fire breathing dragon of junk sciene APPR loose on low income, minority schools. What will the concubine of Mephistopheles John King do next?
Hey everyone, start your own revolution. Anything is better than what it is now. And the turnaround is starting to happen more and more. Jump in. . . the water’s not bad. NPR just did a report on John Merrow and it was sympathetic toward his findings and not so nice to Cinderellian wicked stepmother Michelle Rhee.
Join NPE, Parents Across America, United Opt Out, Movement of Rank and File Educators.
Together, let’s reduce the wicked queen Tisch to a prisoner permantly housed in her own Ivory Tower, with only a cot, a bathroom and a giant mirror she can’t escape from, one that will force her to cringe at her gruesome, medusa-like countenance . . . . With one long stare and any luck, she might turn to stone and be housed in someone’s garden to serve as a bird bath . . . .
Robert, Do you have a link to the NPR piece on John Merrow? Couldn’t find anything on their website.
I’ll try and look for it. It aired tonight between 7:30 and 8:00 pm EST.
It was rightfully anti-Rhee, a real but welcome shocker considering that the no longer left-to-center NPR gets huge backing from Bill and Malcious Melinda Gates.
Dear Chi-Town Res:
Here is the link, i believe.
Diane, will you consider doing a write up on it? I think it’s the beginning of a turning point.
http://www.npr.org/2013/05/06/181678191/long-lost-memo-stirs-allegation-of-cheating-in-d-c-schools
Thanks, Robert!
The bigger they are the harder they fall. A few years from now, when this reform movement will become a relic from the past, she will be viewed with scorn and contempt. Whew you pulled no punches!!!
Pulling no punches with the pen is mightier. . .
Remind me again why a one percenter is torturinng students and teachers in New York?
It’s because shopping and real estate bore her at this point.
“. . . and real estate bore her. . . ” Double entendre???
Haven’t you heard? God bestowed them with all knowledge and divine wisdom. They know it all and everybody needs to listen.
I’m not religious, but the theoretical construct of God backing Merryl Tisch is, well, perverse. It’s like eating and peanut butter and sod sandwich.
Peanut butter and cowpie sandwich??
“The president of Teachers College, Susan Fuhrman, is a member of the board of directors of Pearson, the testing behemoth. Personally, I think this is a conflict of interest, but that’s just me.”
From the original post by Diane
Oh, what a tangled web we weave . . .
Unfortunately, that tangled web nets them so much jack that when it falls apart they still can get back up and rebuild it.
Not if John Merrow and us put pressure on the system to remove Michelle Rhee’s spinnerets and defang Merryl Tisch with proper investigations and law suits.