You knew it was going to happen that if too many teachers were rated effective or highly effective in the new evaluation system that our enemies would look to make the system harsher. It is no surprise that there is talk from Albany about changing the teacher evaluation law as Perdido Street School has been reporting. (His reporting has been great.)
It looks like the Governor and State Education Department are going to want some kind of quota of at least 5% of teachers being rated ineffective when they move to amend the teacher evaluation law next year.
During UFT President Michael Mulgrew's President's Report at Wednesday's Delegate Assembly, he gave away what will probably be the UFT/NYSUT legislative strategy for the year ahead. We will argue that the teacher evaluation system is fine the way it is in NYC. The rest of the state may be flawed but ours is first rate. The UFT will advocate for the status quo.
It is the usual failed negotiating strategy of asking for nothing while our enemies seek major concessions and then settling for new givebacks that are not quite as bad as the ones originally proposed. Instead, the union should be asking to scrap the whole system based on junk science to move the center of gravity in our direction. You can be pretty sure we won't make such a move.
7 comments:
So what else is new?
I know this won't be popular here or on any other blog but on this front, I'm not sure what else the UFT/NYSUT can do--even if they were inclined to do anything at all.
Frankly, if the City system becomes the model for the state I'll be amazed that that will be the extent of what the Governor and the Chancellor wanted. I don't even believe that they will stop there because I'm not sure any of them has firmly "come out" in favor of even the City's pitiful system.
NYSUT/UFT already gave that store away--it's a bit hard to take the store "back" when you've given it away, for nothing. Mulgrew thinks he accomplished some "profile in courage" moment when he got the number of Danielson elements reduced in classroom obs. As to the fake science, we need to keep making the case beyond opting out of high stakes testing. I'm not sure that there is a single legislator in Albany who has a clue what lies at the heart of any of the test-based parts of the APPR systems.
The Union should "hit the airwaves." They should dig up the quotes where Cuomo said the evaluation system "is perfect," and run it on TV. THE NYC evaluation system is CUOMO'S! He forced it on the city through King. the UFT should also run commercials letting the parents know that Cuomo's plans will subject their kids to even more high stakes testing. Teachers and their voting age relatives have to start picking up the phones (independent of the union) and start calling their state assemblymen, and senators with their concerns. Let these elected officials know that you will be voting on these issues in 2016.
I don't think most teachers know what the testing means either.
I did not understand Pres. Mulgrew to say that the evaluation system is perfect when I was at Wednesday's Delegate Assembly. I did understand him to say that the new evaluation system was rolled out a year sooner in the rest of the state than in NYC, that Mayor Bloomberg rejected the system worked out between the UFT and the DOE so that the SED imposed the system we have now. Comparing results upstate and in NYC is like comparing apples and oranges: NYC has larger class sizes and a more challenging cohort of students than upstate communities, so a difference in results is to be expected. We will absolutely reject any imposition of quotas.
Usual ICE brilliance, James. Reopen teacher evaluation so Cuomo can make it worse.
The legislature and governor control the law. Cuomo has already reopened this. This would be as good a time as any to show how the whole system based on junk science and stupid observations is counterproductive. Play offense UFT.
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