Bianca Tanis is a public school parent and teacher of special education in the Hudson Valley of New York. In this post, she expresses her disgust and dismay that Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch continues to promote the Cuomo plan to make test scores 50% of educator evaluation, while pretending to make meaningless amendments.
Tisch, who has been a Regent for 20 years, assumes that the Cuomo plan will weed out ineffective teachers in high-poverty schools, but fails to suggest how effective teachers will be drawn to these schools. In the past, she has proposed exempting the affluent white suburbs, where scores are highest, from the Cuomo program. She believes that poor children, minority children will benefit if their teachers and principal live in fear of low test scores, if their school eliminates the arts and physical education and social studies to concentrate in test prep.
Tisch dismisses the statement of the American Statistical Assiciation, which warns against using test scores to judge individual teachers, as if it was the opinion of a few individuals.
Over the three years of Common Cire testing, this approach to evaluation has proven to be unreliable and unstable. It is also deeply demoralizing and has contributed to the growing national teacher shortage. This is Arne Duncan’s legacy. It will also be Cuomo and Tisch’s legacy.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I also like how she is now saying we’ll just rename the Common Core Standards to “Empire State Standards” or “New York’s higher standards.” This way we can bamboozle those stupid, pesky parents who will fall for it. Those idiots! Oh and maybe we’ll let those ineffective teachers appeal their evaluations which were unfair in the first place. Incredible.
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“VA
EMpire State Standards”Fixed.
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VAeMpire standards. Appropriate for Count Cuomo and his minions. did anyone mention to him that the standards are copyrighted?
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Maybe she will go later, maybe not. Its an obvious call to make, that she must go, and also meaningless, as any voice on our side has no value to those who would enable her departure.
Did anybody actually expect Tisch to come around to the truth on this stuff? Really? Its a joke to think that she’d change her thinking.
And this is my point: we think being right is somehow enough. It isn’t.
As long as the only consequences political leaders face from teachers is letter writing campaigns, phone calls, alot of talk about the next election cycle, and the occasional rally, people like Tisch will continue to dominate the decision making and the narrative.
We have lost our way. We think basic civic engagement (letter writing, phone calls, etc) is now deep political action. We think having a strongly substantiated body of evidence is somehow decisive politically. We couldn’t be more wrong.
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“Its a joke to think that she’d change her thinking. ”
Not least of all because she doesn’t think
“Can’t Change That”
You cannot change
What isn’t real
Or rearrange
How Colemen feel
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The plural of Coleman. Nice…
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Absolutely agree… the letter writing, phone calls and poorly attended rallies have fallen on deaf ears. Bigger action is needed asap
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This are really good points, not only on public education issues but across the board. Over time, our standards for civics and political engagement have become diluted. Writing a letter, making a call, attending a meeting should be viewed as commonplace civic engagement, not an exceptional act. It is also the case that bringing evidence to the table is viewed as an intense political move instead of a basic expectation of how we could discuss public matters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_Speech_(painting)
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Sometimes I feel this national and local attack on teachers is because we are a female dominated profession. Whatever the motivation, it’s wrong and misplaced. The parents, community, real educators have to actively fight this. Opt out is just one way, keep up the fight until we can’t fight anymore.
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The local and national attack on teachers are happening because it can. The privatizing elements of our society concluded that our resistance would not be strong enough to surmount their advance, so they continue to proceed.
We are the targets because we are soft enough.
Why aren’t there huge voices calling for the police or fire departments to privatize? Because the cops and firemen would freak out, go nuclear, dominate the narrative, and play every card in seconds.
We wanted “seats at the table.” We wanted to be “part of the solution.” We thought there was validity to some of their claims.
The answers always….always….lie with us.
Privatizing elements are a constant in American history and society. Their behavior and pathways are likewise constant, legible, and predictable.
Missing all of that is, you know, on us.
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I agree totally.
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The fire truck would get lost and the police would not get messages.
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“Why aren’t there huge voices calling for the police or fire departments to privatize? Because the cops and firemen would freak out, go nuclear, dominate the narrative, and play every card in seconds. ”
What do policemen and fireman do when they freak out and go nuclear?
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“A seat at the Table” (after William Cala’s reply to union leaders)
“We need a seat at the table
We need a seat at the Tisch”
The claim is just a fable
A union leader’s wish
We’ve always been at the table
Because we’ve been the meal
Our leaders do enable
The culinary deal
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Love your poem. It rings true.
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By the way, Tish in German means table, close enough! Once more, well done Poet.
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Tisch is a Corporate tool in Andy’s back pocket. Another 1%er that needs to go.
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Tisch is out of touch with reality. She lives a very insulated life, and has no real contact with everyday people. TISCH MUST GO 20 YEArs IS TOO LONG.
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Doubling down through double speak. How’s that work for you?
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Tisch: High standards, high standards, high standards, brave reformers: “Rip the Band-Aid off.”
Tisch on the ASA criticism of VAM: “If you have a point of view, you can get an expert to agree or disagree with almost anything you say.”
—Love to hear her opinions on evolution and climate change. She’s not a teacher.
Tisch then immediately goes on to say the “much more important point” is that it’s the law and only a few teachers were judged ineffective.
—And everyone is in fear of these arbitrary judgments.
Arbetter brings up Lederman case and year-to-year fluctuation of teacher ratings. Tisch’s response:
Large systems have anomalies.
We’ll set up an appeals process.
Also waivers for small school districts.
We’ll remove the arbitrary limit on numbers of “effective” and “ineffective.”
We’ll apply these test and punish measures only to low-income districts.
—In other words, we will wear down and placate the opposition until they give up.
Tisch *dares* to say, “Stop demonizing teachers.” What chutzpah!
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Idiocy. Sheer idiocy.
http://www.pressconnects.com/story/news/local/new-york/2015/09/15/teacher-evaluations/72314822/
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An appeals process? Spare me. How much will this cost the taxpayer? Can you imagine the number of appeals? Won’t be able to handle them all. Will get bogged down and if the appeal fails will face more lawsuits?
We now see that whatever education she had did not help her critical thinking.
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Merryl Tisch is a very wealthy woman with very wealthy friends. What’s wrong with that? Nothing is wrong with that, as long as she doesn’t use her wealth and that of her friends to destroy public education in New York State. In 2009 when Arne Duncan introduced the Race To The Top competitive grant system, Merryl made sure that New York State’s application would be a winner. New York won $700 million dollars in federal funds which came with lots of strings attached.
Chancellor Tisch has been more than happy to tie those strings into beautiful bows as presents to her wealthy friends. She has increased the number of charter schools allowed in NYS from 200 to 460. Wall Street tycoons like Robert Rubin loved that. Merryl’s brother-in-law, Andrew Tisch, who sits on the Board of K12 Inc., the largest online learning company in the U.S. loved that too since charter schools often rely on distance learning for their curriculum as they do not hire certified teachers to teach.
Bill Gates is one of Merryl’s wealthiest friends. It was Bill Gates who supplied all of the seed money for the creation of the Common Core, the marketing of it and the implementation as well. He created the data collection system which Joel Klein and Rupert Murdoch eventually took over. This company was given a $27 million no-bid contract by the NY Department of Education. Just as a side note, it was Joel Klein who was the lead prosecutor in the lawsuit in which he represented the United States in an antitrust case against Microsoft in 1998. Joel Klein played soft ball when he was questioning CEO Bill Gates during that case which is why Microsoft still exists intact although it was in fact a monopoly breaking every antitrust law on the books.
Michael Bloomberg appointed Joel Klein to be the Chancellor of NYC schools where he made lots of connections before he moved on to the data collection business. These guys are all friends. Merryl Tisch is Michael Bloomberg’s neighbor. She and Joel Klein attend birthday celebrations for each other’s children. Merryl is good friends with Charles Schumer’s wife. It is all so cozy in this elite world of money and power. Too bad the people of New York are not invited to the party. Our children suffer the consequences and we pay the taxes that finance all of these cozy living room deals going on behind our backs.
Chancellor Tisch hired 11 “Regents Fellows.” These are mostly corporate lobbyists who are supposedly “advising” the real regents. Merryl Tisch has donated $1 million from her own bank account and the Gates and Carnegie Foundations have provided money as well to cover the $189,000 salary that each fellow receives. As Merryl Tisch puts it, what’s not to like about free fellows? Retired Regent Saul Cohen let it be known that the regents were not even consulted about selecting the “fellows” who they are supposed to work closely with.. Allowing privately funded fellows to create public education policy is outrageous. We can be thankful for regents Kathleen Cashin and Betty Rosa who advocate putting faith in teachers and traditional public schools instead of tests.
Albany is a cesspool.
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Regents pass eval
Vote 10-6
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/politics/blogs/vote-up/2015/09/16/after-debate-regents-pass-teacher-evaluation-rules/32524795/
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