Charlotte Danielson is the leading guru of teacher evaluation. Alan Singer asks who she is, what is her background, and why will so many teachers be evaluated by her rubric.
Archives for category: New York
Arthur Goldstein, aka Néw York Educator, describes the vain and convoluted effort to create a teacher evaluation system in Néw York. A pinch of this, a heavy dose of testing, and the computer will tell us which teachers are great and which are the stinkers.
Several people have asked me why I did not join them in Albany for the big rally, which drew more than 10,000 people to protest the state’s overuse and misuse of high-stakes testing.
I was invited to speak, but I declined because of health reasons. In the past couple of years, I have had severe spinal pain due to arthritis. It comes and goes. It was especially bad in May when the invitation came, and I am dealing with it now with doctor’s visits, x-rays, MRI, medication.
I wish I could have joined you in Albany. I hope you understand why I did not.
Advocacy groups have posted a petition on change.org calling for the removal of John King as state commissioner.
Parents and educators reject King’s blind faith in high-stakes testing and his determination to evaluate educators based on test scores, despite the absence of evidence for this approach and the certain negative consequences.
Great Neck, New York, is a suburban community outside New York City that has long been renowned for its excellent public schools. About 95% of its students graduate high school, and many are admitted to our nation’s finest colleges and universities.
At its meeting last Monday, the Great Neck school board unanimously passed a resolution opposing the state’s over reliance on standardized testing.
For their clarity of vision and their willingness to stand up for their students and for good education, I place the Great Neck Board of Education on the honor roll as champions of good public education.
Here is the resolution, which was read aloud in its entirety at the meeting and sent to the Governor, legislators, the Commissioner of Education, the Chancellor of the Board of Regents, and shared with the media:
June 3, 2013
RESOLUTION REGARDING OVERRELIANCE ON STANDARDIZED TESTING
A CALL TO THE GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, THE NEW YORK STATE COMMISSIONER OF EDUCATION, THE NEW YORK STATE BOARD OF REGENTS AND OTHER POLICYMAKERS TO STOP THE OVERRELIANCE ON STANDARDIZED TESTS AS A MEASURE OF STUDENT PERFORMANCE AND PRINCIPAL/TEACHER EFFECTIVENESS.
WHEREAS, every student deserves a quality public education dedicated to preparing engaged citizens, creative and critical thinkers and lifelong learners ready for college and careers; and
WHEREAS, the decline in state aid and support for public schools has forced our district to reduce programs and limited our ability to fully implement new programs mandated by the State such as the Common Core standards thereby creating an uneven rollout of the standards among school districts around the State; and
WHEREAS, while the implementation of the Common Core standards will ultimately help students, teachers and the teaching and learning process, the growing reliance on, and mismanagement of, standardized testing is eroding student learning time, narrowing the curriculum and jeopardizing the rich, meaningful education our students need and deserve; and
WHEREAS, there has been a reliance upon the Common Core standards in the development of state testing despite the fact that students have not been exposed to these standards for a sufficient amount of their school experience; and
WHEREAS, despite the fact that research recommends the use of multiple measures to gauge student performance and teacher effectiveness, the State’s growing reliance on standardized testing is adversely affecting students across all spectrums and the morale of our educators and is further draining already scarce resources; and
WHEREAS, the Federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act’s testing policies fail to appropriately accommodate the unique needs of students with disabilities and English language learners in assessing their academic achievements which results in test scores that do not accurately represent a true measure of the impact of teachers and schools; and
WHEREAS, it is time for policymakers to reconsider the number, duration and appropriate use of standardized tests so that our schools can refocus their efforts on improving student learning outcomes; now, therefore be it
RESOLVED, that we call upon Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, State Education Department Commissioner John B. King, Chancellor of the Board of Regents Merryl Tisch, Chair of the Senate Committee on Education John Flanagan, Senator Jack Martins, Chair of the Assembly Committee on Education Catherine Nolan, Assemblywoman Michelle Schimel and other policymakers to reduce the use of, and overreliance on, standardized testing.
As thousands of activists plan to rally in Albany against the stat’s heavy reliance on standardized testing on June 8, many parents and educators are speaking out against Pearson’s field tests. The testing corporation is trying out questions in the state’s classrooms that might be used on future tests, but opponents say “enough is enough.” The students recently completed two weeks of grueling state tests.
One reward of opening the link is that you get to see a picture of Peter DeWitt, one of the state’s best principals and an outspoken opponent of high-stakes testing. DeWitt was recently the target of an effort by the State Education Department to intimidate him. He is one of my heroes. For he steadfast defense of children, he certainly belongs on the honor roll. He is a champion of children, a champion of public education, and a champion of ethics in education,
A third-grade class of children in upstate New York were upset by the Common Core exams.
Their teacher and principal encouraged them to write to the Governor.
Many complained that they didn’t have enough time to finish.
One wrote, “”I know the governor wants us to be ‘college ready,’ but we are only in third grade for heaven sakes.”
Out of the mouths of babes, more wisdom than one hears from the New York State Education Department.
You can find their bureaucratic responses to the children at the end of the article.
We do want our third graders to be college and career ready, don’t we?
Andrea Gabor, a professor of journalism at Baruch College, describes her experience as a member of a state committee drafting new ELA tests.
The work of this committee was set aside and replaced by the new Common Core tests.
Gabor obtained complete copies of the tests for grades 6-8, and she makes some sage observations.
Please take the time to read her observations.
New York rushed to implement Common Core tests before the curriculum or the professional development were in place.
Gabor found the tests to be culturally monochromatic, using scenarios that would be more familiar to suburban students than to urban students.
And she–an experienced writer of non-fiction–was surprised at the heavy emphasis on non-fiction.
As she notes in her comments, I had seen one form of the fifth grade test and found that its cognitive demand looked about the same as an eighth grade NAEP passages and questions.
At one point, Gabor said she felt that students were “set up for failure.” My feelings too.
Gary Rubinstein, who teaches mathematics, analyzed Commissioner John King’s plan to evaluate NYC teachers, which he imposed in the absence of an agreement between New York City and the United Federation of Teachers. Gary went a step further and read the law that King based his plan on. Gary concludes that King misread the law and that his plan is fundamentally flawed.
Step back a minute and ask yourself how many other professions are evaluated based on legislative mandates. Even in public sector jobs, like firefighters and police, nurses and social workers, do legislatures dictate how they should be evaluated on the job and by what criteria rpthey should be rated?
Public school activist Leonie Haimson notes in her post about New York’s new educator evaluation plan that the plan includes this proviso:
“Teachers rated ineffective on student performance based on objective assessments must be rated ineffective overall.”
Haimson writes: “This means despite the claim that there are multiple measures, one year’s worth of unreliable and inherently volatile test scores will trump all.”
The state scores are supposed to be 20% of a teacher’s evaluation, plus another 20% of local measures. But a teacher who is rated ineffective on the 40% “must be rated ineffective overall.”
Ergo, 40% = 100%.
*the original post said 20% = 100%, but teacher/blogger Arthur Goldstein pointed out to me that the test portion was 40%, not 20%.
Diane Ravitch's blog 