The Worst Teacher in the City - SHAME ON EVERYONE

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The NY Post, predictably, identified whom it crowned "The Worst Teacher in the City" based on these dubious teacher data reports released on Friday 2/24/12 in the NY Times and NY Post. I don't want to cite the article, so as to not spread the vile any farther than necessary. They chose a woman who scored at the bottom of the "value added" data spectrum. They printed her name and school and even put her picture on top of the story.

This reflects the fundamental mean spirit that drives some of this so-called education "reform". My point is simply: Assume for a minute she is the worst teacher in the city. Assume even further that these data reports were accurate.

What business is it to her dry cleaner? What business is it to her fellow parishioners at her church? What business is it to her bus driver? What business is it to her own children's classmates that she has failed as a teacher?!!! Only her supervisors and parents of her students need to know her professional performance. They can replace her without the unnecessary public humiliation. Let her quietly go try another profession or a different educational setting where she may be successful. Her prospective employers can know about the falling out without it being in the newspapers.

I hope this woman has retained an attorney. The UFT should provide one.

UFT - What's Next?

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UFT Supports Mayoral Control allowing Bloomberg to become virtual dictator 2002
UFT Supports closing of "failing" schools - See p. 1 of your Contract 2005
UFT Supports abolition of seniority transfer - ATR debacle is created 2005
UFT Supports ending rights of teachers to challenge letters in the file - Open season on teachers begins. 2005
UFT Does nothing in response to Klein changing budgeting rules to discriminate against senior "more expensive" teachers...further exacerbating ATR dilemma. 2005
UFT Agrees to participate in Klein fantasy of Teacher Data Reports "experiment" with inevitable blow back, now apparent. 2008

What's Next? UFT adopts teacher evaluation system requiring passing marks on standardized tests/objective measurements approved by the state as a condition of employment? 2012

From the agreement with the state:
"Teachers rated ineffective on student performance based on objective assessments must be rated ineffective overall. Teachers who are developing or ineffective will get assistance and support to improve performance. Teachers who remain ineffective can be removed from classrooms;"
source: http://www.oms.nysed.gov/press/ChancellorTischandCommissionerKingPraiseEvaluationAgreement.html

20 percent of your evaluation will be state standardized exams
20 percent will be "objective assessments" negotiated by our union.
That's only 40 percent. But, if your students don't pass muster on this 40 percent, you are history.

Check out Leo Casey's blog. He's the best spokesman for the UFT, the only one with his own blog, to see my questions regarding this question about the 20 percent to be negotiated with the city to complete our new evaluation scheme. I post question no. 40 and one later about the 20 percent to be negotiated. (There are two John's so be careful). Weigh in if you so choose. 


Other important voices to follow:
NYC Public School Parents
Norm's Notes
ICE-UFT Blog
NYC Educator

It is Done... Let the Public Humiliation Begin

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Thanks to the NY Times the teacher data reports are available through SchoolBook.org


The best response to the Times on its decision to publish was this by Matthew Troy-Regier:

"Where is the journalistic integrity? What other statistic with a 35-53% margin of error be published in the NYTimes? Forget about whether or not these results should be released (which is a huge question that the courts seemed to decide), but putting a number that has a margin of error larger than the possible values is absolutely insane. Let alone reports of teachers being rated for students they don't have. The fact that these imprecise numbers are two years old AT BEST only shows that no good information will come from reading them.

This is like a sports reporter saying: We think the Cleveland Cavaliers are a great team because they were good in 2010 [the year the data is from], they had somewhere between 20 and 82 wins [the margin of error on writing scores from the result they actually had], and they have Dwayne Wade on their team with Lebron James [students that aren't actually in the class].

Any sports reporter saying that would be fired immediately. Yet it passes as good journalism in education. This is ridiculous and you should be ashamed."

Teacher Evaluation and the Lesson of Teaching for the 21st Century (RIP)

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Carol Burris, the principal who started the letter of objection to the way the teacher evaluation system is being developed with hundreds of fellow principals signing on, has claimed that a teacher will be in danger of receiving a failing evaluation if only the "objective/student test score" measures are not up to snuff, even if that teacher performs well on the other more subjective portions of assessment (link below). 


Leo Casey, the High School Vice President of the UFT, claims Burris is engaged in "alarmist conclusions." See his well-written, if lengthy, article (linked below). He assures us that our saving grace is in the complexity of the new evaluation system and that Burris' claims are unfounded because the union will have considerable influence in negotiating the local assessments and other components of the evaluation system. Burris, however, claims that the NY State Commissioner can reject any proposed teacher evaluation system not deemed rigorous enough, read based on student test scores, thus being a sufficient condition for axing an teacher. Casey counters: "here is one essential point to remember: 80% of the total evaluation – the measures of teacher performance and the measures of student learning based on local assessments – are set through collective bargaining at the district level. This provides teacher union locals with an essential and necessary input into teacher evaluations..."

So who do you believe? I respect both of these individuals. It's about gambling on the future. You know how complex ideas pan out over time. Because of their complexity, there's plenty of room for loopholes, etc. History has a lot to do with it and the teachers' experience with their unions in the past and the state of  their rights in recent contracts. 

Let's face it. The past few contracts have seen a major erosion of core rights for teachers, and not just here in NYC.  I am a chapter leader, so I have little time to write these missives in the blogoshphere, as I engage in daily combat for my members trying to protect what rights they have left. So, I think alarmist reactions are in order, especially given anything of complexity negotiated by our union. 

I have been around long enough to remember a document called Teaching for the 21st Century. Most UFT members of unaware of its existence. Yet, it was the primary driver of their Article 8 rights, which include how teachers are to be observed and assessed as professionals. It came out in the late 90s and was heralded with much fanfare as a great collaboration between the Board of Education and the UFT. Indeed, there were things we were excited about. One new one was "Peer Observation", in component A, in lieu of formal observation with the principal. Our AP was ecstatic! Less work for him he thought. Good teachers can observe each other. The elaborate process of formal observation, component B, was also spelled out in ways that showed how the teacher and principal would collaborate in an environment of mutual respect and transparency in pre-observation conferences. Teacher support protocols for less than satisfactory teachers were also outlined. Article 8 is still on the books, meaning it's still in our contract. But reading the Teaching for the 21st Century document tells a tale of a time long gone. 

Teachers who were good enough could be creative in collaborating with the administration a professional development plan for the year, which would provide the basis of their evaluation. Teachers struggling had numerous individual conferences and observations with elaborate improvement plans. It was also understood in Teaching for the 21st Century that informal observations were generally not written up, unless the teacher agreed to numerous short visits. 

Today's reality is very different. I have heard over the last 10 years other chapter leaders complain about principals engaging in snapshot (drive by informal observations) being written up with "unsatisfactory" slapped on the page just above where the teacher was ordered to "sign" for the file. We had that at Murry Bergtraum High School last year until a strong backlash by our members due to its impact on staff morale.  We have group pre-obs where we are told what they (administrators) want to see. Informal observations are often written up and placed in the file to U rate the teacher at the end of the year. This has gone on for several years. The spirit of Teaching for the 21st Century is long dead. It's only fitting then that the UFT's success rate at overturn U ratings of their members is something like 5 percent. 

With a track record like that and the vanishing of the spirit embodied in Teaching for the 21st Century should there be any surprise that UFT members will succumb to "alarmist" rhetoric? Or, will they read it and say, "Burris gets our reality". 

What we know is that what's negotiated in the past often gets eroded through arbitration decisions, persistent attacks by the administration thus wearing down a chapter leader and/or union grievance department's willingness to fight. Article 8, based on the promise of Teaching for the 21st Century, is dead. Will we be saying the same about some teacher evaluation scheme years down the road? Any evaluation system should be in negotiated IN PUBLIC, with simple terms and multi-faceted, without undue influence from state bureaucrats, but empowering local stakeholders like teachers, students and their parents. Complexity invites sophistry. Future contracts can turn a decent teacher evaluation scheme into a nightmare. 


Revisit  Teaching for the 21st Century  and ask yourself if it resembles your teaching reality now. Then ask yourself if you are being alarmist should you be uneasy about a new complex scheme being negotiated on your behalf. 


John Elfrank-Dana
UFT Chapter Leader
Murry Bergtraum High School

Links: 
Article on Carol Burris by NYC Public School Parents Blog

Leo Casey on EdWize

Teaching for the 21st Century