This has been a sad week in education in NY. So much so that I am finding it hard to write about it all. So what I am going to do is sum up what has happened and will ask that you take the time to read some of the attached articles. Please pass them on! People need to understand what politicians are doing to our education system!
1. After a show down between the UFT (United Federation of Teachers) and the mayor of NYC, Michael Bloomberg, Governor Cuomo took it upon himself to break the stalemate by threatening to implement his own teacher evaluation plan by inserting it into a budget bill. The brilliant "compromise" that resulted... teachers will now be graded on a 100 point system. 20 points on state standardized tests (which is ridiculous in NY considering it was only a few years ago the state had to throw out their scores because they were proven to be invalid, unreliable and in short a statistical joke. Now teachers jobs will depend on the very same tests); 20 points on other standardized tests or the same ones used in a different way (I have no clue what "used in another way"could mean so I won't even try to guess) and 60 points on performance in the classroom.
Now if that were the end of it, it wouldn't sound so bad. However the state department added language to the agreement which states, “Teachers rated ineffective on student performance based on objective assessments must be rated ineffective overall.” This means that a teacher who does not raise test scores will be found ineffective overall, no matter how well he or she does with the remaining sixty percent. So in the world of politics, math has now changed. The 40 percent allocated to student performance actually counts for 100 percent. Two years of ineffective ratings and the teacher will be fired.
Now think of it from a special needs teacher's point of view...my kids come to me on the average of 2-3 years behind in reading and math. Usually my students come to me at a kindergarten level. By the end of a year in my classroom many students are on the cusp of reading at a high second grade level. I have had students who have gone up as many as 10 reading levels in pretty much a yearly basis since 2006. Very few of my students do very well on these tests though. This system means that I will be most likely be in a firing position within 2 -3 years. Ask any of the parents I have worked with if they feel I am "ineffective" and they will either laugh or go off at that idea. I have parents asking to have their children in my class, even though they know I teach a self contained class. I am not an "ineffective" teacher. Quite the opposite.
2. The UFT lost the suit to keep teacher's names and their students testing scores out of the media. The media has every right to create "bad teacher lists" and publish them. They can do this even though it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be erroneous and invalid.
These two events make strong special needs teachers wonder if this job is worth it anymore. I plan to stick it out and try to fight for my rights, but many teachers will not be as masochistic as I am in this case.
Just writing this is upsetting me. I will post again later once I have cooled down. Sigh.
Without futher ado...the links I mentioned earlier. Please pass this information on to others.
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/feb/21/no-student-left-untested/
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2012/02/a_dark_day_for_new_york.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/you-are-so-smartwhy-did-you-become-a-teacher/2012/02/19/gIQA2vBNNR_blog.html
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