Students for Education Reform and StudentsFirst have brought pressure on the New York City teachers’ union to agree to a deal with the state to rate teachers by their students’ test scores.
But what these groups have overlooked is that the overwhelming majority of charter schools have said no. Few have turned in their teacher ratings, and most don’t intend to comply.
They say no deal. Forget about it.
The public schools should learn from the best practices of the charters and do the same.
In his weekly radio interview, Mayor Bloomberg said that wants to hold teachers’ feet to the fire. He wants them evaluated by the scores of their students and he wants their ratings published. He is furious that the union has been unwilling to agree to a pact. He says he will cut the budget if they don’t comply.
This teacher read the post and replied:
“I can not believe his language. Evaluation is something every professional adult is subject to, provided that the evaluation is done in good faith, by a fair measure, by trustworthy evaluators. The minute you say you want to hold my feet to the fire, I know you don’t want to see whether or not I’m a good teacher, celebrate my skills and help me improve my weaknesses – you just want me out.
I can not stand another month of being beat up every time I open a newspaper, after spending hours (my own time) writing awesome and engaging lessons, and creating materials (since the DOE gives me nothing) that are specific and responsive to my specific and real population of students. Stay up til 1am planning lessons, read the newspaper, cry on my way to work, spend a day in my classroom trying to build confidence and faith that the world is open to them, that the system is not rigged, that if you work hard, go to college, grad school, pick a decent and socially responsible profession you will succeed, be fairly compensated, and respected. Go back, read the paper, cry again. It is really awful, Mr. Bloomberg. You have no idea.
“Hold my feet to the fire”. What are you threatening with budget cuts? I already pay for all my own school supplies. I buy class sets of text books. I haven’t had a nickel raise in three years, even as my rent goes up and the subway fare raises again. You’re going to make this worse for me somehow? You want me to quit?
After you’ve completely destroyed the professionalism of teaching, once you’ve rallied the press to declare that anyone who goes into teaching is corrupt and suspicious, lazy and stupid – what kind of amazing self-confident and self-respecting recruits are you hoping to replace me with?”
New York City’s Department of Education (meaning, Mayor Bloomberg) and the United Federation of Teachers are wrangling about the formula for rating and ranking teachers and how much of it should be determined by test scores. The mayor still wants to publish the names of teachers along with their ratings so that parents will know which teachers to avoid and which to seek out. Imagine the chaos in schools when everyone wants to be in Ms. Smith’s class and no one wants to be in the classrooms of Mr. Jones, Ms. Green, or Col. Mustard.
It is important to remember how untrustworthy these formulae are.
Here is a good reminder. Aaron Pallas describes the “worst” eighth grade math teacher in New York City.
And here is the story of the “worst teacher” in the city of New York.
The New York Post plastered her name and picture in its pages, but it turned out that she teaches new immigrant students who cycle in and out of her class. The value-added ratings for her were meaningless.
Diane Ravitch's blog 