Governor Andrew Cuomo was very disappointed when only 1% of teachers were found “ineffective” in their state ratings. He demanded tougher evaluations, using the “value-added model” whose validity has been questioned by many research groups, including the American Statistical Association, the American Education Research Association, and the National Academy of Education.
In this post, high school principal Carol Burris reports that the chairperson of the state Board of Regents, Merryl Tisch, responded to Governor Cuomo’s piqué by offering to double the importance of test scores in teacher evaluations.
Burris cites the example of fourth grade teacher Sheri Lederman, who was rated highly effective one year, then ineffective the next year. Her students performed twice as well as the state average–both years. Lederman is suing the state.
Burris writes:
“Sheri Lederman, is a gifted and beloved fourth-grade teacher in Great Neck, New York. Her principal adores her and relies on her to help mentor her colleagues. Over twice as many of her students have met the state standard than the average percentage for the rest of the state. Sheri is also a scholar. She received the 2012 H. Alan Robinson Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation award for her research on how 10-year-olds learn science. Yet her growth score based on the results of student Common Core standardized tests found her to be an “ineffective” teacher.
“Under the present teacher evaluation system in New York, known as APPR (Annual Professional Performance Review), she is not in danger of losing her job. She was rated effective overall due to the points she received on the local measure of her students’ achievement, combined with those based on the observation of her teaching. But that will change if Chancellor Merryl Tisch has her way. Sheri would be rated ineffective overall, and one more such rating would get her fired.
“The short version of what she [Tisch] wants to do now is this—double down on test scores and strip away the power of local school boards to negotiate the majority of the evaluation plan. Tisch would get rid of the locally selected measures of achievement, which now comprise 20 percent of the evaluation, and double the state test score portion, to 40 percent. She also recommends that the score ranges for the observation process be taken out of the hands of local districts, and be determined by Albany instead. Dr. Lederman, start packing up. Merryl Tisch and Andrew Cuomo, whom you have never met, know your talents better than your local school board, your principal and the parents of the children you teach.”
We will watch Sheri Lederman’s lawsuit. How can the state justify rating her “ineffective” based on her students’ outstanding test scores? The formula makes no sense.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How and when can we get rid of Tisch?
Some judge will be paid off. I don’t mean to be cynical but I think there was a lawsuit in Florida where the judge said the formula was unfair but was law.
Nice job Karen, Mulgrew and Randi in leading 600,000 people who have devoted their lives to teaching to the slaughter and for what, oh yeah, that b.s excuse, “a seat at the table!”
” double down on test score”? No, double down on insanity. What is there to discuss? Cuomo and Tisch are out of control. The more I read about NYS, the more I fantasize that there will be a cavalry -the state legislature- that comes to the rescue of kids, teachers and and school.
Don’t fantasize.
Contact your state elected officials and threaten that you will not vote for them unless they piushback against Tisch and Cuomo.
Form or join coalition groups that will do the same. We must use our democratic machinery the system to change the gestalt.
There is no other way other than civil unrest, and that should not be a choice or a consequence.
Robert, no doubt you ‘speak’ sense. This situation cries out for substantial state and local union pressures to be exerted pressure on the legislature ( who have their own ‘fish to fry’ with Cuomo), in addition to voter lobbying.
Voting is rigged and the Districts are gerrymandered. You have the illusion of choice however the choices have been and will be made for you. Save your call it won’t do anything. People need to man up and resort to drastic and bold extremes and stop playing nice will these evil individuals.
Would you like me to contact Christie, Booker, Ruiz?
Christie and Booker brought Anderson to Newark.
Ruiz authored the new tenure law, whereby teachers may be brought up on tenure charges after two years of partially effective evaluations.
Maybe Obama would like to hear from me?
Both of you, knock it off.
There are other officials to contact beside Corey Booker, Ruiz, and Christie, and violence should not be a resort.
Let’s please take a deep breath and use the tools already well afforded to us.
Don’t let your cynicism weaken your strengths. I am the king of bitter, curmudgeonly pessimism and misanthropy, but even I can sense realistic hope and change.
I am generally not at all fond of homo sapien, but he and she are capable of the worst and the best and have quite a bit of free will.
Let’s band together.
Have you made your donation to NPE? I am doing so soon . . . .
Robert,
I am serious. Is there anybody for me to contact? I am EWPS working outside of my certification, which by the way is illegal. Four hundred EWPS in Newark are working in various capacities while TFA and uncertified others are running all over the place. This is not cynicism. It is my reality.
Today’s World has allowed the VAM and SGP to become the reformers “witch cake”!
How can we continue to let this happen when everyone who knows anything about Statistics says that this should not be used for high stakes decisions?
The reformers continue to lie to the Public about Common Core, Charters and VAM. When will the masses finally come to their senses and say enough?
Great analogy.
“The Witch Cake”
The VAMmers make
A witch’s cake
To spot a witch
From data rich
The teacher’s blamed
In public shamed
And finally fired
As was desired
This is the nightmare scenario for NY State teachers. It’s right here. This will be the whole game. There are no more questions (there haven’t been for some time actually) about what Cuomo, Tisch etc. want to do. Let it be said plainly: if they get what they want, our careers….you know, long term stable employment doing what we trained to do…will be over.
The only response now is “NO TO ALL OF IT.” No negotiating. No conversations. No promises. No backroom deals. Any negotiating here will be a defeat for us. I know a few things: 1) NYSUT leadership is overwhelmed and not really up to this. They are scared, scatterbrained, confused, not particularly well-read, and wildly outmatched. (Strong words and I would LOVE to be proved wrong.) 2) Like many who are scatterbrained, confused, and under-aware, they are awestruck at power and long to be near it. 3) NYSUT leadership is not sophisticated and cannot think tragically (hence our being in this predicament in the first place.) Nobody at NYSUT can creatively imagine problems, failures, or roadblocks. 4) Conversely nobody at NYSUT is sophisticated enough to think creatively about opposition and ways to say no and stand ground and win.
Needless to say, the generals on our side of this match are not the A-squad. This is and will probably prove to be a huge decisive factor. What they then need is for us to do some thinking for them….however that may look. Perhaps a conversation. Perhaps screaming. Perhaps turning our back to them and doing this without them. I don’t know. Some places to start however in terms of how to say no and mean it:
1) build partnerships, as awful as it sounds (on many districts Admin is so much a part of all the problems I know), with the Principals and admin groups…the people that will have to carry out the new APPR upon us. Both should make a simple statement: whatever NYS (Cuomo, Regents, etc) say the new APPR is, well, we simply won’t do it. It’s gone on long enough this vilification of teachers, and as administrators and teachers, we refuse to implement any new draconian APPR that seems to find more teachers I effective. No more. Do what you want but none of us will be participating. Teachers or admin. Admin needs to say they won’t take part on ethical grounds in any new APPR as well as teachers. State Ed does not have the manpower to implement any APPR without admin and yes, consent of teachers. No all the way around.
2) Be willing and plan to take part in labor actions not seen in many decades. On any given day the entire apparatus of the state education system requires teachers to be present in classrooms. There is power there.
Anyhow, this will be a defeat the moment we hear that NYSUT leadership is trying to sit at the table and take part in negotiating this. That’s like a condemned person wanting to help negotiate the arrangement of seats at their execution. If we don’t hear a resounding “NO TO ALL OF IT” from NYSUT, we are through and should honestly start job searching.
Amen!
NYSUT & the UFT ARE USELESS! Too many colleagues are oblivious and think this won’t happen. I can’t believe their ignorance!
The parent opt out movement is projected to reach over 10% this spring. There is a tipping point at which the tests scores are officially invalidated. I have heard conflicting answers to this question. By and large, parents do not want to see their children’s teachers dismissed. They may be our best ally at this point. If NYSUT rolls over on this we should demand a refund on our dues.
I don’t know that any plan that has to rely on the backbone of district administrators has potential. Most NYS administrators I have known got there by kissing tail and supporting the “party line.”
Without doubt. By and large school admin is a huge problem for us on a daily level. Some are enlightened. Most are like bosses and middle-management anywhere else….pretty impressed with neo-corporate lingo and surviving on the small endorphin rushes of power that they get by toying around with teachers. Generally not the kind of folk who bring and create meaning in their lives or others….just low-grade, less sophisticated versions of corporate middle managers. That said, from a strategic point of view they are the ones who have to carry out much of the APPR and are therefore the moving part to focus on. Not bags of hope there. Failing that, teachers MUST say no in every possible way. Refuse to be judged. Refuse to give or proctor tests. Refuse to be observed…stand silently in classroom, whatever. They can’t 3020a everyone. They can’t 3020a even close to alot of us! The apparatus for this can be over stressed very quickly. Let it.
Bravo, unfortunately. Very well said.
NYSTEACHER,
You are correct in that this is a “labor” battle and that the “labor leaders” are soft white underbellied toadies to “management”. Chicken shits all of them, worse than the chicken shit administrators who know this crap testing and evaluation scheme is wrong but continue to implement it.
But you are wrong in stating:
“Edu-babble, even when it’s spot on and on our side, is tiring after awhile.”
The edudeformers know that if one “tells a big enough lie long enough it becomes ‘true'”. Those of us fighting on the anti-edudeformer side need to take heed of that saying and continue to shout out the “edu-babble” TRUTHS louder and longer and with more intensity than what the edudeformers do with their falsehood and lies.
You are right of course. I was being a bit of a childish snot by saying that….expressing my frustration that no matter how hard our side smacks down the ideas of the reformers, they continue to move ahead, double-down, gain traction, and win. Ex. VAM’s renewed life in NY via Cuomo and Tisch in the last few days. At some point there will need to be a scrappy fight though. Or not. Sorry for the snottiness and thank you for calling it out.
He was interested in that only 1% of teachers failed.
Would it not have been MORE interesting had he focused that 99% passed?
The focus has been on getting rid of those incompetent teachers. Perhaps understandable – to a point BUT why not focus on what is working, who are those who spend the time to get better.
Guess that negative people focus on negativity. What kind of philosophy is that?
This is a political/economic attack by Cuomo. Nothing to do with better teaching and learning.
Exactly. Exactly. That’s why we need to stop with all the stuff about teaching and learning. Everyone with half a brain cell knows what’s best there, and all those things are on organize teacher’s side. This is a labor fight. This is about us having a job or not. Edu-babble, even when it’s spot on and on our side, is tiring after awhile. As teachers we should simply say that our job, at the base level, is to make learners susceptible to the ideas of the enlightenment. Period. Thats what we do. End of story. This isn’t about any of that though. Proving the other side wrong via dialog, debate, and all that will do nothing because the other side doesn’t really care. So we better button up and put on our boots because this is about LABOR! Period.
Tisch, Cuomo, and their puppets have launched a campaign to destabilize and churn the teaching workforce by firing an arbitrary number of teachers. They will do so by what is called mathematical intimidation, under the “cover” of totally unreliable, invalid measures, including VAM, but not limited to that measure.
Tisch, Cuomo, and their puppets are following a “workforce management” scheme promoted by USDE’s continuing insistence on the use of VAM and other measures known to be invalid and reliable including student learning objectives with targets for learning, observation protocols, and ideologically skewed student surveys that favor direct instruction.
The absurdity of these “worst practices,” were brought to new heights by six economists/statisticians brought together in 2011 at the Brookings Institution. These number crunchers, like Tisch and Cuomo, think VAM (value-added) scores should be used to determine the most effective teachers, irrespective of the subjects and grade-levels they teach.
The drunk-on-numbers statisticians who wrote this Brookings report assume that value-added scores are so highly correlated with “non-value added” measures that employment decisions for all teachers can be based on the performance of teachers with value-added scores.
Under this system, all teachers could still have a composite evaluation based on multiple measures such as end of course test scores, observations, and student surveys…but why bother? The statisticians propose that the teachers with VAM scores should determine the employment fate of all teachers, including the estimated 70% who do not have such scores. How is this absurd conclusion reached?
Here is the magical thinking: “For example, we would assume that the correlation between observationally-based ratings of teachers and value-added (scores) in math would be the same in history, where value-added measures are not available.”
In other words, the statisticians freely invent (impute) a missing metric for the history teacher by assuming a math teacher’s rating on a classroom observation protocol can be used as a substitute for the history teacher’s missing value-added score.
Those mile-long and mile-high hops, skips, and inferential leaps are just the beginning of a larger plan that would make all teacher evaluations “comparable” without any distinctions in grade level, or subject, or conditions under which teachers work. Truly, truly, these statisticians believe one-size-fits-all or almost all (see next paragraph).
The Brookings policy articulates principles for dismissing up to 25% of teachers in a district, on the assumption that this action plan would increase test scores and be “fair” to every teacher. The only exception to this formula might be for teachers of exceptional children.
So, for these data-busters and metric hucksters, the main reason to fire 25% of teachers is to raise test scores. Any convoluted numbers-driven plan that raises test scores that is justified.
Of course, the puppets of Tisch and Cuomo don’t even care about reasoning—absurd or not.
Officials who follow these dictates have declared that teachers in the state of New York are and should be subjected to unfair labor practices.
If the teacher unions in this state fail to act on these methods of evaluation… methods that do not permit judgments at the local and school level…then they are part of the problem.
I hope the lawsuits proliferate and that unions get involved in stopping this arbitrary and capricious policy. A rule is arbitrary if it is not supported by logic or the necessary facts; a rule is capricious if it is adopted without thought or reason or is irrational. Both attributes are hallmarks of an abuse of power.
cited absurdities from http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2011/04/26-evaluating-teachers Croft, M., Glazerman, S., Goldhaber, D., Loeb, S., Raudenbush, S.,Staiger, D., & Whitehurst, G.R. (2011). Passing Muster: Evaluating Teacher Evaluation Systems The Brookings Brown Center Task Group on Teacher Quality, Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. (Correlation, Para 5)
Has the use of VAM withstood any legal challenge? hard to believe it would stand up in a court of law.
I agree that the future should be in the courts, and I am not a litigious person. When the state wants to fire about a quarter of the teachers, I think it is time for the union leaders to step up and defend the membership. NYSUT members must push for the union to address these attacks in the courts. Even the OCR could be in involved in a career that is 75% female.
“For example, we would assume that the correlation between observationally-based ratings of teachers and value-added (scores) in math would be the same in history, where value-added measures are not available.”
That’s a very curious statement, and not only because it indicates a willingness and even desire to take a completely unscientific approach: assuming things without evidence.
But even if assuming that “observationally-based ratings of teachers” are a reliable proxy for VAM is actually valid — which I seriously doubt, given the extreme volatility of VAM scores (from year to year and model to model), but let’s suppose they are for argument’s sake — of what real “value” is VAM as an independent measurement if it is just “calculated’ from another measure?
Answer: absolutely none.
The scientific — and honest — thing to do would be to admit as much.
But, of course, because VAM is mandated by some states to count for a certain percent of a teacher’s evaluation and VAM is not available for all teachers, these self-styled (fake) “statisticians” are content to effectively just “make up” results (VAM scores) out of thin air.
There is a (five letter) “f” word in science for “making up data”.
And people are actually run out of academia for engaging in it.
The correlations between observationally based ratings of teachers and VAM are abysmal.
They are so low as to effectively indicate no relationship at all — basically random.
Audrey Amrein-Beardlsey talks about a recent study:
“In this study researchers “find moderate [positive] correlations between value-added and observation-based measures, indicating that teachers will receive similar but not entirely consistent signals from each performance measure.” The specific correlations they observed range from r = 0.18 in mathematics to r = 0.24 (in English/language arts [ELA]) which to most others classifying such correlation coefficients, these would be considered negligible to small, respectively, and at best.”
“Again, similar “negligible” and “small” correlation coefficients have really been found time and time again, consistently making these types of correlation coefficients the most often observed, and hence most supportive of the assertion that VAMs and observational scores are not nearly as highly correlated as they should be… IF they are both in fact effectively measuring at least some of the same thing: teacher effectiveness.”
//end quote
“The specific correlations they observed range from r = 0.18 in mathematics to r = 0.24 (in English/language arts [ELA]) “??
What a joke.
r ~ 0.2 means that one variable explains only 4% of the variation in the other.
No HONEST researcher in his or her right mind would EVER base ANY kind of high stakes decision (or any other kind for that matter) on those sorts of non-relationships.
The people behind this stuff are up to no good. They are either deluded or just plain dishonest if they are calling such low correlations “similar but not entirely consistent”
Not only is Cuomo going after APPR.
Wait until you see what he intends to do with teachers vested but not yet retired in the NYSTRS and in current retirees. He simply wants to defund the pensions and put much of their funds back into the general pool of NYS government even though they have been paid for and paid into. Then he will declare that current and future allocations will simply be reduced. If you were entitled to $1000 per month for your pension, you might be down to $400 or $600 a month.
Cuomo is acting with the federal government to pass legislation to allow this to happen, even though the pensions have more than adequate funding.
Watch for this. I could not be more serious.
This applies to me–how can this be legal? How can it be prevented from happening???!!!
It can be legal because they are making laws that make it legal. End of story. How are such draconian laws envisioned and then made real you ask? When the natural checks to insane laws disappear, insane laws flourish. What are those natural checks? Informed active citizenry….ok, that’s gone. Next, groups that raise objections like unions. Right, just about gone. So, the people whose voices are being heard: billionaires with an interest in privatizing everything possible. They had all of this understood in the 18th century, via the Enlightenment. One of the chief goals of the enlightenment was the study of power and how power is inevitable, and it’s subsequent abused. The Enlightenment gave us the only known remedy for the problem of power….checks and balances. The built-in checks and balances within the US government are corrupted and gone. And now the external checks and balances are gone. Unions, a legitimate press, informed citizenry. Gone. So yeah, them taking out pensions and future….it can and probably will be made legal.
Sounds like theft to me. How would this be legal?
I don’t doubt that for even a second. The sad thing is that NYSUT will be shocked when that hits the table….that whole failure to predict problems thing. They will be dumbfounded and will have no real way to handle it, no plan in place. Just like they are now. If there were a moment to hit the ramparts and bet big and bet the farm, now is the time. This stuff can’t be negotiated. This time it has to be no to all of it. It won’t happen though. It just won’t happen. NYSUT doesn’t have the guts, brains, or spirit.
Let it be known however that people did see it. That we did bring it up. That we saw what was coming. Some of us. Buried away in the comments sections of websites and Facebook pages etc, there were people that saw the tide running out. I just wish NYSUT and national teachers unions heard us.
Now you’ve nailed it. This is about reducing costs in order to funnel that money to the friends and the connected all in the sake of enriching people whom are already considered among the wealthiest in the Country. However, do not lose sight for this is also about stealing the pensions of teachers before they can ever sniff a red cent of their hard earned money. This scam amounts to billions of dollars. Now imagine this scam on a national scale (all 50 states) and now you see the magnitude of the theft at hand. A word of advice quit your Union they are complicit in the fraud sitting on their hands while they rob you of your money right before they hand you a pink slip.
Message to Gov. Andrew Cuomo from his late father:
“We believe proudly in the union movement…[We] must be the family of America, recognizing that at the heart of the matter we are bound one to another, that the problems of a retired school teacher in Duluth are our problems; that the future of the child in Buffalo is our future; …that the failure anywhere to provide what reasonably we might, to avoid pain, is our failure.”
___ Gov. Mario Cuomo, Speech to Democratic National
Convention, July 16, 1984 (excerpts)
Message from Andy:
“I believe proudly in busting the monopoly of New York’s public schools…[I] must be the president of America, recognizing that at the heart of the matter I am bound to my donors: Wall Street billionaires and hedge fund masters of the Universe, that the test scores of a school teacher in Syracuse are her problem; that the test scores of the child in Buffalo is his teachers problem; …that the failure to provide what reasonably I might, to avoid pain, is my plan.”
Concerned? Yes. Panicking? No way!
History has shown time and again that when power hungry, wrongheaded people are confronted they often react by tightening their grip…..either that, or by making obviously phony concessions.
Cuomo and Tisch are throwing everything on the table, hoping to scare enough teachers and our leaders into accepting another stinky deal. Their willingness to ignore the facts, to “double down” on lunatic, inhumane ideas that hurt our kids only shows them for the dangerous fools that they are.
Come what may, I’m glad to be allied with the people on this blog. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”
Thank you for this.
But wait, it gets worse. They’re going after colleges and universities who educate teachers too: http://alexandramiletta.blogspot.com/2015/01/standardized-testing-final-frontier.html
They won’t go after the Colleges. This is all smoke and mirrors. Colleges are nothing but profit producing entities for big banks. They are acting like they will go after colleges to disguise their attack on Public Education as an unbiased act of good intentions. Public Schools are financial liabilities with expenditures into the billions on a State by State basis. In other words, Public Schools don’t generate immediate and tangible financial returns so they are viewed as expenditures. I would like to think of them as investments. However, the greedy will never see it this way. Colleges on the other hand, are money making entities that operate by enslaving their students into a lifetime of debt for jobs that for the most part they know damn well have been long gone and are never coming back.
They have already started going after the colleges demanding standardization of courses and higher graduation rates.
Don’t let anyone change the topic of the conversation. The real issues in NY revolve around the protests and the tragic death of the police officers. How can we bring NY together? A fight with the teachers is just a way to distract the public.
The NY Times has an opinion about income inequality-surely we can envision a better future.
A
Thanks for a very interesting article!
What a disaster! I hope for the teacher that the courts rule in their favor. If they don’t, I bet that other governors take notice and that this disaster spreads.
That’s the plan, and they take notice through the National Governor’s Association.
Thank you Robert Rendo for your words of wisdom and insight, thank you Diane R. for providing the info and forum.
The students of America need a voice. The teachers of America need a voice.
We DO NEED TO BAND TOGETHER! There is no time for frivolity.
Get going, move forward to take down Cuomo.
Force your Unions to comply. You have paid your dues, etc., you all know what our students need, don’t allow them to take it all away for greed!!!
Politicians need to know that “we are the people”!
Let us say they got their wish and fired 10% of teachers in even 1 year..where are their replacements coming from? If they wanted to churn 10% every year, in 2 years teaching in nys would be devastated.
How did they arrive at a nice round acceptable number of teachers to fire. How can they institute a system that not every teacher could pass – does it really pass as acceptable in Albany that you could do your job totally right but your students could not overcome their obstacles on the handed down common core timeline and even know the material but fail the test, and brand the teacher a failure and take away their paycheck and livelihood?
How in the world is this higher stakes madness legal??
When the churning occurs for a few cycles of up to, let’s say, 4 to 8 years at most, then the overclass will decide that their APPR system shows that public school model simply does not work in general and therefore must be privatized and converted into charters.
The whole plan is privatization.
It’s the simple.
Diane, if you have time, would you care to comment on that?
The president of Netflix has openly advocated for, as a keynote speaker, the removal of the whole process of voting for local school board members and instead, having them appointed by officials who get elected at a state level.
We are living in mad times, but we are not without hope.
Start contacting your politicians like your life depends on it.
Join NPE.
Cx:
It’s that simple.
It just is, our overlords have taken over the economy, the media, the government and now schools while creating a divisive society where everybody hates everybody and a system where people CONSISTENTLY vote against their interests. (Take NYC out of the NYS governor election and Astorino would have been governor or how Randi and Mike screwed over TEACHOUT in the primaries or how teachers hate Mulgrew but yet he wins! Now 80,000 teachers have to deal with a bull contract and now pray they make it to 2020 to collect on a crap deal.)
I’ve called my leaders and joined advocacy groups but no one listens unless you have $.
22 years a teacher and I just pray to have my livelihood. I teach at my kids middle school and fear that I will be terminated while they are attending and that is my worst nightmare to have my own kids witness this.
Sorry for venting but I’m just pissed that this nation lets this happen and no one cares except for a small few.
To understand the arbitrary 10% ineffective rating, you have to read papers by Hoover economist Eric Hanushek on “deselection” (google) and the TNTP paper “The Widgit Effect,” which is cited in NY’s Race to the Top proposal. TNTP was founded by Rhee.
No principal, superintendent, or school board wants to churn 10% of their district’s staff, and they remain in control. Two consecutive years of an “:Ineffective” rating does not require teacher dismissal. This worst case scenario will never play out because it is bad policy. And where would NY schools go to find 50,000 “great” new teachers on an annual basis? Practical constraints will not allow this level of madness.
If Tisch and Cuomo have their way (and it appears they will), they will remove that from the hands of the administrators by making their contribution nearly inconsequential – they won’t be able to “put their finger on the scale” for any teachers they want to be sure to retain – which is largely what many believe happened this past year – and who can blame them? Ideally performance review would be about showing the teacher how to improve – when you know that same review could lead to a forced firing when you don’t believe that’s best for the students, what choice do you make?
Cuomo seems intent on gubernatorial control of teachers across the state regardless of any local ideas of what students need.
In any case, 1st year teachers are also known for widely achieving less their first year than experienced colleagues. If we introduce 10% or more (on top of the existing pool) of new teachers a year, taking into account that 50% or more will churn out within 5 years (probably less at this point – this would almost certainly accelerate the trajectory of teachers leaving the profession) – who will teach the new teachers? Their overburdened effective colleagues?
How can they even pitch an idea as extreme as this and be taken seriously? Opt out isn’t going to grow fast enough to block this maneuver – what are our options?
Our options are now ONLY the ones NYSUT is too frightened and feeble-minded to employ. The old-school stuff. But the first thing, the first on the list of those options is saying NO. No negotiating. No sit-downs. No to all of it. Then from there the rest of the options become organic.
Aah, Merryl Tisch. A devotee of Rudy Giuliani, the guy who cashed in on 9/11.
Merryl Tisch, the fan of Common Core and charter schools, who said, “I personally am a great believer in charter schools … I believe in opening them aggressively. I’d like to push more charter schools.” Even when they don’t work well, or are headed up by fraudsters.
Merryl Tisch. One son a former hedge-funder and the other ensconced at Citigroup, the bank that got the BIGGEST bailout cash from U.S, taxpayers and the bank responsible for writing the legislative provision that allows the five biggest banks to – as Sen, Elizabeth Warren said – “gamble with taxpayer money and get bailed out by the government when their risky bets threaten to blow up our financial system.”
And what about VAM and Eric Hanushek? When the evidence was piling up that No Child Left Behind wasn’t effective, Hanushek said we had to stick with it because “over 75 years even a reform that takes effect in 20 years… yields a real GDP that is 36 percent higher ” than without “reform.” Say what?
In Hanushek’s bizarro world, even test score gains as small as 0.08 standard deviations result in “trillions of dollars more in the gross domestic production.” According to Hanushek, closing only HALF of our educational performance gap with Finland would result in adding ” more than $50 trillion to our gross domestic product.” NOT closing this gap results in “the equivalent of a permanent recession.”
As you might have guessed, Hanushek signed on to plans to make the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 permanent and to reduce corporate income taxes.
Sigh.
It’s disturbing that there are people who listen to the likes of Tisch and Hanushek.