Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the Néw York Board of Regents, has delayed implementation of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s draconian and misguided plan to evaluate teachers by test scores.
When Néw York sought Race to the Top money, it promised that test scores would count for 20%. Under pressure from Governor Cuomo, the proportion rose to 40%. Cuomo was angry when almost every teacher was rated effective or highly effective. He wanted to fire teachers. Tisch wrote a letter to Chomo agreeing with his demand to raise the testing proportion to 50%.
The legislature caved during budget negotiations and passed a “matrix” that implies 50% but left the final determination to the Regents. Tisch decided more time was necessary and extended the deadline.
The sad part of this drama is that no one ever refers to research. Numerous studies and reports have refuted the validity of test scores for measuring teacher quality. Start with the American Statistical Association’s statement on VAM. There are too many variables that the teacher does not control that influence test scores.
The current dispute seems to be about whether to misjudge teacher quality sooner or later.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Does that delay get her past her next reappointment to the Regents?
Between this delay, should it occur, and the implementation of this atrocity, is another budget bill. Perhaps this will give the Heavy Hearts Club an opportunity to unburden themselves and pass something that is not, in fact, insane.
I agree, Arthur. This is a sheer matter of political will and elected officials doing something that they are VERY much not used to doing: listening to the interests and needs of their populist constituents.
By the way, Christopher Powers, a tech and business teacher, is a colleague of mine,. Do you know him as well?
What are your thoughts about why no one cares about the research on the problematic uses of standardized tests for teacher evaluation? How can the research community do a better job communicating (not meaning to imply that communication is the sole problem here)? The Feds have supposedly raised standards for funding. Everything has to be evidence-based. Why is policy the exception? From a concerned teacher educator, researcher, wife of a public school teacher, and mother of NY public school elementary kids (clearly, I’m often feeling like I’min the twilight zone here in NYS!)
I think science is careful, deliberate, and strives to be objective. Politics is astigmatic, fallacious, and self-serving. Science and research takes time to catch up to politics. And facts can be so inconvenient to someone nurturing a political career or increasing profit margins. It is much easier to just repeat something until the public believes it is true (“schools are failing”, “teachers are the problem”).
“Politics are” ?
“Politics” can be used with a singular or plural verb.
MathVale, my heart is warmed however by a STEM-y person fretting over grammar!
Never let the facts get in the way of a good blitzkrieg.
What about Tisch’s “Regents’ Think Tank,” with its $19 million stash? What kinds of “thinking” and research have they accomplished and/or published? It’s time for NYSUT to investigate this chosen group, and shine some light on its doings.
No one refers tot he research because the there are several goals here that research does not support. 1) Privatize public education. 2) Break teachers’ unions 3) pay teachers’ even less than what they are making now. 4) Create an avenue for corporate interests to make money. 5)Make sure that teachers DON’T stay in the profession for long to avoid paying them for their experience.
The legislators in Ohio started at 50%, found that was useless, thought about 35%, ended up negotiating 42.5% – at least it is a scientific sounding rational number. About the only rational thing to come out of our education committees in the general assembly. Ohio under Kasich is racing to the bottom, just behind Walker in Wisconsin. Cuomo will do the same to New York.
I thought this was funny:
“The grades are meaningless to the students,” Cuomo said in a brief press gaggle following an Association for a Better New York breakfast event in New York City.”
He obviously needs more test marketing coaching.
http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/232746/cuomo-remember-teacher-evaluation-tests-dont-count-for-kids/
The state test scores are not meaningless in NYC where they are used as a significant part of the middle and high school admissions process across many schools. These scores weigh very heavily on these young kids and opting out isn’t really an option.
That’s true for 4th and 7th grade. It seems to me 3rd, 5th, 6th and 8th grade would be the perfect time to opt out but the culture of many of the schools favor testing. Is it just the competitive nature of NYC? Brooklyn had 95% of their students opt out. What do they know that the rest of us don’t?
The families I know think it’s important to take the tests each year as practice for when the tests really “count.”
It is time to hold the testing industry and legislators accountable. Do the test measure individual student achievement or teacher effectiveness? The test HAS to measure what it is being used for. Until the testing industry is on the record stating it measures teacher effectiveness it should not be used for that purpose.
Lynn Olson, “Study Questions Reliability of Single-Year Test-Score Gains,” Education Week, May 23, 2001
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2001/05/23/37brookings.h20.html
Sorry for the off topic, but another thing bothering me.
I constantly hear how private, parochial schools do better than public schools with less money. Now I read about a 12 year old dismissed from a Catholic middle school with 5 weeks left because she is fighting cancer in Michigan. And she was passing core classes. This brings new meaning to school accountability. I can’t believe this is true and my own church would do this. Wolverines, tell me there is more to the story?
“At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
In st. Louis, we are very restricted in our ability to talk about education….I looked up this story—and posted it on the post dispatch current affairs, with a mixed agenda….The Post Dispatch avoids topics like this, because there is a full scale charter led takeover in urban areas with which the pd is all aboard. I wanted to point out that this really is an example of why public schools are so important…not sure if there will be any reaction, but at least there are 45 comments in less than 4 hours in the crooks and liars account……I have a couple of professors in my family in Michigan….I try not to pester them….might make an exception.
Yes. I am reading other blogs and amazed at people twisting themselves mentally in knots trying to defend the school. The argument seems to be “private schools are allowed to claim they are superior by excluding children the schools feel are inferior.” The other argument is “private schools do a better job with less money than public schools, but can’t do a better job because private schools have less money”.
Looks like they reversed their position after public pressure – or at least until the media spotlight moves on. Makes me wonder how many times this happens without public exposure. This Battle Creek case should be thrown in the face of every person who claims private schools do a better job with less money than public schools. Now we know how.
Next September is after Tisch’s scheduled re-appointment (or not). This isn’t about a change of heart or a softening on Tisch’s part. She remains as bad as, if not worse, than Cuomo on teacher-destroying issues. What this delay allows is time to make this insane evaluation law much sharper and time to figure out how to keep the evaluation destructive to teachers in the face of opt-out. It’s basically allowing the enemy more time to think, analyze, formulate, and surmount hurdles. While some argue that the delay may allow the evaluation plan to die on the vine, quite the opposite is true. Cuomo and Tisch will double down again. This is legacy stuff for these plutocrats. Another budget battle next year could very well take an awful evaluation law and make it harsher. Lets assume this anyway.
I agree. They really believe in what they are doing. They will hope that the grassroots parents will get tired and next year will have fewer opting out.
Just passing along information I have……Tisch was schedule to speak at the Scarsdale Library in the Scot Room Thursday, April 30th at 7:30. Because of the expected overflow, the library has moved the meeting with Tisch, Amy Paulin, and Scarsdale’s superintendent to the Scarsdale, NY H.S. Same day and time.
Advertisement for this meeting is basically word of mouth, but you can call or search online for some information.
NYSUT should now come out with guns ablazin’. Why should teachers’ evaluations be based on tests which are MEANINGLESS as stated by the Governor? It is unethical, unfair and ludicrous. Why would any union consent to have their members rated on such a scale? Why would taxpayers condone paying millions of dollars for meaningless tests? Why should people’s children be used as guinea pigs for billion dollar companies? WHY are the tests meaningless, Mr. Cuomo? On WHAT do you base this statement? I really want to know. An individual CANNOT be rated, graded, and evaluated on what other people do – especially children. I’ve had it. We must stand up and speak the TRUTH to this power.
Headlines across NYS should read:
“CUOMO DECLARES COMMON CORE TESTS “MEANINGLESS”
You betcha!
So why isn’t that the headline being splashed across all of the major newspapers in NY?
Is it not news worthy?
And so, Tisch decides to kick the can down the road.
Too bad she didn’t read the can label:
“Cuomo’s Toxic Soup”
Ingredients: Poisonous educational policies
How to Prepare:
1) Ignore the advice of experts in the field
2) Ignore the voices of 400,000 parents
3) Heat on political stovetop until boiling
4) Force feeding required
Here’s the analogy I used yesterday:
Imagine you are driving down the road and your car starts to make an odd noise..then you feel it begin to shudder….. You drive on but next see smoke pouring out of the hood then sparks ….then a wheel spins off, rolling alongside you.
What would you do? Most logical human beings would have stopped a long time before. Pulled over, gotten out. Wouldn’t you make sure your passengers are safe, especially if those passengers are your kids?
But, no, not Merryl Tish who plans to keep on driving her “broken car” of corporate school destruction, hoping that going yet another year “down the road” will make it all okay.
It’s time to STOP NOW. Declare a moratorium on high stakes testing and the new APPR process as well as the implementation of the “common core” in New York State.
Tisch must go. And, lawmakers who want to “praise her” for just postponing her lunatic ideas should be voted out at the first opportunity, too.
It’s time that a new Moreland Commission of sorts be created, this time by honest members of the New York State Legislature. It’s task: to truly investigate the foul stench of Governor Cuomo’s power-mad administration. Anything less than that is just more cover up and worthless hot air..
The subject of VAM reminds me of the blueberry story. http://www.jamievollmer.com/blueberries
It is interesting that such models are being adopted in these United Sates. The place where plurality/democracy ought to permeate every sphere of life, at least in theory. Perhaps, this is all about money and making sure that the pot is up for grabs. In other words competition for money becomes the chief end and children just the means to get there. Lord help us!
And not only does Cuomo come out and say CC tests are MEANINGLESS, but what kind of journalists do we have that NO ONE will question him on what he said!!!! WHY are the CC tests meaningless???
Because they never could have sold them if they told parents the tests would be used to make decisions about students. It’s not like the SAT. They’re in 3rd grade.
That’s why the tests have to be both hugely important and meaningless.
I don’t think they should guarantee that. It’ll come back to bite them when the tests devour everything in their path.
They’re making this oddly legalistic distinction. In Ohio they’re even using the phrase “hold harmless”. They will hold students harmless on these tests.
“The sad part of this drama is that no one ever refers to research.” It is irresponsible and unjust to allow teachers’ careers to hang in the balance of junk science. The whole reform agenda is a house of cards, none of which is based on research. Cuomo is trying to raliroad teachers with VAM, a false formula, using a dart board to determine how much he can VAM them. Of course, VAM is based on the fallacy that the tests based on the CCSS are valid, which, of course, they are not. We have a test with questionable validity and a rigged cut score, designed to fail about 2/3 of the students. Standardized tests have almost no diagnostic value so, of course, we are wasting days and days of instructional time because the company that owns the tests have lobbied for that right. The whole “reform” movement has no basis in fact. Where is all the research supporting the value of charter schools and vouchers? I haven’t seen any that would support the kind of investment this country insists on making because the whole “reform” agenda is political, not educational. Now more than ever, it is about making money and using public money as a tax shelter for the wealthy.
If we continue on this road to nowhere, the only accomplishment will be more disruption and chaos in the lives of our poorest students, their teachers and school communities. No other major country is this blind, ignorant or greedy.
Research, science and reason itself have become irrelevant for the leaders of our country, not just on education, but on a whole host of issues.
The majority party in Congress thinks climate change is a hoax, for goodness sakes. And both parties have allowed an out of control (and parasitic) financial system to continue to set the rules and do as they please.
Money rule$.
Unfortunately for the rest of us, our leaders can only ignore science so long before their virtual reality implodes taking everything and everyone down with it.
I think parents, students and teachers are tired of a system that marginalizes them and, in the case of teachers, assaults and blames them. This whole “reform” is not an organic movement coming from the stakeholders within the system. It is a movement funded by the 1%, based on false assertions and ideology, designed to destroy public education. The “reform” is a false movement led by those that want to hide their motives, agenda and corruption. In this false reform plan, students are products to be bought and sold, not valued as future voters that must make informed decisions. The heart of democracy under attack.
I am understanding now that there really is no extension of the November 16, 2015 deadline. Tisch stated yesterday that it would only be for approved hardships and not a “blanket” for all districts.
Why no integrity in journalism? Because apathetic Americans don’t demand it. We care more about celebrities than important issues.The chickens are coming home to roost. Parents and teachers have been sheepish or Flamingo-ish for too long. So now the wolf sees us as easy pickens. if parents and teachers want to be taken seriously, we have to continue the fight and repeatedly call out our elected officials and then hurt the enabling politicians on Election Day. How many parents and teachers couldn’t be bothered to vote last November when we could have ousted Cuomo? We have no to blame except ourselves.
Ahhh, it seems that the pressure and intense reactions all across the state have taken effect. Thanks to NYSAPE, LIOO, SOS, and every other local organization or group of parents and teachers who have fought back.
Save Our Schools, United Opt Out National, and NPE have been at this for a long time and the effects, as Diane said 2 years ago, mean ” We are winning.”
The ASA research on VAM has been there and we have continuously used it as a talking point. Soon, that too will have its effect.
We now have strength in numbers. We now have our own bipartisan teams of politicians. We will soon pull back the curtain and expose the Wizard of Albany For who he is.
The old get old, and the young get stronger.
May take a week, and it may take longer.
They got the gun$, but we got the numbers.
Gonna win yeah, we’re taking over.
Come on!
Jim Morrison
The owner of this blog has said it before—
The good guys don’t always win. But we are going to win this one.
“I reject that mind-set.” [Michelle Rhee]
But we knew she was going to say that before she even said it…
😎
This eval will never happen–look how much has just transpired in a few days, let alone on over a year from now. Furthermore, why should principals and supervisors cede 85% of their authority to “meaningless” test scores and outside observers? The common core tests have just been rendered a farce–by the very governor who implemented them! NO MORE TESTS–let’s hold LEGISLATORS accountable for creating equal school environments, smaller class size and meaningful daycare, pre-k and afterschool programs. Now we know there IS money, after all!
Its dead in the water! Not even Cuomo will try CPR.
It is not over. It has just begun. Wait until when you get to where we are in Newark.
Conditions in Newark sound vey difficult.
That is the goal of the fake evaluations. He wants to hold 85% of the cards in his hands so he can steamroll over local school authority that actually knows what the teachers are doing and contributing. His plan will allow him to fire most of the teachers in poor schools, a significant number of special education, ESL and bilingual teachers and perhaps other compensatory education teachers as well He’ll have carte blanche to clean house and destroy teachers’ careers and put many public schools in free fall.
Wait, how can the tests simultaneously be “meaningless” and a vehicle for “the civil rights movement of our time?”
It’s a wonder the heads of the so-called reformers don’t explode, given the amount of Doublethink they must maintain.
Then again, all that Gates/Broad/Walton/Hedge Fund money must make it easier to just read the script you’ve been given, and let Other People’s Children deal with the consequences.
Cuomo et. al. are apparently immune to cognitive dissonance, i. e. doublethink.
If you don’t have a brain, Double- (or even Single-) think is not an issue.
Oh, our Governor has a brain, alright, but it’s a reptilian one, so it only functions in the realm of power-acquisition and appetite-satisfaction .
Thanks for the correction.
If you will allow me to revise
“If you don’t have a pre-frontal cortex, Double- (or even Single-) think is not an issue”
What happened to results were to be based on growth, not achievement? I thought we were supposed to help kids grow as much as they could individually, while excluding factors out of our control that affect test scores like poverty etc? Weird I see no talk of the original promises of that anywhere.
“The Testing” by David Coleman
Details of contemporary Common Core life are embroidered upon a description of an annual ritual known as “the Testing”. In a large state of about 3,000,000 students, the reformers are in an excited yet nervous mood on April 14. Children gather number 2 pencils as the adult teacher-folk assemble for their annual event, which in the local tradition is practiced to ensure “college and career readiness” (The newer administrative-folk are still holding to the old proverb: “Testing before June, data be heavy soon”), though there are some rumors that nearby communities are talking about giving up the Testing.
The story ends as children are still tested to death while parents bemoan the unfairness of the situation.
It’s time to re-write this story.
The tests are just the way and means to be used to get rid of teachers and close schools so Cuomo and his Corporate Vultures can start more dir profit schools….They are raising the teachers ratings percentage scores higher to compensate because of the enormous number of students who refuse to take the test…They are using the test as their excuse to fire teachers and closing more schools…CUOMO and Tisch could care less about these tests except for high failure rates as the end results and they know these tests were already designed to fail so they can blame the teachers and accomplish their agenda. If all the students refused to take the tests they would have to come up with a different scheme to fire teachers and close schools. ..It is an out an out dispicable scam..and I cannot believe they have all gotten away with it to this point…and nobody is fighting back to end this travesty..
Now that testing is done, I worry whether parents will still consider this topic important? Until the next time it rolls around, that is.
We are starting on round two on Monday in New Jersey.
The corporate reformers really believe in what they are doing. Education, they believe, is inefficient, with high costs and poor performance. Quantitative analysis and correction is the answer, they think. So they are more inclined to believe an equation written down by an economist (no matter how flawed) than anything thousands of teachers or parents can say.
They also believe in the enormous amount of money they are making off of the public teat.
More like a score that is 10% based on real numbers, 40% based on opinion, and 50% based on the spin of a casino wheel.
The tests are unfair. They are developmentally inappropriate therefore no teacher should be held accountable for the scoring on these particular tests. The authors of the test need to go back to the drawing board and consult with child development experts. Do they have enough humility to do this?
Even if they were developmentally appropriate, they should NOT be used to evaluate teachers. This is the purpose for which tests are intended.
sorry – NOT
I think it’s funny/sad that “reformers” say/”think” that the learning gap can be CLOSED by new “standards”/testing when, in fact, these only continue to EXPOSE such gaps.
Bloomberg caused NYC schools immeasurable harm, creating a quagmire for parents and students alike in applying to all levels of school. I cannot even imagine the logistical nightmare of taking younger kids to school all over the city before work! Sadly, even in smaller school settings, class size remains large all too often, and these students are left with FEWER resources in subdivided buildings–no gyms or libraries, let alone teams!
I’d like to see some of these smaller “Humpty Dumpty” buildings “put back together again”–if possible. Saved money from fewer administrators could be used for more books, librarians, counselors and teachers!
I have a suggestion. How about Cuomo and anyone else that proposes these actions teach a class of 30, many second language learners, many living in poverty, many not having proper nourishment and many no access to good health care in the classroom?
They should have to do that for at least 1 week. Then, perhaps they can continue to speak on this topic.
Many with illiterate parent who cannot help them with school work.
“What I don’t think has been adequately communicated is, we passed a
law that stops the use of the grades on the test for the student. So the
grades are meaningless to the student.”-Andrew Cuomo
So……WHY is the state administering this very expensive, non-standardized, non-diagnostic test to our students to begin with? Why are they agreeing to multi-million dollar contracts with Pearson and wasting taxpayer money? WHY are they administering an assessment that tells us nothing about the child and then using it to evaluate teachers?
Logic indicates that maybe the state needs to STOP spending its money on tests that really are being used to evaluate teachers ( a purpose for which they were not created). Instead, why not do the smart thing and have superintendents, teachers and principals across the state and come together to select assessments that are truly diagnostic and inform instruction. They simply need to stop looking at tests created for children and using them for inappropriate purposes. This gotcha system of testing was never intended for the children to begin with. Rather, our children are pawns in a corporate war on unions and teachers and public education.
Careful Cuomo, your Freudian slip is showing.
Great observations. You have pulled back the curtain to reveal the puny little man with his twisted intentions behind the wizard.
“your Freudian slip is showing”, good one.
Cuomo has a tendency to create a policy and then get angry when it’s not the outcome he expects. He and Tisch together created the first evaluation. He didn’t like the results. He now created another and his constituents out smarted him. He did the same with the Moreland Commission. He is the most mercurial, dimwitted, high-maintence governor in the history of the United States. I don’t know how much more New Yorkers are going to tolerate until he implodes.
Cuomo was angry that “almost every teacher was rated effective or highly effective.” That means two things:
1. The teachers are trained professionals who work hard and care about their students.
2. The principals who are observing these teachers understand #1 and are not unduly influenced by the political pressure being put on them.
Too bad that isn’t happening in all states. It is another form of rebellion against the current education “reforms.”
It also means that supervisors value their staff, want to work WITH them and retain them, understanding the difficulties that brand new teachers encounter. Furthermore, positive ratings PRIOR to mandatory uses of capricious and unpredictable scores of tests created by others offered some protection against these unfair, ludicrous practices.
I posted this in another thread but I think it’s pertinent to this discussion, too.
Well, Fred LeBrun of the Albany TImes Union is at it again today pointing out the strength of the opt-out movement and Cuomo’s comment that the “tests are MEANINGLESS.” He also points out that Pearson’s 5 year contract with NYS is coming up for renewal this summer. I can’t wait to see what happens with that since Cuomo says their tests are meaningless. Will taxpayers have to foot the bill for these meaningless tests again??????
http://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-local/article/LeBrun-Welcome-to-New-York-the-state-of-6224177.php
What is the passing score for the tests in NY and how isit determined?
There is a score 1-4 whatever that means. The only information teachers and schools get is a number 4 being the highest but what does 1-3 mean, nobody knows. The schools get this in the middle of the summer. Teachers have a gag order not to discuss the tests. I heard teachers aren’t even allowed to see the test, sounds fishy. Some teachers are breaking this order and are secretly after the tests starting to leak out questions to show how ridiculous it is. Pearson the test maker who is making a fortune on these tests fired back because they want to keep the public in the dark. Something doesn’t smell right.