The Board of Regents will vote at their Sept. 16-17 meeting on making the new teacher-principal evaluation rules permanent. The current rules were adopted on a temporary “emergency” basis.
The current rules maintain a heavy emphasis on testing. Teachers, principals, and schools will be evaluated by the rise or fall of test scores, a practice that promotes teaching to the test, narrowing of the curriculum to only what is tested (math and reading), cheating, gaming the system.
Email or call your Regent and urge him or her to vote NO.
If they say that the bad system, which has no research behind it, is “law,” tell them that good people have a civic duty to resist unjust laws.
The tests have an absurdly high passing mark; they are no valid or reliable. Their purpose is to make your school look bad, so that the state can swoop in and turn it over to a private charter entrepreneur.
Protect your children and public education.
Call or email your Regent. Here is a guide to their emails and the regions they represent.
Here are the Regents who voted to continue the misuse of high-stakes testing a few months ago. Please urge them to vote NO this time:
Charles Bendit
Anthony Bottar
Andrew Brown
Christine Cea
James Cottrell
Josephine Finn
Wade Norwood
James Tallon
Merryl Tisch
Roger Tilles
Lester Young
Here are the Regents who voted NO last time. Please thank them for standing up for common sense, good education, the rights of children, and the dignity of the teaching profession:
Kathleen Cashin
Judith Chin
Catherine Collins
Judith Johnson
Beverly Ouderkirk
Betty Rosa
If the votes of three Regents were to change, the whole absurd system would come tumbling down, and our Board of Regents could get to work on research-based, evidence-based school reforms, instead of punishments based on invalid standardized tests.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Also tell teachers in NYS, who are members of teachers’ unions to kick their so-called leaders in the ass and demand that they openly support the grassroots, parent-led opt-out movement, which ultimately denies Albany the flawed testing data upon which the state is contriving to evaluate teachers.
It is particularly important for NYC teachers to stand and deliver, since their union (the UFT) and its current and past presidents, Michael Mulgrew and Randi Weingarten have not effectively fought against the practices that are hurting their members, have let parents lead the fight (and infuriatingly take the blame for being pawns of the union), and have done nothing to save the teaching profession, which they claim to represent–from the inevitable erosion and eventual extinction that have been accelerated by their willful inactions.
Thank you Diane for posting this! And here’s more to say about whether “this is the law”–
1. The law (Education Transformation Act) required that the Regents pass rules on the evaluation plan by June 30, 2015, which they did, so they will not be in violation by voting no. The legislature surely realized that the tight time constraint meant that only temporary 90-day emergency rules could be passed, and it did not require a subsequent rule to be passed when the emergency one expires.
2. It’s the job of the Regents and Ed Dept to set the plan’s cut scores that determine who is effective and who’s not. The plan of now sets an effective rating at a whopping 75% of students meeting targets. The School Administrators Assn. suggests 55%. What science or research supports75%?
3. The law actually requires that the public be told all the specifics regarding research and studies on which the plan is based, when the Ed Dept publishes a Notice of Rulemaking (the Notice is also required by law). But when the Ed Dept published the Notice, it gave a non responsive answer, identifying no study or research and just acknowledging that it had to work with experts. This is a legal violation of NY’s State Administrative Procedure Act, which protects the public’s right to have input into rules that have the force of law.
4. The law is also being violated because the Admin Pro Act requires that any member of the public who asks be allowed access to any underlying studies. The Notice says to contact Kirti Goswami at the Ed Dept. I’ve emailed and spoken with her several times to find out how to access any underlying studies supporting the plan or, alternatively, to confirm that in fact no studies or research were relied on in creating the plan. She has been unable to provide anything or confirm anything, all in violation of the Admin Pro Act. (It feels like an awful run-around.)
5. So, in talking to the Regents, feel free to point out that yes, the law is being broken –the law that protects the public’s right to understand and assess proposed rules and give input. I don’t mean to sound hoaky but this is the law that protects the democratic process, giving the public a voice when unelected officials, like the Commissioner Elia and the Regents, make rules. The Regents need to stand up for these laws that protect our basic rights.
6. And also, from the state’s inability to point to any underlying science, it strongly appears that these rules, including the harsh cut scores, are entirely unfounded. They should be voted down so that a researched-based can be created by experts.
If anyone wants sample cut-and-paste emails, I’m happy to provide.
I would love a cut and paste letter to help me out! My local regent is already on the “no” list, but I will contact the 4 At Large.
Couldn’t help but notice all the NO votes were women. Protecting children, the profession and public education. If the Board of Regents reflected the number of professional educators that are female, we may never have gotten to this point. Just an observation.
All the NO votes are women and educators with long experience. They know how unsound and demoralizing the evaluation plan is.
Unfortunately, Tisch and Elia have decided not to join this sorority.
True. I personally know Judith Johnson and my letter to her was to try to convince her colleagues who don’t know better.
Lisa,
Thank you for posting that!
In Beijing the air is heavily polluted. Over here, the toxins are bad ideas. It’s one thing to set up a grading system for companies to chide them about how green they are, or rank colleges based on academic and social metrics to help people choose, but to create actual ranking systems for children, teachers and schools that affects basic survival, limits choices and labels with blunt and highly flawed instruments used as if they were valid and exact — this is the kind of thing we supposedly evolved past long ago. This is toxic. This is not meritocracy, if our society will ever be truly able to realize that. This is merely racism, classism and elitism of the foulest kind.
I went to the address and called.
I sent this message:Ms. Johnson and other regents,
Regent.Johnson@nysed.gov
regentsoffice@NYSED.gov
The evaluation system for teachers and principals is a bad system, which has no research behind it! Good people have a civic duty to resist unjust laws.
The tests have an absurdly high passing mark; they are Their purpose is to make a school look bad, so that the state can swoop in and turn it over to a private charter entrepreneur.
Do not vote yes on this law. It was supposed to be temporary. END IT NOW.
Respectfully Yours,
Susan Lee Schwartz
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
Cross posted at
with this comment. which has embedded links to posts at this blog .
The end of the teaching profession attended this abridgment of the civil rights of teachers,which lets administration use subjective allegations and tests with no value to throw teachers out, as the UNIONS look the other way.
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/No_Constitutional_Rights-_A_hidden_scandal_of_National_Proportion.html
A good read is this Ravitch post: FRANZ KAFKA AND THE METAMORPHOSIS OF TEACHER EVALUATIONS
https://gadflyonthewallblog.wordpress.com/2014/08/30/franz-kafka-and-the-metamorphosis-of-teacher-evaluations/
which refers to Vicki Cobb, author of many children’s books about hands-on science. Cobb “recently spoke at a children’s literature conference in Florida. She was disturbed to meet a new breed of teacher: teachers who had grown up in the era of high-stakes testing and scripted lessons. Too many thought that this is the way school was supposed to be, because it was all they had experienced.”
The profession is under attack! Daniel Katz pulls together the events of the recent past and concludes that this has been a wasted era of school policy.
https://dianeravitch.net/2015/05/17/daniel-katz-a-wasted-decade/
Look at New Orleans.
https://dianeravitch.net/2015/08/20/what-happened-to-the-teachers-of-new-orleans/This article is an outstanding and heart-breaking accountof the harsh treatment meted out to the public school teachers of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. About 7,000 veteran teachers were summarily fired.
Look at Kansas.
https://dianeravitch.net/2015/08/05/stupid-in-kansas/
Here is what happens when you let the state ‘experts’ run public education
LEARNING, not Teacher evaluation is the only valid conversation.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Learning-not-Teacher-evalu-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-111001-956.html
The people at the top, Duncan and the ‘experts’ manipulated the national conversation in the media.
http://www.perdaily.com/2011/08/subverting-the-national-conversation-a.html
If you took the experienced doctors out of a hospital, of course it would fail. If you observed the sick people and blamed the doctors for following the director’s mandates, then you have an idea of what they did to NYC, where charter schools now educate the privileged ones who are accepted, and teachers with no unions , are fodder for blame.
THAT NEEDS TO END NOW! We need to bring back the classroom PROFESSIONAL, WHO KNOWS WHAT HER KIDS MUST DO, MUST KNOW IN ORDER TO LEARN.
See how it works in LAUSD, where the plan by Walton for privatization began a decade ago, by building in failure!
Teachers are targeted and removed in LAUSD. One year 800 teachers were charged, and all were fired.
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/lausd-and-utla-collude-to-end-collective-bargaining-and-civil-rights-for-teachers-part-2.html
done
I wrote to Regent Finn. Here’s an example of when a few citizens, these Regents members, could make a very important change to help our schools, our kids. Let’s hope they don’t miss this opportunity.
Here is my letter
Dear Regent Tillis,
I am president of The New Hyde Park- Garden City Park Teachers’ Association. I am respectfully asking you to vote NO on making the new teacher-principal evaluations permanent.
It is time to hit the reset button and your No vote will demonstrate your commitment to stand up for common sense, good education, the rights of children and the dignity of the teaching profession.
Forcing children to sit through 540 minutes of testing each Spring, for the sole purpose of evaluating teachers is nothing short of institutional abuse. These tests do little to enhance learning and are far from valid indicators of student, teacher or school performance.
It is time that you join your fellow Regents who already voted No on making these abusive evaluations permanent. I look forward to your reply.
Respectfully,
Ralph Ratto
Ohio already has this in place. I am a value added teacher, and it is very, very tough. I got high marks from my principal this past spring, and I even earned a point for my school district grade card on our last Ohio Achievement Assessment. I had a 91% percent passage rate, and I was relieved.
To make a long story short, when my principal entered all of the data into the computer at the Ohio Department of Education, the value added (which said was average) lowered my overall teacher rating because of a prediction formula. My principal and I were shocked, and she reassured me that everyone knew I did a wonderful job with the kids. I am blessed to work for a very supportive principal. However, I’m grateful that I am near the end of my career. If I were in my earlier years of teaching, I would be concerned about losing my job. No one in their right mind would be entering into this profession. Value added teachers face a stress which is like your brain clamped in vice grips. Presently, Kasich is devising ways to get rid of teachers (based on this bogus formula) who do a wonderful job in the classroom I’ve never seen anything more discouraging put into place in my life. I can cope because I am near the end. I feel so sorry for the younger teachers. To make matters even worse, all teachers in Ohio are not measured with the brutality of value added. I wear the value added scarlet letter. Guess where I am right now. I’m in my classroom preparing for tomorrow……Yes, John Kasich would love to see me gone.
How absolutely dreadful.
My letter will go out tomorrow https://dmaxmj.wordpress.com/2015/08/31/letter-to-regents-on-new-appr-adoption/
Why is a students attendance not taken into consideration? I had several students with 100+ absences show up for a june 2015 regents exam, and of course, fail. One appeared in school twice all year, that failure counts against my stats…i could be ‘rated’ developing because of 1 kid like that. Why is it that a HS student with 24 or more absences is technically not eligible for a credit for that class, but I’m on the hook for them?
It was one of the concerns in Buffalo, NY where truancy/attendance and the impact on achievement was a concern. The then-commissioner (King) response was something along the lines of an assertion that the school (teachers) are really responsible for attendance. It is expected now that you will not only leap over that higher bar, but cure all of societies illnesses while you do it.
Looks like Tilles is moving to the “no” column. From Newsweek:
“I oppose the use of standardized tests to evaluate teachers and principals,” Tilles said, drawing applause from about 400 teachers and school administrators at Earl L. Vandermeulen High School in Port Jefferson. “Not admitting a mistake is making a bigger mistake.”
Roger Tilles swings back and forth. He needs to hear from his constituents.
THANK YOU!
My 4 year old comes home from her third day of kinder (which is her 3rd day of public schooling ever) and says: “I failed the gym test today. I didn’t know any of the answers.” She can’t read yet mind you. #
Who do you think is getting a call on Friday morning? Followed by nasty emails to the Superintendent, our Regent, Roger TIlles, and new NYSED Commish Elia. This only strengthens my resolve to fight the madness that is NYS public elementary school testing. We fought this for the last few years to prevent this; to prevent our youngest from being exposed to high stakes tests used to evaluate her teacher BEFORE she can even read. Make a 4 year old unease on her third day. Who does this?
I read your first paragraph in utter amazement! It is a scene designed for “Theater of the Ridiculous.” What’s next for her? Go to counseling to see if she is failing because there is something in her home life distressing her? Tutoring? A home visit? A teacher-parent conference? If it was my script, the four year old would get on the teacher’s desk yelling,”It’s a madhouse!!” In this case Truth should not be stranger than Fiction. I believe YOU, but I can’t believe IT. Wow!
More info from Buffalo:
http://barbaranevergold.blogspot.com/2015/09/a-letter-to-regents-catherine-collins.html?spref=fb
No
NO!
Here’s my letter to the Board of Regents:
Dear Board of Regents:
I am writing to urge you to vote AGAINST the permanent implementation of the new APPR evaluation system. To cement into law a system that does not work and has no validity in a time of great flux in New York’s educational system would be grossly irresponsible and irrational.
The Opt Out movement in our state has grown exponentially over the past few years for a number of reasons. Here are three of them:
– Parents believe that their children are being subjected to tests that do not contribute in any way to their education and growth. If the only purpose of a long, grueling and developmentally inappropriate test is to hang teachers, there is, at best, an enormous flaw in the system, and, at worst, a nefarious plot against teachers and our public education system going on. Parents aren’t stupid. They see what is happening, and they don’t want their children to be used as pawns.
– Parents believe that larger forces, such as Governor Cuomo, NYSED, and even the Board of Regents, are being influenced by a few private funders who want to squash public education so that they can benefit monetarily. This is absolutely contrary to our nation’s founding democratic principles. Public education is a great equalizer that provides opportunity for all. If we believe in democracy, we should do all that we can to make our public education system as strong as it can be.
– Parents are invested in the public schools that serve their communities. They go to parent nights. Many volunteer in their public schools. They meet their children’s teachers, and they can see plainly that teachers care deeply about education, value learning, and derive great joy from helping their children develop academically. Parents do not buy into the false narrative that teachers are lazy or inept. The APPR test-driven evaluations that Governor Cuomo forced through a weak legislature must NOT be made permanent. To do so would make absolutely no sense at all.
The current system is awash in controversy, yet positive changes can be made if those who have power to make educational decisions do so mindfully. Advocate for the right people – the children, parents, and teachers of New York State.
Look. I am a highly effective teacher. My evaluations have always been excellent but these evaluations as they stand are not in the best interest of children and they do not promote academic freedom. Please vote no! You have the power to implement something makes more sense than the out of touch politicians just pandering to what is politicAlly popular. Thank you