Archives for category: Teacher Evaluations
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Politico: Campbell Brown Not Satisfied with NY Teacher Law

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2015 //
35

Former CNN talking head Campbell Beown is dissatisfied with Néw York’s budget deal, which extends the probationary period for teachers from three years to four years and makes it easier to fire teachers based on test scores, whether tenured or not.

She told Politico.com:

“CAMPBELL BROWN FIGHTS ON: The budget deal recently inked in New York sets out tough new rules [http://bit.ly/1G7uZkC] for evaluating teachers and granting them tenure. But education reform activist Campbell Brown isn’t planning to wait and see how the new system affects the quality of the teaching corps. Her Partnership for Educational Justice plans to press ahead with a lawsuit [http://bit.ly/1NEBytV ] challenging tenure and job protection statutes. The suit, modeled on the successful Vergara case in California, argues that New York laws protect incompetent teachers from dismissal and thus violate students’ right to a quality education. While the budget reforms have promise, Brown said it’s still way too hard for districts to lay off bad teachers, especially those with seniority. “We are glad that Albany appears to have finally woken up to the crisis in our public schools. But make no mistake, they have a long way to go and there is much work ahead,” Brown told Morning Education. “This will have no bearing on the legal case moving forward.”

Clearly she won’t be satisfied until tenure is completely eliminated and teachers can be terminated for any reason without a hearing.

Categories New York, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure

Carol Burris: What Cuomo and the Legislature Did to Teachers

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2015 //
38

It is understandable that Governor Cuomo has a grudge against teachers: they didn’t endorse him in last fall’s campaign. So, naturally, he wants to destroy the teaching profession in his state by imposing a burdensome, invalid teacher evaluation system, written by his staff to inflict maximum pain on every teacher.

 

If he acted like an angry bully, the Legislature acted like fools.

 

Why did the Legislature go along? Many legislators said they voted reluctantly and “with a heavy heart.” Others made statements showing they didn’t really know what they voted for. The backlash has been fierce from parents and teachers.

 

In this article, principal Carol Burris shows how thoughtless and mean-spirited this legislation is.

 

She writes:

 

“The New York State legislature celebrated the Eve of April Fools by making a bad teacher evaluation system even worse. With the exception of a few principled members, the rest of the Senate and Assembly fell in line, without care or concern for the consequences their “reform” would bring. More remarkably, by the time debate was done, it was obvious that many legislators had no understanding of what they were voting into law.”

 

Testing will count for 50%. Principals will be sent to evaluate other principals’ staff.

 

“Of one thing you can be certain. The NYSED created growth-score and measures will produce a bell-curve. This will produce the “differentiation” that the chancellor and governor crave. You can also bet these scores will not be a valid or reliable measure of teacher performance. After all, that is the hallmark of APPR.

 

“The other half of the evaluation will be the result of two required and one optional observation. One required observation must be done by a teacher’s administrator or principal, and the other by an “independent” evaluator from outside the building. When school officials complained that using outside observers was an unfunded mandate, the glib reply was just swap administrators among schools.

 

“Let’s think about that plan. For districts like mine with one high school, swapping administrators might mean that the elementary principal would observe our IB Physics teacher and I would watch a kindergarten class. Without any knowledge of the curriculum, students, and the teacher, we would do a high-stakes observation.

 

“As we principals go on the road to observe teachers in other schools, we would leave our students and teachers without leadership if a crisis were to occur. This would be especially difficult in some areas of rural New York, where schools are far apart. With observations an hour in length, pre- and post-observation conferences and travel time, schools would be without their principals for days given the number of observations we are now required to do. Apparently the governor is not worried. When parents call and I am observing a teacher across town, I will tell my assistant to forward the call to him.”

The legislators should not make excuses. They should be ashamed of themselves and repeal this punitive and unworkable plan.

Parents are right to be outraged. This is another reason to opt out.

Who will want to teach in Néw York?

Categories Accountability, New York, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers

Daniel Katz: Does Merryl Tisch Want to Fire Black and Hispanic Teachers?

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2015 //
165

Merryl Tisch, Chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents, has proposed that high-performing districts be exempted from the harsh and punitive teacher evaluation program proposed by Governor Cuomo and passed by the Legislature. This would create a two-track system: one for affluent districts, the other for the less fortunate.

Behind the proposal, I suspect, is a strong desire to defang the Opt Out movement. Divide and conquer. Mollify the angry suburban moms and saddle everyone else with a harmful regime.

Daniel Katz predicts that Tisch’s proposal would destroy the careers of large numbers of black and Hispanic teachers. The plan will devastate many teachers, wherever it is fully implemented. Why focus the harm on the poorest districts?

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, New York, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations

Texas: How to Buy Education Policy

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2015 //
18

Here is a pathetic contrast that says a whole lot about the politics of education, not only in Texas but across the nation. The latest ethics report in Texas shows that “Texans for Education Reform,” a spinoff of Democrats for Education Reform, has hired 15 lobbyists to work the legislature this session. Most will be paid between $50,000-100,000, some less, some more. One will be paid between $150,000-200,000. This group would not call itself “Democrats for Education Reform” in Texas, because the Democratic Party is out of favor; the constituency this group appeals to would not want to be affiliated with any organization that called itself “Democrats.” The name may be helpful in fooling people in liberal states, but it would be a stigma in Texas.

 

Here is the contrast: the main anti-testing group is led by parents. It is called Texans Advocating for Meaningful Student Assessment (known to fans as Moms Against Drunk Testing). TAMSA has hired one lobbyist, who will be paid less than $10,000.

 

The lesson: People who are super-rich are pouring big money into politics to kill off public education and replace it with high-stakes testing, charters and vouchers. They don’t care that there is now substantial evidence that most charters do not have higher test scores than similar public schools. They don’t care that voucher schools don’t outperform public schools. What drives them? They say it’s all about the kids but it seems more likely that they just don’t like public education and want to starve it of resources.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Democrats for Education Reform, Teacher Evaluations, Texas, Vouchers

Gary Rubinstein Writes a Letter to Arne Duncan

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2015 //
18

Gary Rubinstein–math teacher, blogger, author, ex-TFA turned TFA critic–has been writing a series of letters to reformers, asking friendly but pointed questions. The first letters went to reformers he knows, the second to reformers he does not know. This letter to Arne Duncan is in the second group.

It is one of Gary’s best. He has done extensive research into Arne’s life as a Harvard College basketball star. He has studied the team’s record as well as that of other teams. He knows about the team coach. He knows that Arne was a great player but the team had a losing record.

Gary writes:

“To illustrate the issues with the accountability metrics that have been the trademark of your tenure, I’ve applied them to something you know intimately, your senior year Harvard basketball team, the 1986-1987 Harvard Cagers. Were the 1986-1987 Cagers a ‘failing’ team? Was Coach Peter Roby an ‘ineffective’ coach? Were you and Keith Webster ‘ineffective’ co-captains? It all depends on which metrics you use.”

“Your last place finish 9 and 17 record is just one way to judge your efforts. Some would use it as the sole metric and declare this a ‘losing’ season. But if you just look at points scored, you didn’t do so badly with 2152, which was pretty close to the 1972 Harvard record of 2221 points at that time. So if we look at just offense, the team was not failing. But you also gave up 2169 points, which is not so good defensively, though only 17 points less than how many points you scored. The ‘average’ game that season, you lost 82.8 to 83.4. Doesn’t sound so bad when measured that way.

“But what if Roby was judged on your performance of just one day? Well, it depended, then, on what day. The ‘86-‘87 Cagers were streaky. You started off 0 and 3, all away games. Then the next ten games you went 7 and 3 bringing your record to 7 and 6. The last two wins were against Penn and Princeton on January 9th and January 10th 1987, who finished respectively 1st and 2nd in the Ivy League that year.”

Gary even includes video footage of the historic match between Harvard and Penn.

He adds:

“How would you react if the President appointed a Secretary of Physical Education who had never played sports or coached sports? And what if this person declared that our lackluster performance in the World Cup soccer tournament is evidence that our physical education system in this country is horribly broken? And what if he made the argument that he has identified the problem as the weakness of one of our most popular games, your beloved basketball?…..

“Secretary Duncan, time is running out for you. It’s like that game against Penn on January 9th, 1987. There are only a few minutes left and you are down big. Teachers are fleeing the profession and there is soon, I believe, to be a teacher shortage as new candidates will avoid the profession for the same reason that the older teachers are leaving. Standardized testing is out of control. How much money is this country paying Pearson each year? How much time, energy, and resources are being spent on testing? Your legacy is not looking good from my view. But it is not too late. Please can you rise to the occasion as you did that time you scored 14 points in three minutes to force overtime with Penn? Please captain Duncan, would you muster up the will to lead a final charge and again turn an almost hopeless situation into one of the great comeback finishes of all time.”

Categories Teacher Evaluations, VAM (value-added modeling)

Here is the New York State Teacher Evaluation Bill

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2015 //
85

This budget bill includes very detailed provisions that determine how teachers and principals in New York state should be evaluated. Needless to say, it was written by non-educators. Have any of them ever evaluated a teacher? Doubtful. Some of the details of implementation will be turned over to the State Education Department or the Board of Regents, but some features are clear: No teacher can be rated effective if he or she is rated ineffective on student performance (test scores).   The state will require that every teacher be evaluated by an independent person who does not work in the school. How many thousands of evaluators will be hired? What will it cost? Who will pay? No one knows. It is not in the budget. What value is the opinion of someone who observes a teacher or principal for an hour or a few minutes?   This is a bill that is written to oust teachers. It reeks of disrespect. It shows Governor Cuomo’s rage against the people who work with children in public schools every day. This bill is his payback to the teachers’ unions for not endorsing his re-election after he declared himself the lobbyist for charter students (3% of the state’s enrollment). Ironically (or not), many outraged teachers are blaming their union leaders for not fighting this bill. To be sure, it would not have passed without the votes of Assembly Democrats, many of whom said they were voting for it “with a heavy heart.” Just how heavy their hearts were cannot be measured, sort of like trying to measure true learning and true education.   Enrollments in teacher education programs are collapsing, in New York and across the nation. Those who enter teaching today are either woefully uninformed of the politicians’ hostility towards them or are prepared to fight a long battle for their children and their profession.   What kind of society makes war on its teachers?

Categories Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Teachers

Peter Greene on Cuomo’s Destruction of the Teaching Profession and the Democrats Who Helped Him

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2015 //
20

The ever perceptive Peter Greene watched the Cuomo Teacher-Demolition Derby from afar and found it a disgraceful spectacle. 

He couldn’t decide which was worse: Cuomo’s lust to crush the teachers, who stood by watching him coming with an axe in hand, or the Assembly Democrats, who wailed that they voted for Cuomo’s plan with a heavy heart but did it anyway. As someone tweeted earlier today, “Probably they had a heavy heart because they had no spine.”

Greene writes, for starters:

This has truly been the most bizarre thing I have ever seen. An unpopular proposal that guts teaching as a profession and kicks public education in the teeth, sails through the NY legislature.

Yes, “sails through.” There’s nothing else to call a budget that is approved 92-54.

NY Democrats tried to make it look like less of a total victory-in-a-walk for public education opponent Andrew Cuomo by making sad pouty faces and issuing various meaningless mouth noises while going ahead and voting for the damn thing. “Ohh, woes and sadderations,” they cried as they took turns walking to the podium to give Cuomo exactly the tools he wanted for helping to put an end to teaching as a profession in New York state.

I am not sure what Democrats hoped to accomplish by taking to the podium and twitter to say how deeply, tragically burdened they were. I mean, I guess you’d like to know that people who club baby seals feel a little bit bad about it, but it really doesn’t make a lot of difference to the baby seal, who is in fact still dead.

Maybe the lesson here is that the craziest person in the room controls the conversation. The person who’s willing to ram the car right into the sheer rock face gets to navigate the trip, and Cuomo has displayed repeatedly that he really doesn’t care what has to be smashed up. If the world isn’t going to go on his way, it doesn’t need to go on for anybody.

But if teachers needed reason #2,416 to understand that Democrats simply aren’t friends to public education, there it was, biting its quivering lip and sniffling, “I feel really bad about this” as it tied up education and fired it out of a cannon so that it could land directly under a bus that had been dropped off the Empire State Building.

Hell, even Campbell Brown must be a little gobsmacked, as Cuomo’s budgetary bludgeoning of tenure and job security rules has made her lawsuit unnecessary. The Big Standardized Tests results will continue their reign of teacher evaluation, dropping random and baseless scores onto the heads of New York educators like the feces of so many flying pigs. And all new teachers need to do to get their (soon-to-be-meaningless) tenure is get the random VAM dice to throw up snake-eyes four times in a row. Meanwhile, school districts can go out back to the magic money trees to find the financing for hiring the “outside evaluators” who will provide the cherry on top of the VAM sauce.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Cuomo, Andrew, New York, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, VAM (value-added modeling)

New York’s Outrageous New Teacher Evaluation Law

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2015 //
125

Governor Cuomo insisted on a teacher evaluation law that relies heavily on test scores. And he got it as part of budget negotiations. A teacher who is rated “ineffective” on the test scores cannot receive an effective rating no matter what his/her scores on observations and other measures. Test scores trump all. Here is a summary of the bill that passed last night.

It makes no sense for politicians to tell school leaders how to evaluate educators. The definition of a profession is that it is self-regulating. Teaching in Néw York will be closely regulated by the state. Local control will pass into history.

Carl Heastie, the leader of the State Assembly, controlled by Democrats, said the Assembly would pass the budget despite their discomfort with the education proposals. What matters most, he says, is an on-time budget.

Consider the elements that may NOT be included in teachers’ evaluations:

“6. PROHIBITED ELEMENTS. THE FOLLOWING ELEMENTS SHALL NO LONGER BE ELIGIBLE TO BE USED IN ANY EVALUATION SUBCOMPONENT PURSUANT TO THIS SECTION:

A. EVIDENCE OF STUDENT DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE DERIVED FROM LESSON PLANS, OTHER ARTIFACTS OF TEACHER PRACTICE, AND STUDENT PORTFOLIOS, EXCEPT FOR STUDENT PORTFOLIOS MEASURED BY A STATE-APPROVED RUBRIC WHERE PERMITTED BY THE DEPARTMENT;

B. USE OF AN INSTRUMENT FOR PARENT OR STUDENT FEEDBACK;

C. USE OF PROFESSIONAL GOAL-SETTING AS EVIDENCE OF TEACHER OR PRINCIPAL EFFECTIVENESS;

D. ANY DISTRICT OR REGIONALLY-DEVELOPED ASSESSMENT THAT HAS NOT BEEN APPROVED BY THE DEPARTMENT; AND

E. ANY GROWTH OR ACHIEVEMENT TARGET THAT DOES NOT MEET THE MINIMUM STANDARDS AS SET FORTH IN REGULATIONS OF THE COMMISSIONER ADOPTED HERE- UNDER.”

In addition, future state aid is tied to districts’ compliance with the evaluation law, written by non-educators with no knowledge of research or practice:

NOTWITHSTANDING ANY INCONSISTENT PROVISION OF LAW, NO SCHOOL DISTRICT SHALL BE ELIGIBLE FOR AN APPORTIONMENT OF GENERAL SUPPORT FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS FROM THE FUNDS APPROPRIATED FOR THE 2015–2016 SCHOOL
YEAR AND ANY YEAR THEREAFTER IN EXCESS OF THE AMOUNT APPORTIONED TO SUCH SCHOOL DISTRICT IN THE RESPECTIVE BASE YEAR UNLESS SUCH SCHOOL DISTRICT HAS SUBMITTED DOCUMENTATION THAT HAS BEEN APPROVED BY THE COMMISSIONER
BY NOVEMBER FIFTEENTH, TWO THOUSAND FIFTEEN, OR BY SEPTEMBER FIRST OF
EACH SUBSEQUENT YEAR, DEMONSTRATING THAT IT HAS FULLY IMPLEMENTED THE
STANDARDS AND PROCEDURES FOR CONDUCTING ANNUAL TEACHER AND PRINCIPAL EVALUATIONS OF TEACHERS AND PRINCIPALS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE REQUIRE-
MENTS OF THIS SECTION AND THE REGULATIONS ISSUED BY THE COMMISSIONER.

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, New York, Teacher Evaluations

Mark NAISON: The Day Democracy Died in NY Assembly

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2015 //
24

Mark Naison of Fordham University writes:

When Democracy Died in the New York State Assembly

Something inside me died tonight in the New York State Assembly. Democratic legislator after Democratic legislator, some who claimed to be lifelong friends of public education, some who were once teachers themselves, caved in and voted for a bill that was going to add to the test burden on the already over tested children of the state, subject teachers to more scripting and more intimidation than they already had to endure and strip power away from principals and local school districts.

Many knew what they voted for was wrong. Many said so in their remarks. But they caved in and voted for a measure that was going to make the lives of their constituents miserable, our of fear, cowardice and a refusal to consider how their actions might look in the broad sweep of historical events

And their actions alerted me to something I had feared for some time. That the voices of ordinary citizens had become so smothered by the power of great wealth that all social policies were now held hostage to the pursuit of private gain. That political leaders, irrespective of political party, no longer felt a moral imperative to consider the “public good;” that they could pay lip service to that ideal in communicating with constituents, but when the chips were down, they would always vote for the interests of the rich and powerful.

I had used certain language, I once though loosely, to describe our current predicament. Words like “Oligarchy” and “Plutocracy.”

Tonight, I realized that those terms were rather precise descriptions of our current political arrangements

The interests of the children, the families, the teachers, the principals and the elected school board of our state were treated as impediments to a vision of educational transformation that handed power and funding over to private interests whose contributions filled the campaign coffers of officials of both parties. That such a give away of power and money took place in a Budget bill that included “ethics reform” made it all the more ironic

This was one of the most blatant displays of political cynicism and political corruption that I have seen in my lifetime.

It was quite literally sickening

I mourn for the children. I mourn for the teachers. I mourn for the principals. I mourn for the schools that will be closed; the school districts that will be taken into receivership.

And I mourn for the democratic spirit, which has disappeared from the political culture of the state and nation in which I live.

I will never accept this as the norm. I will never accommodate to cowardice and evil

And I will not be alone.

Categories Cuomo, Andrew, Democracy, New York, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Teachers

Carol Burris: One Really Dumb Idea from Albany

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2015 //
70

Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School in Rockville Center, New York, doesn’t think much of Governor Cuomo’s proposal for teachers to be evaluated by drop-by outsiders. The Governor made this part of his education package of “reforms.” His original proposal, which has been handed over to the State Education Department (or the Board of Regents) was to have test scores count for 50% of each teacher’s evaluation, to have 35% determined by an “independent evaluator,” and only 15% based on the principal’s judgment. Who would these outside evaluators be? How much would they be paid? What would it cost? How many would be hired to review the work of every teacher in the state? How much time would they spend with each teacher? This is the kind of idea that would be dreamed up only by someone who never was a principal or a teacher.

Here is what Burris says:

The folks up in Albany are showing once again that they never met a bad idea they didn’t like. The idea that teaching would improve if only “outsiders” came in to do observations is absurd.

When confronted with the costs of this half-baked scheme, legislators suggested that money could be saved by “swapping” administrators among districts to do observations. Can you imagine the consequences of putting this idea in place?

Schools would not function as principals are put on the road to observe teachers in other schools, leaving their own students and teachers without support when a crisis occurs. In rural New York, schools may be an hour or more apart. If the outside observations stay within the district, we would have elementary principals observing physics classes, and high school principals observing pre-k.

Observations would become little more than a check list hastily done by someone who has no vested interest in helping the teacher improve. One might imagine a cadre of “hired guns” who excel in writing harsh observations being brought in to a school to get a teacher who is respected in the building principal but not by a district office or a Board of Education.

This scheme makes one thing crystal clear–Cuomo despises teachers and the principals who support them. Let’s see if the legislature goes along or stands up for our public schools and the children they serve.

Categories Accountability, Principals, Teacher Evaluations
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »