I was invited to write an article for the New York Daily News reviewing Governor Cuomo’s recently announced “opportunity agenda” for education.
The Daily News published other articles praising the Governor’s plans for toughening teacher evaluations, adding more charters, and introducing voucher legislation. Given the limitation of 800 words, I was unable to write about the noxious effects of vouchers, which have succeeded nowhere.
It is an agenda that will subject the state’s children to more testing, more test prep, and less of everything that they enjoy about school.
It is an agenda that will ignores expert opinion about the harmful effects of judging teachers by the test scores of their students.
It is an agenda that is innately hostile to public education.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Bravo!
LikeLike
Well done, Diane. A rare ray of light in the New York Daily News.
LikeLike
The linked opinion piece is first rate.
I urge all viewers of this blog to read it.
😎
LikeLike
Just read it. I like the way it’s constructed. And, I particularly liked the last line!
LikeLike
I did read the piece via a link to the Daily News…not a paper I read frequently. Well written and succinct. Cuomo is definitely hostile to public ed. After 21 years of teaching I sit on a suburban upstate BoE. At a retreat with the administration last week we started devising plans to compete against charters and vouchers for students. We have a good reputation and produce excellent results and if we have to compete for students we want to get out ahead of the trend and brand ourselves in case it comes to that. It is pretty sad that districts have to even consider such an approach. I never thought I’d see education come to this.
LikeLike
There is still time! Think big! Think Super Bowl commercial!
LikeLike
I laughed at the blogger who responded that we use “Lean on Me” and “Stand and Deliver” as evidence of instructional practice and a comparative standard. He does realize those movies are Hollywood make believe, ya think?
LikeLike
I taught at the “Lean On Me” high school (Eastside, Paterson, NJ) before and after the film was made. Definitely the Hollywood version of reality. Just like the TIME cover shot of my principal (Joe Clarke) holding a baseball bat was a bogus representation.
LikeLike
Interesting. I’ll bet this Daily News blogger’s research includes the movies “Teachers”, “Bad Teacher”, and for teacher training programs at the college level, “Animal House”.
LikeLike
Following your article in the New York Daily News, there was a link to a story in Forbes entitled:
“The Problem Isn’t Getting Rid of Teachers, It’s Keeping Them”, by Nick Morrison (12/4/14)
http://www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorrison/2014/12/03/the-problem-isnt-getting-rid-of-teachers-its-keeping-them/
LikeLike
I think the idea is to keep firing the lowest ranked 10% of educators each year until 100% of teachers are above average. Yeah, that’ll do it.
LikeLike
Thank you for pointing Daily News readers at the “35% of evaluation from independent evaluators” thing. That hasn’t gotten as much notice in the media as the test and tenure pieces, even though it’s hamfisted.
We could always suggest that SUNY evaluators be subject to VAM based on the test scores of the students of the teachers they evaluate…
LikeLike
Funny on the evaluator VAMs.
I’m sure Pearson could come up with a mass evaluator training program.
LikeLike
Wait this proposal hits the principal’s fan. Do they have any idea that they are about to forfeit 45% of their current APPR power? It is definitely flying under the radar, but it would help to have them fight this absurd proposal.
LikeLike
And wait until the taxpayers realize that Cuomo wants to funnel even more of their money into the sinkhole of “accountability” for outside evaluators to do the principal’s job.
LikeLike
good one.
LikeLike
Thank you, Diane! You are truly the fearless leader we need!
ALL New York State schools will be in crisis if these abominal proposals pass. Already Cuomo is holding up the budget planning process by refusing to release aid numbers, preventing schools from even determining their state-mandated tax caps.
LikeLike
Great article Diane. You made the case succinctly and expertly.
Thank you.
LikeLike
I read your column today in the daily news; about Gov. Cuomo’s proposal. You put forth various rebuttals to his initiatives. However, I don’t see any ideas of how to correct the issues from you. If his corrective measures are not as you say going to work, what will?let us all in on your plan.
LikeLike
Zachary,
The article gave a successful alternative: Peer Assistance and Review. Google it. Cuomo’s is not new. It has failed everywhere.
LikeLike
Keep reading this blog. You’ll get filled in.
You want to know what makes a good teacher, ask a great teacher. Apprenticeship and mentoring have worked well for centuries. Ask any successful executive, artist, athlete, lawyer, doctor, and you will likely find they had a mentor or coach to guide them. In my experience, mentors are critical to advancement. Why throw out success for unproven, flawed, and haphazard methodologies like VAMing teachers into oblivion? This idea of measured meritocracy by metrics is misguided and destructive.
LikeLike
And another thing, Zach…
What are you trying to correct exactly? You can not solve a problem you can not properly identify. Are you trying to address poverty? Crime? Global competitiveness ? National security? All have been blamed on teachers by some “expert” or think tank.
And why target all schools with the same approach? There is another good strategy called If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
LikeLike
“On the last round of state tests, the state’s charters scored only 3.6 points higher than district schools in math, but 7 points lower than district schools in reading.”
This comparison, of course, ignores the considerable socioeconomic differences between the state’s district and charter school populations.
The vast majority of charter schools in New York State are located in New York City. This CREDO analysis shows that charter performance in the city is outstanding when compared to comparable nearby district schools serving similar populations: http://credo.stanford.edu/documents/NYC_report_2013_FINAL_20130219_000.pdf
LikeLike
So Tim, you don’t like it when the comparison shoe is on the other foot? And how about those Stuyvesant and Bronx HSS admissions? Another comparison your not so fond of? And what about those longevity comparisons? Not looking so good their either? And the HQT comparison? How about that financial transparency comparison? And that CEO/superintendent pay scale comparison? And there’s the democratic rule (elected school boards) comparison? Which comparison do you like?
LikeLike
The NYC CREDO study used the same methodology as the Ohio CREDO study that everyone here was very happy to point out showed the superiority of Ohio’s district schools. It attempts to create a virtual twin comparison and compare apples to apples, which is important.
LikeLike
NYC has higher scoring charters than Néw York state.
LikeLike
Are you that economist guy that used to post here? He always brought up narrow points and tried to lay traps in the most delightfully passive aggressive manner.
LikeLike
Je suis Teaching Economist.
It’s too bad he was banned. The commenting is weaker for his absence. And the reason he was banned is sort of funny given how obsessed the commentariat is with where “reformers” send their own kids to school.
LikeLike
Tim, TE was banned because he wouldn’t stop insulting me. I don’t have a lot of rules but I enforce them. One is that you can’t insult me. Another is no cursing. Last is no wacky conspiracy theories, like those who claimed that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School was a hoax engineered by the Obsma administration. Those are my 3 rules. I may have a fourth but I can’t remember it right now.
LikeLike
But Mrs. Ravitch, Duane Swacker swears all the time!!
(Maybe that’s the fourth rule.)
LikeLike
Tim,
Some swearing is ok. The F word is not. A few others that I won’t name so as not to violate my rule.
LikeLike
The commenting on this blog is weaker because TE isn’t, er, contributing?
I knew somebody would help fill the prescription the doctor ordered for me:
“A day without laughter is a day wasted.”
¿? Charlie Chaplin, of course, a Doctor of Laughology.
While I sometimes wondered if he actually read the postings or read over his own comments and responses, I think Mr. Harlan Underhill added more than TE. At least he had an actual POV and took on, in his own inimitable way, all questions hard or soft, big or small, real or imagined.
Perhaps this is a case of absence making the heart grow fonder.
In any case, I have to end with the obvious: TE was a living example of how value-subtracted measurement/modeling worked.
Nothing could escape his uncannily unerring instinct for finding some way, any way, to make the big and important and vital seem unbearably small and insignificant and torpid.
He was a master of the art of the boring and the banal.
Just thinking of his, er, thinking out loud on this blog makes me feel like a wave, or maybe it’s a tsunami, of ennui is washing over me…
😳
LikeLike
Not to mention the difference in the student populations of these charter and zoned schools located in the same district or the difference in the amount of time spent on test prep…
LikeLike
Beth, if you read any of the CREDO studies, you’ll find that they do indeed attempt to control for student characteristics and compare apples to apples. That’s the whole point.
Both charter and traditional district schools in New York City engage in substantial amounts of test prep (my children attend traditional district NYC DOE schools).
LikeLike
Perhaps you’d like to bring up Geoffrey Canada who fired two full classes of students who didn’t bring up the scores enough? Or the fact that his 100% graduation rate doesn’t include the 36% dropout rate that is never mentioned? Outstanding is one word for it.
LikeLike
“But Mrs. Ravitch, Duane Swacker swears all the time!!”
GUILTY AS CHARGED!! Thanks for letting me know!
Spoken like an immature middle/high schooler. You see one can make biting comments without using curse words.
Everybody loves a snitch (not) who attempts to deflect their problem onto someone else. We teachers experience that phenomena almost on a daily basis.
I’m taking it as a comment to me. There is no need for Diane to have to explain her actions to anyone, it’s her blog. If you don’t like how she handles it, well I would like to think you know what to do. . . ? (Do I need to tell you?)
Which is worse?: Goddamn it! or Gosh darn it!
I contend neither is worse as it would depend on the context in which the words are spoken/written.
What is the difference?: You’re a fucking asswipe!! or You’re an effing a$$w*^&! (the you is a general you and not directed at you Tim) and then what is the difference between the first and WTF?
Oh, no! I’m using “cuss” words!! But are they being used in an offensive manner directed at a specific person???
LikeLike
Two “problems” with your piece, Diane. First I think your argument would have been better served by using the term “administrators” instead of “manager”. (minor I know but word usage does matter)
The second being this “There, new teachers and faltering senior teachers. . . ” I know I would be a faltering senior teacher because I would refuse to go along with the admin’s SLO, SGP, and SWPBS next year. (Good thing I can retire and take the two years of district paid health insurance incentive). Faltering senior teachers is another one of those abstruse cliches that lacks empirical evidence.
LikeLike
All I see is accountability for teachers, then principals. Well, what about Superintendents. As a former principal of a District 8 middle school in NYC, I can not find one article on how superintendents were evaluated. It looks they never were. This is insane. When most of the schools in the district are failing, or struggling it is on the leader of the district. If you do not have a good leader, and sadly under the leadership of Timothy Behr, in District 8 the district schools declined severly. Teachers and principals can only do what their instructional leader allows them to do.
It is very difficult to succeed when your instructional leaders words of wisdom on moving a school forward are; bulletin boards move the school to a school in good standing, what happens in the cafeteria tells me how the school is and put up words that start with a Z on the word wall. In spite of that I did succeed but it was difficult because he offered no support.
What I am trying to say is that when whole districts are failing, it is not only the fault of the educators in that school, it is the district leader who does not know how to lead the schools. Just compare districts. Successful districts have strong instructional leaders.
LikeLike
Regards, Diane. That was spot on (as usual.)
It’s amazing that Cuomo, who’s only twice set foot in a public school class room, has the audacity to make these pronouncements about teacher effectiveness.
I’ll throw in a few more “cons” about his reliance upon test scores in determining effectiveness. If I teach two classes of Geometry, two classes of Trig and one class of Calculus, my current effectiveness rating is tied to the course in which I have the greatest number of students at the beginning of the year. If I want to game the system and get a great rating, I’ll spend all of my teaching and planning hours on Geometry (68 students), and not on Trig (65 students). or Calculus (34.) The Trig and Calc students will get short shrift, but who cares! I’ll be rated “highly effective.”
If a green, but energetic new teacher enters our school and department, will I share my materials with them? Maybe I will and maybe I won’t. Are my effectiveness ratings dependent upon “absolute gains” or “gains” in the context of our school’s performance?
In the real world, I’ll share my materials with anyone who wants them, and I’ll work as hard as I can to reach as many of the students as I possibly can. But keep on tying my livelihood to factors over which I have little control, and who knows what the outcome might be.
And, again, who would want to teach in an environment like that?
Please give my regards to Joey, who was a year ahead of me in high school.
LikeLike
Thanks, Paul. You make a great point!
LikeLike
Great job Diane! Sometimes I get cynical but I can not believe you got this in the Daily News. I hope every word that was published sounds like nails on a chalkboard to Mort Zuckerman and his ilk.
LikeLike