Wednesday, January 10, 2018

ST CAUCUS EMAIL REVEALS NYSUT DOING LITTLE TO GET EVALUATION LAW CHANGED

Below is an entire email I received from Stronger Together (ST Caucus) showing how NYSUT has done very little to implement resolutions that were passed by the NYSUT Representative Assembly to oppose mandatory use of student performance measures in teacher evaluations and more. ST Caucus is the state opposition to Michael Mulgrew's Unity Caucus

We see the UFT leadership, as usual, as the ones that are blocking a push for meaningful teacher evaluation law changes up in Albany.


James --
Happy New Year! We want to wish you a healthy and productive 2018.
As we approach the upcoming NYSUT Representative Assembly, we want to update you on NYSUT leadership’s progress in implementing resolutions adopted at the Representative Assembly. Monitoring the progress of resolution implementation is critical in understanding the health of NYSUT as a democratic body. The NYSUT Constitution places the Representative Assembly as the highest governing authority in NYSUT, with the exception of direct referendum of the entire membership. In short, once the Representative Assembly adopts a resolution it is NYSUT’s policy, and the degree to which our officers implement that resolution, is a direct measure of the health of NYSUT as a democracy where our strength derives from the collective will of the members.  
One of the resolutions we are watching closely is Resolution 17 Resolution to Oppose Mandatory Use of Student Performance Measures which requires NYSUT to lobby lawmakers to make any Student Performance Measure non-mandatory as part of the APPR. This issue is all the more important as we near the end of the moratorium on the use of SED provided growth scores on the APPR. Despite the adoption of this resolution, NYSUT failed to update its APPR talking points to be used for in district lobbying days last year. Andy Pallotta and Jolene DiBrango have said, in person to unionists, that they are lobbying for the elimination of mandated student performance measures, yet we can find no reference to this position in any lobbying material or NYSUT publication. This is alarming on several levels. In fact, Jolene was recently on Susan Arbetter’s Capitol Pressroom program and she only mentioned the elimination of tests from APPR, not all student performance measures, as is NYSUT’s policy.  
It is clear that we need to change the APPR law; it is also clear that there are no valid and reliable ways to incorporate student performance into a teacher evaluation system. It is concerning to us that NYSUT is squandering precious time in this debate by its muddying of the waters with respect to our desired outcome. It is irrational to expect at the end of this process we will have an APPR that is free from unsound student performance measures, if we have never asked or lobbied for them to be removed.  
Another resolution adopted at the Representative Assembly was Resolution 15NYSUT Oppose Teacher Participation in Generating Test Questions for the New York 3-8 Math and ELA State Assessments,which required NYSUT to refuse to participate in any endeavor to promote, support or organize efforts to have teachers write test items for the 3-8 math and ELA state assessments until the benchmarks have been corrected. While NYSUT is complying with the letter of the resolution, they are not in compliance with the spirit of the resolution. The ineffective advocacy on this issue makes us look foolish as can be seen in this Daily News article. This is simply ineffective and inexcusable advocacy on an issue that we have taken a position on in each of the last three RAs. In 2016 we adopted Resolution 9 Oppose the Current College and Career Readiness Standards Created by NYSED and a Call for their Replacement, which required that the “NYSUT officers shall develop, and send digitally, an open letter to the parents of New York explaining how the benchmarks have contributed to a false narrative of failure and ultimately hurt children, digitally forward such letter to the editorial boards of major newspapers and make it available to members and parents throughwww.NYSUT.org and other electronic means, as may be appropriate.” Had NYSUT done this, our position on writing test questions would have been much more clear and effective.  
It is clear from the work NYSUT has done on the Constitutional Convention that NYSUT knows how to sway the public’s perception on an issue. It is also clear that the membership is expecting the same dedication it brought to a transactional issue like the Con Con, to our transformational issues that deeply impact the professional lives of our members. Every Representative Assembly is a test to determine the health of NYSUT and value of our collective participation, the metric that we measure these upon is the degree to which NYSUT brings life to the positions adopted. We can see that much still remains to be done.

Respectfully,
ST Caucus

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Um, and? The system sucks, the job sucks, the grades and grad rate are a fraud. What else is new? M<y school has a 97% grad rate, kids cant write a sentence using proper English. I await a potential buyout offer and the next contract to determine if i should quit this June.

Anonymous said...

More concerned about UFT/local evaluation getting changed to 2 observations. As a non-classroom teacher, I actually like having test scores count for my yearly observation. I get to choose which measure to use. Our kids test fairly well at my school. It can be a safety net in the event if a teacher gets a developing on observations but an effective on the test brings the overall score up to effective. It has "saved" quite a few teachers in the past. However, that is just my 2 cents on this.

Anonymous said...

IMHO getting rid of Danielson & it’s subjective rubric and replacing it with the “S” & “U” of old is MORE important. When All of the sycophant newbies and administrative lackeys are ALL highly effective while the senior teachers are targeted with developings & Ineffectives, it’s obvious to all (except the UFT) that the system is corrupt.

Anonymous said...

I agree 100%. NYSUT should be lobbying to bring back S/U. Every single veteran teacher I know would love nothing more than to go back to S/U and get rid of the bullshit Danielson. The problem is that we have tools like Mulgrew who are not even in the classroom telling us how great our new evaluation system is. We were forced to take a new evaluation system over the S/U primarily as a bribe by the feds to get more money sent to the state. However, the days of the federal government dictating how states need to work their teacher evaluation days are over. (Thank God). Janus is also right around the corner, NYSUT gets it's money from locals. Thus, if they want the money train to continue then they better step up to the plate. Our evaluation debacle is the number 1 concern with all the teachers that I know.

Anonymous said...

I've started to hate my job because of this evaluation system. The kids make it hard, but this is just too much.

Anonymous said...

When I started teaching in NYC back in the 90's, the older teachers told me to work hard and get tenure and then your principal would leave you alone forever. Those words were absolutely true up until a few years ago when we started this nightmare of an evaluation system. I can deal with rude and crazy kids all day. However, the Danielson/gotcha/4 observation system is way more stressful than the kids. After I got tenure, I was left alone for the longest time. I miss being able to teach in peace. In the not so distant past, teachers who EARNED tenure were considered to have proved themselves to be effective. Now every September, I have to again reprove that I am a good teacher. It is like we are porn stars in that we are considered only as good as our last scene. (In our case, we are only as good as our last observation) The stress and mental decay that a veteran teacher feels after getting a "developing" rating for an observation can be described as like feeling as if your heart was ripped out. After being told for more than 2 decades that you are a good teacher, suddenly you are "developing". What does that mean? Am I an embryo of a teacher? Fact is that teacher morale in NYC is in the toilet right now and the biggest cause of it is how we are treated in regard to our evaluation system. I am hoping and praying that the UFT will work with the DOE and whoever our new chancellor is to make some positive changes to our corrupt and morally bankrupt evaluation system.

Anonymous said...

The current evaluation system has taken the joy out of teaching. You can't even take a few minutes to just chat with your students and be off task for fear the admin will walk in and cite you for being ineffective.
I'm fortunate in that this is my last year so I just have a "fuck it" attitude and teach my students as I please.

Anonymous said...

watch and learn, baby, I don't care how many times (fill in the blank) comes in. It just does not matter .... but that rubric has got to go!!! Danielson is the kiss of death, impossible to sustain waiting for an unannounced observation. Tell me & I can plan for it and hit the notes.... I don't understand why more teachers don't take control of the process by selecting the full period observation choice- know when and be set or die a slow death waiting for the drive by. Better yet, get rid of it!

Anonymous said...

In an assembly yesterday, AP said, we have a president who builds walls and closes bridges...how outrageous. could you imagine if someone would have said about obama, we have a president who increases food stamps, victimizes police, promotes criminal activity, gives free rides to lowlifes...Meanwhile, the grade fraud continues everywhere.

Michael Fiorillo said...

What else should we expect from a company union?