ATTEMPT TO GET UFT UNITY TO JOIN NYSUT TO OVERHAUL TEACHER EVALUATIONS FAILS AT DA

At last night's Delegate Assembly, I attempted to get the Unity Caucus dominated body to see reason and work up in Albany to scrap the teacher evaluation system as a top legislative priority. I was as usual voted down by the Unity dominated Delegates. This is the motion and most of my remarks in favor. I was rushed by President Michael Mulgrew but got in most of what I wanted to say.

Resolution on changing Teacher Evaluation System

February 7, 2018

Whereas, NYSUT President Andy Pallotta called for an end to using student test scores in teacher evaluations;

Resolved, that the UFT will join with NYSUT to make it a major legislative priority to eliminate student test scores from teacher evaluations and return teacher evaluations to local control.

We got a hint from Presidents Mulgrew and Pallotta  about UFT and NYSUT’s Albany priorities in teacher evaluations in recent testimony to the legislature. President Pallota said that  “Teacher Evaluations should be returned to local control with no state mandates.” He also said, “...changes in the federal law contained in the Every Student Succeeds Act eliminated the mandate for testing in teacher evaluation.”

UFT President Mulgrew said something a little different in Albany.

The UFT still wants to use student assessments to rate us and that is the wrong approach.

The argument given by the UFT leadership is that under the current evaluation system, very few teachers are rated ineffective, way less than were rated unsatisfactory in the old system. That argument is incomplete. Ratings only tell part of the story. Since we have so few adverse ratings, it would logically follow that fewer teachers would be facing dismissal charges compared to the old S or U system but data I've seen does not bear this out.

366 tenured educators were charged under state law in 2014 followed by 392 in 2015 and 381 in 2016. Average in the Bloomberg years from 2002-2013 when we had the S or U system was just 271. If the evaluation system was so great, because it produces so few adverse ratings, tenured educators facing dismissal hearings should be declining dramatically but they are not. They are up and anyone who gets two ineffectives under the current system has the burden of proof on them. Nobody in the old system carried the burden of proof. A few more tenured educators are actually losing their jobs in 2016 compared to the last two Bloomberg years according to analysis I was shown. We’ve gained nothing from having fewer ineffectives.

What about probationary teachers? A person a very close to me was a probationary teacher rated effective last year. She was also discontinued. There were others as well. Who cares if you are rated effective if you don’t have a job. Our ratings mean nothing to our bosses so why should all of us have to struggle with a system that requires intimidating Danielson drive-bys with cookie cutter rubrics and student growth measures that are often incomprehensible when the federal law no longer requires these mandates? Let’s start over.

One cannot fully comprehend how awful the evaluation system is until you have lived under it so may I please ask that someone who works under Advance speak in favor of it and not an officer or union employee. Those up on the stage have never lived under Advance.

To their credit, after I yielded the floor the officers did not raise their voting cards to speak but a Chapter Leader from a closing school who is in Unity rose to give the rebuttal against me.

She didn't refute any of my points that the test scores and overall rating are hugely irrelevant to whether our jobs are placed in jeopardy but instead said that the student test score results saved her rating because she was a Chapter Leader who spoke out. That was enough to persuade the vast majority of the Unity loyalty oath signers to vote against my resolution.

I lost the vote but the the rank and file in the schools are really the ones who are being defeated. Pulling your dues post Janus decision isn't going to make it better.

After the vote, Mulgrew felt the need to inappropriately respond to me by noting that he and Pallotta sat next to each other in Albany and then he pointed out that educators are still facing 3020a (dismissal) hearings at high rates because the Department of Education is throwing so many charges at them, hoping something will stick. He ironically was making my point that the ratings really don't matter much.

I've tried to use logic two years in a row to convince Unity Caucus that the membership hates the evaluation system and we need to replace it. Can anyone help me out?