Melissa McMullan, a teacher in Long Island, explains in this comment how deeply insulting Governor Cuomo’s plan for teacher evaluation is. Will he listen to reason? Will he insist on crushing the morale of every teacher in the state? Why?
McMullan writes:
“I have been a teacher for thirteen years. I graduated with highest honors from Rutgers University, earned my masters degree from Queens College, graduating with honors and begun work on my PhD to help me become a better teacher. The teacher I am today is not the teacher I was yesterday, nor is she the teacher I will be tomorrow. I learn every day from students, families, colleagues, professional development, research and my own mistakes. In thirteen years, former students of mine have become writers, teachers, philanthropists, doctors, nurses, mechanics, beauticians, small business owners, etc…
“My employment as their teacher has been carved from a relationship I have built with the district that employs me. The district I graciously serve. I am a public servant. I do not take this assignment lightly.
“Governor Cuomo is holding state aid to public schools hostage. His ransom? Using eleven hours of tests, that the state scores, and converts to teacher ratings, assigning a great many teachers, including myself, ineffective. One score. Six days of testing to remove a teacher who works 12 hours a day, gives her students her cell phone number so she can help them with homework at home and invites Spanish-speaking parents in to the classroom to explain, in Spanish, the value of reading and writing. A teacher who will stop at NOTHING to push her students forward. Passing rates on the state test vary year to year from 72% to 83 % depending upon how the state wants teachers to be perceived from year to year.
“Governor Cuomo and the New York State Board of Regents want to use test scores it assigns to my students, against me, their teacher. This is not the role of assessment. Assessment has a single purpose – to inform instruction. Its responsibility is to let students, teachers and families what students know, and what they do not know. Under the Governor’s proposed plan, these scores would warrant my removal from the classroom, violating the agreement that my school district and its community have established with me, by using children as its weapon of choice.
“We get no feedback from these scores. No view into what our students know or don’t know or what we as teachers have taught well nor what we have not. But it costs millions of dollars to implement each year.
“As a mother, I will not permit my own four children to be used as pawns against their teachers. The only way we can stop this abuse of power is to refuse to permit our children to be used as pawns.
“The cornerstone of public education in the United States is the local community school district. Allowing scores the state assigns our children after six days of testing to be used to remove teachers we have placed in their classroom is an unacceptable, egregious overstepping of power. We have power as parents to protect our children from harm, and we have an overwhelming responsibility to keep the over-reaching powers of the state from reaching into our children’s classrooms.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
“The only way we can stop this abuse of power is to refuse to permit our children to be used as pawns.”
I submit that it is not just an “abuse of power” but rather that it is a form of child abuse.
The very best way NY parents can prevent the state from abusing and using their children as pawns, is to KEEP THEM HOME on all state testing days. Yes, this may impact some state aid, but it will protect schools, teachers and children from this scourge on education. The message will be clear
Words of truth continue to fall on deaf ears. But thank you for this heartfelt contribution.
Agreed. He has already sold his soul to Wall St. Parents in New York need to lead a revolt against this corporate domination and corrupt government. Teachers can’t lead the charge, but parents, especially middle class ones, are a lot harder to ignore.
Nice letter and well said. Again, I say that tests were never meant to evaluate a teacher’s ability or performance in the classroom. I know how you feel. I have a BA in French from Skidmore College, an MA in French from SUNY-Albany, and have completed all the coursework for the Ph.D. in French. I have 23 years of experience teaching French from elementary school to college. It’s so disheartening and degrading to witness and be part of what is happening in education today. I totally agree that when it comes to tests that harm our students and erroneously judge teachers, we must echo Bartleby’s famous refrain: “I would prefer not to.”
I agree with Melissa. I teach in the same school, I see her dedication and that of many of my colleagues. I see our jobs being slowly reduced to a pile of data, testing, and paranoia. Pitting students against their teachers is the greatest injustice in education, and can never result in any good. Refusal is the answer. My own children will be refusing for the third year in a row. I will never again be told how my child is progressing or how well their teachers are teaching from one assessment. Ever.
I think it’s a horrible message to send to children. Their entire educational experience hinges on the teacher? What’s their role in this? Passive receptacle of teacher quality? Churning out data to measure the teacher?
People can tell their kids anything they want, but I don’t think I’ll be repeating this particular ed reform lesson to mine. It’s crazy and I don’t think at all helpful to them.
The longer Cuomo waits to apologize for his cowardly, brain dead insults to all teachers, the bigger the bag of crow he’s going to have to choke down, and that bag of crow is most certainly in the mail with his name on it. At this point there is no spin or triangulation that can save him from the consequences of his preposterously stupid blatherings about a profession he chooses to misrepresent. Will he continue to double down on the idiocy of his recent remarks or will he man up and admit he was wrong and make things right? I have little hope that a career politician like him will ever get past the distortions his ego has brought forth.
Ms. McMullan is right on. And Albany hears NY teachers but refuses to listen and, instead, plows ahead with the diabolical corporate mindset of “Stay the Course.” The point of the governor’s proposals and smear campaign against teachers is to, indeed, eliminate local democratic community control and give it over the the Corporate State or, quite simply, directly to a for-profit charter corporation. Taking advantage of heavy influence of campaign political funds thanks to Citizens U. and McCutcheon, citizenry has become “privatized” where the only civic duty an everyday civilian has is to buy, consume, or purchase, hence the rhetoric of “School choice” and “vouchers” to choose (read: BUY) from. We can tell the Board of Regents and the Governor all the stories we want about how dedicated we are, and how public education is the last cornerstone of democracy left within the overall entrenched plutocratic structures of this country, it won’t matter to them. The battle lines have to be drawn where they, the BoR and the governor, have something at stake and the way I see it, it’s the presidency for this governor and BoR re-appointments for others. They’re going after where we “live”, it’s long past time for us to fight back doing the same.
You can’t appeal to a thug like Cuomo.
He defends the wealthy and moneyed interests.He’s accepted thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the Charter school movement and is of course in bed with them. He’s furious that the teachers union didn’t support him in the last election, and like a child is determined to strike back.
Don’t appeal, attack!
“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”
― Assata Shakur
Cuomo did not accept thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from charter supporters. He accepted millions.
Diane – you are my hero – please run for something – Mayor – Governor – President – Town Highway Supervisor – I just want to vote for you !
Instead, I think Cuomo should introduce evaluations for all financiers/bankers employed at financial institutions that have benefited from explicit or implict public subsidies.
As we all know. TRAGICALLY NY is not the only place. In Indiana as in some other states they are killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Whether they know and just don’t care, whether they are doing it on purpose to “mine” the money in education, whether they are just that ignorant – I cannot really say. Whatever the cause, our children, our nation, is suffering now but will suffer more and the results of this myopic view is utilized more and more.
Diane Rehm on her show today had a superlative program. The two women speakers were superb
but
what percentage of the U. S. listens to her show? How many other places can one find that level of journalism?
The CEO of the New Teacher Project is a lawyer?
“NEW YORK — Is there a better way to recruit, train, evaluate and retain public school teachers?
As much of the country shifts to new Common Core standards, Daniel Weisberg, named CEO last week of the alternative teacher-certification and advocacy group The New Teacher Project (TNTP), thinks that question is more important now than ever.
It’s one reason the former private sector lawyer and chief labor strategist under New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein believes giving teachers proper support, training and compensation will keep them effective during the transition to new standards, which aim to deepen critical thinking and enhance problem-solving skills.”
“Will he listen to reason?”
Wellllll…….
It was easier to remove a teacher in the nineties. They were lawless, and nobody knew.
To rid the schools of the dedicated, experienced professionals who were TENURED, required a level of incivility and reckless disregard for the law, but in Bloomberg’s NYC, it was a snap.
IN NYC and in LaUSD,
http://www.perdaily.com/2015/01/were-you-terminated-or-forced-to-retire-from-lausd-based-on-fabricated-charges.html
all it took was a series of allegations from a principal, and ‘documentation ‘ of incompetence based on subjective observations. Removed from a classroom and literally imprisoned in a district office as coworkers, students an parents moved on, and their grievance petitions to the union were declined, it took 3 years to get a ‘hearing’ where the teacher lost, and was seldom allowed to offer evidence or confront accusers. Can you spell Kangaroo court… no searing in or fear of perjury????
The Sixth Amendment and civil rights was absent
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/No_Constitutional_Rights-_A_hidden_scandal_of_National_Proportion.html
Principals who are not sworn under threat of perjury (they cannot be the sued) removed the highest paid, experienced teachers, the ones with a voice who should never replace a tried and true curricula with test-prep and common core crap.
The union encouraged teachers to resign. Thousands did, and the schools in NYC tanked…so they could be replaced by Charters
Everything I said here is true, and I watched the trauma it caused. I did not know what hit me, as I was a celebrated educator, and was the NYSEC EDUCATOR OF EXCELLENCE when chafes of incompetence were put out… after a series of bogus allegations of corporal punishment, and a letter, written by a teacher in another school, that said I threatened to kill the principal, went away when I filed a lawsuit against the DOE. It cost me $25k for that lawyer, when the Manhattan Bureau Rep of the UFT did nothing to protect me or to investigate my grievances.
The testing mania is the second assault on the profession, to remove any and all teachers who come along now.
You simply do not know about the first assault.
Try these links, and read the chronicle of abuse.
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
http://parentadvocates.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=7534
Not to digress, but….it’s ON Long Island, not IN.
Mike, I am on Long Island and I should know the difference. I fixed it.
I don’t brush my teeth or floss. Yet I keep getting cavaties. Boy does my dentist suck! Makes the same sense as evaluating teachers based on student test scores.
Thank you Ms McMullan! As a veteran NYS teacher and a parent, here’s a word picture I’ve started using to argue against the Governor’s proposals from a common point-of-view:
It’s kind of like the difference between buying a car or other big ticket item from a salesperson on commission and one who is on 100% salary.
There may be no obvious differences in their sales strategies, but there is always a different feeling and tone to the interaction I have with these two classes of salespeople.
The Gates, Broad, and Walton Foundations are spending millions trying to convert teaching from a salaried profession to a commission-based job.
I don’t want my kids’ teachers to turn into high-pressure salespeople desperate to hit artificial quotas to keep their jobs.
There’s an article in the Albany Times Union today (and online) about another teacher who has been rated “ineffective” on student growth and is filing suit. It’s interesting and frightening to hear these stories.
I am an E.L.A. teacher, 8th grade, and have taught for almost 20 years.The year before last I was given an overall score of 14 out of 20 based on my students’ performances, which is considered effective.Last year, a 1 out of 20. Really? This is a set up! These meaningless tests are merely tools the governor wants to use to spin his agenda and fire all teachers , so he privatize public education and make his wall street buddies even wealthier. He is a horrible bully.
We should evaluate our government officials and remove them if they don’t make the mark. We the people, never forget that.