A reader writes:
“I’m a special education teacher in New Mexico and I took this year off teaching, for medical reasons. The choice was made easier by the new teacher evaluations. Since my students have significant disabilities, they can not take the state tests. 50% of my evaluation would then be based on how the regular education students, who I do not teach, scored at our school. 25% of my evaluation would be based on my principal’s view of how I contributed to that score (God knows how that we be, since I do not provide instruction to any of the students who take the test). So 75% of my yearly evaluation would have been based on test scores of students that receive no instruction from me. How could this possibly be an effective indicator of student/teacher performance in my classroom?
“All this does is provide an incentive for teachers to work with the wealthiest, highest performing schools, while disincentivizing teachers from working with special needs students or in high risk or low income settings.
“I have no problem with being evaluated or critiqued as a professional, but it needs to be done with some semblance of common sense.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I am a 27 year veteran art teacher, and I will be evaluated on the average ELA and Living Environment exam results for my entire school, 4/5 of whom I’ve never taught.
Is anyone in NYC fighting this?
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Another strategy to prove teacher incompetence so public schools can be disgraced. Privatized education is the goal, with for-profit school proponents licking their chops.
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I am seeking an attorney in CT to handle a class-action lawsuit over this issue. I had one but he dropped out.
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Dont give up. This non-sensical policy can damage reputations, careers, and livliehoods.
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Don’t worry. I will not give this up! We here in CT are also being evaluated not only on student performance but on parent attendance at school open-houses. There is something immoral about being evaluated on the performances of others. Corporate executives may state that they are evaluated based on the production of their workers, but the workers are employees, not students and certainly not students’ parents!
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You’re right, Bill. CEOs should be evaluated on the behavior of their customers. I can imagine a myriad of unfortunate scenarios that CEOs would like to disavow. There is always a hapless underling to blame. The buck never quite seems to get to the top guys.
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I love your comment! Can you imagine the CEO who is evaluated upon whether or not a given customer buys his product?
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…or on whether or not a customer misuses his product.
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NYS Teacher,
The entire purpose of this forced march is to destroy teaching as a career, and lower the expenses of providing a McEducation to children of the proles.
Viewed that way, it makes far too much sense.
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Mike
Didnt anyone ever tell you not to reveal the truth to a fellow poster while he is deep in supression.
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So if teachers are evaluated based on the school’s overall performance or the number of parents who come to Open House (just wow), then won’t all teachers pretty much have the same score?
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It seems to be the logical outcome.
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Only some teachers (typically special education or special area teachers) are evaluated on math and/or ELA scores. In NY teachers who do not teach CCSS aligned assessments had to write their own formative (pre) and summative (post) tests. We have re-defined *inequity*
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I imagine people from the future looking back and saying, “How did they get away with such ludicrous and outrageous behavior?”
Re evaluations, let’s say I’m a math teacher whose stu take a Common Core test. Does that mean I don’t have to have open house attendance count against me?
Here in Dallas, we’ve been out a couple of days due to ice. When we get back, elementary teachers are supposed to give their kids individual “final exams” in PE, music, etc. by Dec. 20th. Except we just lost 2 days.
But without those all-important individual PE tests completed by kindergartners, the whole Pay for Performance scheme being dragged in by Mike Miles and crammed down the throats of taxpayers won’t be operational.
They are employing kids without paying them. The kids must complete a job so the teacher can be evaluated. The tests are not diagnostic or in any way helpful to the kids.
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Where are the Unions on this? How can this be sanctioned? Isn’t the whole point of Unions to keep things like this from happening? I am shocked this is just accepted. I used to think the accusations about people hating teachers were dramatic but I am starting to think yes, teachers are very much hated. Then after this nonsenseical way of evaluating, some states are printing the results in the Paper? No other profession has this sort of evaluation, Nurses, Doctors, Police, Private sector, no one.
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OK so the unions take some of your money and give it to a PAC who supports the election of people who support these programs.
Your union is using your money to do this to you.
Stop giving your Union your money to give to PACs until they support what you want.
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In many states the power of the unions has been destroyed due to right to work and other such laws. In michigan in the last few years we have right to work, emergency managers, and my personal favorite, no retroactive pay if your contract is settled after it has expired. In my district we haven’t had a contract since June, and the district saves tens of thousands of dollars a day by dragging their feet. What incentive do they have to settle with us? It’s ridiculous.
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In Maryland, most of the NEA affiliates sign onto this, excepting Frederick and Montgomery counties. (In Maryland, there are 24 school districts-23 counties, 1 Baltimore City).
But even though MoCO and Fred. didn’t sign onto Maryland’s RTTT, their teachers will be evaluated this way.
The Prince George’s County Education Association was a active and vocal supporter of this. The current president believes that all teachers should be evaluated by test scores. PGCEA sees this as necessary in order to get better pay for PGCPS teachers.
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NYSUT sold out its membership when they signed onto the APPR piece. A mistake that is subverting our role as professional educators and ruining the professional lives of countless teachers across the state.
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“I have no problem with being evaluated or critiqued as a professional, but it needs to be done with some semblance of common sense.”
If common sense were involved, the whole evaluation package would not have been developed this way. The sole objective is to destroy public education. We have seen that the international test scores are not all that important is terms of a nation’s economic and entrepreneurial development. They are simply a lever to pry the education system open so the big money people can suck up more of the taxes supporting education.
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Its just like the gold rush. Seventy five million students K -12 + college. Do math, read it and weep.
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The object is not to destroy public education, but rather to make it a source of income/cash flow for the tech industry.
If you don’t get want you want, just buy new products.
With the education system out of the teachers hands it will be impossible to recover, it will be possible to buy more products. ;{
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Isn’t it amazing that (at least here in Hartford) all of the new products, ranging from textbooks, to teacher evaluation systems, to online grade book software, comes from Pearson (the same folks who are bringing Common Core to your district!).
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It’s sad to see a system where teachers feel like some of the kids in the district are “my kids” and some are “not my kids”. That’s probably the first thing that should be fixed.
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Michael Roush, I don’t think you understand this post. The teacher is not saying “these are not my kids.” She is saying that it is unfair to evaluate her performance as a teacher based on the test scores of students she never taught. You disagree?
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Michael,
Can’t you read? Honestly, your response is the same kind of distortion employed by the corporate education reform cabal. All she said was that she did not appreciate being evaluated based on the performances of students whom she has not taught and doesn’t know. I do not appreciate it either. But, I love my students regardless of ability, unlike the cabal mentioned above.
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Michael
Imagine if you were a medical doctor and you were being sued for malpractice, only to find out that the plaintiff was not your patient.
That’s not sad, that is TOO STUPID for any rational person to even process. Help! I’ve been dragged down the rabbit hole and I cant get out.
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Or, as an Orthopedist, you were being evaluated on an Obstetrician’s rate of delivering healthy babies. You have nothing to do with Obstetrics, but that is how you are being evaluated.
Are there any attorneys out there who would be willing to handle this class action lawsuit?
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Bill
When I explain our APPR policy to well educated non-educators they stare at me in disbelief. And when I’m done pointing out all of the glaring flaws, inconsistencies, and inequities, I am convinced that they truly don’t believe me. I am further convinced that a major piece of the reformer plan was to develop a teacher evaluation system so unbelievably absurd that no one outside of the schools would actually believe it. This may be the reason that no class action suit has been filed as of yet. No self respecting attorney could believe it so why would they litigate it?
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I understand. But, there has to be at least one attorney out there who will look at the documents. It’s all right there in teachscape. But, attorney after attorney keeps turning me down without looking t the primary documents. So, given the nation-wide scope of this blog, if there is an attorney out there who is licensed in CT who would like to sit down and read the evaluation documents with me, please let me know!
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This is a problem in NYC also. The decisions for which students’ scores will count toward my teacher evaluation (as a special education teacher) is not aligned with what and who I actually teach. Just another reason to feel I have no control over my eval.
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I am an art teacher as well. Where I work now my evaluation score is based on how well the students do on math and english test scores. I also worked in another district where incentive pay (for an extra 30 hours put in) was based on how well the students did on math scores. I DO NOT TEACH MATH except how in I incorporate it into art. Because the kids did not do well I lost 20% of the pay I deserved for an extra 30 hours of work. Talk about unfair!!! I am not against assessments but lets get real here about what we are assessing and how we assess it!
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Total insanity. How can this be legal?
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On a continued thought, we used to revered by other countries about how many creative people our education system produced. Then we were compelled to compete with China on math and science test scores. Now look where it got us!
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Performance evaluations based upon test scores of children you haven’t taught, involving tests for which curriculum has not been provided.
Where does the incompetence end and the malice begin?
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Excellent.
Small edit, if I may ” involving secret and flawed tests for which….”
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Beginning to think this was complete competence with a goal of complete malice.
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One hope is that the incompetence (and over-the-top arrogance) of the so-called reformers interferes with their (class-based) malice, which is their primary motivation.
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The effects of CC cannot be judged on anything or anyone until our kindergarteners become seniors. The problem is that solid studies take time. Goes to show that reformers don’t know anything about research since they have decided to involve the entire country of kids and teachers without consideration to variables involved. This ill-conceived education reform movement needs to be scraped immediately.
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This is an article about Florida from earlier this year: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/06/16/new-florida-law-teachers-cant-be-evaluated-on-students-they-dont-have/
Seems there is precedence for this to go away, and for litigation if it doesn’t. In Pennsylvania, we will soon be evaluated by school data, which could include students I have never met. Makes me very nervous. Of course, as an ELL teacher, I am already worse off than some. My students do learn, but they certainly are not on grade level.
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