Grading Teachers

The NY Times reports today that New York City has "embarked upon an ambitious experiment, yet to be announced" in which 2,500 public school teachers are being measured on how much their students improve on annual standardized tests.

The program, which may be a breach of the teachers contract, is considered so "contentious" that it has been kept secret from some of the teachers who are being scrutinized in the 140 elementary and middle schools participating in the program.

The Times article says DOE officials will not say publicly what they plan to do with the information being collected, but Chris Cerf, a deputy chancellor of the NYCDOE and former head of Edison Schools, surely gives a good indication:

“If the only thing we do is make this data available to every person in the city — every teacher, every parent, every principal, and say do with it what you will — that will have been a powerful step forward,” said Chris Cerf, the deputy schools chancellor who is overseeing the project. “If you know as a parent what’s the deal, I think that whole aspect will change behavior.”

The Times reports the UFT has known about the program for months but does not know which schools are involved because of "confidentiality" agreements between the DOE and the principals who agreed to participate in the program.

The Times says UFT President Weingarten is concerned about the program:

Randi Weingarten, the union president, said she had grave reservations about the project, and would fight if the city tried to use the information for tenure or formal evaluations or even publicized it. She and the city disagree over whether such moves would be allowed under the contract.

“There is no way that any of this current data could actually, fairly, honestly or with any integrity be used to isolate the contributions of an individual teacher,” Ms. Weingarten said. “If one permitted this, it would be one of the worst decisions of my professional life.”

Ha - what a joke! When Ms. Weingarten and the UFT leadership agreed to merit pay for teachers based upon standardized test scores earlier this school year, they opened the door to all kinds of funky other things related to test scores - including grading teachers based upon scores whether the tests were meant for that purpose or not.

While the Times reports that DOE officials "adamantly deny" they plan to hand out letter grades to teachers and base tenure decisions solely on test score performance, those of us in the system know better.

That's exactly where this is going in the near future. And just as giving letter grades to schools based upon a formula overly weighted toward annual test score improvement has proven reductive and harmful (schools with 85%-95% test score passing rates have been handed D's and F's by the DOE for failing to improve on their test scores while schools with 30%-50% test score passing rates have been handed A's and B's because their test scores have improved from one year to the next), so too will handing out letter grades to teachers.

And before my friends at the Democrats For The Return Of Feudalism and other education "reform" groups starting chirping about how I must be a bad teacher because I'm complaining about being held accountable to standards, let me tell you that I am a teacher who works at a school that received an A and a "Well Developed" assignation from the DOE in this year's assessments, I teach at least three sections of ELA Regents prep each year (sometimes four or five if I teach remedial Regents prep in the Spring), and have very high passing rates every year.

I'm attacking this program not because I'm worried I will be exposed as a "bad teacher," but because I do not believe the testing regimen as currently constituted was designed to provide enough insight into teachers' performances to base salary decisions, tenure decisions and personnel decisions nor do I think any one annual standardized test should be given the kind of weight Mayor Bloomberg, Chancellor Klein and others are giving them.

And yet, that is where we are headed, and despite Ms. Weingarten's "Oh, I am so concerned about this program..." tone, Ms. Weingarten and the UFT leadership have partnered with Mayor Bloomberg, Chancellor Klein and the other education "reformers" to bring them to us.

The NY Sun reports that Ms. Weingarten is widely expected to move up the ladder this year and take over the reins of the American Federation of Teachers when the current head steps down.

That means all the concessions that Ms. Weingarten has made here in New York on merit pay, on additional days and additional time, on grievance rights, on seniority rights, on authoritarian mayoral control, on charter schools, on curriculum and a host of other issues can now be made at a national level so that teachers all across the nation can learn just how much fun it is to be lead by Rod Paige's favorite teachers union head.

Frankly, I'm not as mad at Bloomberg, Klein and Cerf for the merit pay, the additional standardized tests a year (10 and counting so far), the additional days and time, the loss of grievance and seniority rights, and all the other things they've done to take more power for the DOE and diminish the power and work conditions of the teachers in the system as I am at Randi Weingarten, Leo Casey, and the other sell-outs at the UFT who have enabled all these things while telling us to our faces they're fighting them.

That's who is at fault here. And despite her "grave reservations" to the contrary about the newest DOE horror show - measuring teachers in secret by how much their students improve on test scores, you can bet Ms. Weingarten is either in favor of the program or doesn't care enough to stop it.

The Grand Tradition

Preuss at UC San Diego is a nationally acclaimed charter school. Its grades are outstanding, its training of kids impeccable, and its leaders are miracle workers.

Its methods follow in the footsteps of great reformers, like Rod "The NEA is a terrorist organization" Paige, who oversaw the "Texas Miracle" (which helped GW Bush acquire the White House). Mr. Paige managed to sharply reduce the dropout rate by erasing dropouts from the record books. Mr. Paige, of course, with no background as an educator, is still recognized as an authority on education.

The Preuss School emulates the methods of the most prominent reformer in the country, Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Mr. Bloomberg has managed to close schools and shuffle kids all over the city. When he closes a school, he fills it with new kids, and voila! The new kids all speak English, and waddya know, they get higher scores than those kids who came from El Salvador six weeks ago! It's a miracle! But strangely, on tests he can't blatantly manipulate, Mr. Bloomberg makes no progress whatsoever. Mr. Bloomberg managed to sharply increase the graduation rate by excluding dropouts from the record books. Mr. Bloomberg, of course, with no background as an educator, is still recognized as an authority on education.

So, when the renowned Preuss Charter School was audited, one reason for its amazing progress became clear. In the grand tradition of Mr. Page and Mr. Bloomberg, its leaders had cooked the books:

About 420 grades at the Preuss School have been inaccurately recorded in the past six years, reflecting a system with insufficient internal controls and pressure on teachers to pass students, according to the audit, to be released today

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The "pressure on teachers to pass students" is the same method uber-reformer Mr. Bloomberg's been using, and one of his principals was foolish enough to commit it to paper a few days back. One of Mr. Bloomberg's reforms is to give kids credit for "seat time." Apparently, if kids sat in the classroom, whether or not they paid attention or did work, they ought to do a project for a few days rather than actually take the class again (And given the unconscionable overcrowding that has typified Mr. Bloomberg's tenure, whether or not the kid actually had a seat was irrelevant).

The new paradigm for schools is that they must improve every year. Even if they do consistently well, they need to do consistently better. As Diane Ravitch noted yesterday, that's plainly absurd. We'd be better off asking our schools to do well consistently, and allowing passing rates to go up and down from time to time.

And until a more reasonable standard is established, schools will continue to get results the old fashioned way. They'll cheat.

Tony-O, Tony-O, Wherefore Art Thou, Tony-O?

I've often thought having a mobbed-up union boss would be beneficial to teachers, but the other day Mike Antonucci came out squarely against it. I pointed out that after the graft and extortion at least there'd be some benefit to rank and file. Mike suggested Miami where Pat Tornillo ran the union:

He led the nation's first statewide teachers' strike, a bitter walkout that kept 1-million Florida children out of school but gave public employees the right to bargain collectively.

He built the largest labor union in the South, securing higher pay for teachers who paid him millions of dollars in dues - money he used to help elect dozens of Democrats to public office.

Wow. He got higher pay for teachers and the right to bargain collectively. That's nothing to sneer at. And he used the money to elect Democrats in Florida. I'm for that. Maybe if he'd elected a few more we could have avoided the endless reign of George W. Bush.

The UFT, on the other hand, used dues money to elect Republican George Pataki so he could veto 25/55 and improvements to the Taylor Law. They used dues money to support Republican Serphin Maltese, who was instrumental in breaking two parochial school unions. And, truth be told, they've helped elect dozens of Democrats too. All in all, what's the problem here?

Former employees say he charged the Miami-Dade teachers union for $2,000-a-night hotel suites and trips to Europe and the Far East. According to published reports, he used his union credit card to buy tailored suits in Hong Kong, jewelry in California and python-print pajamas from Neiman-Marcus. He is even accused of using union dues to pay his maid.

Hmm...the UFT supports multitudes of trips to conventions for loyal Unity/New Action hacks. It pays 40 million dollars a year to support patronage employees. It pays the salary of a full-time limo driver to whisk UFT President Randi Weingarten wherever it is she goes. Now I won't speculate about python-print pajamas, but who would begrudge a couple grand to a union boss who actually improved conditions for working people? Not me. On the other hand, Ms. Weingarten, who I'm told makes in excess of 300 grand, has brought us the following:

1. Punishment days in August
2. Unpaid suspension based on unsubstantiated allegations
3. A sixth class for most high school teachers
4. Perpetual hall patrol
5. Halved prep time
6. Talk about class size, but no substantive action whatsoever
7. Enabling mayoral control, with no checks or balances
8. Severely abridged seniority rights
9. Compensation increases that failed even to meet cost of living...

....among other things. It's true Ms. Weingarten's innovative "more work for less pay" approach endears her to the likes of Rod Paige. But I wonder if we'd be better off under someone who actually worked to better our lot.

During a recent 30-month period, Tornillo and his wife charged an estimated $350,000 to the United Teachers of Dade, reported the Herald, which said it inspected Tornillo's credit card statements, union checks and financial records.

The spree came on top of the $243,000 salary Tornillo received annually as union president. He is now on unpaid suspension.

Why not get a union leader who works for us, and double, triple, quadruple the salary so he (or she) can do this stuff legally? It's a drop in the bucket, compared to the patronage mill the UFT runs. Did you notice the glitzy television campaign that preceded the UFT election? Ms. Weingarten spent millions of our dues dollars to plaster her name and expensive new logo all over Law and Order. Did anyone raise a fuss? Of course not. It happens before every UFT election so it must be legal.

But it does no good at all for those of us who actually have to work.

Let's get a mobbed-up boss and pay a million a year. Two million a year. What's the big deal if we're already paying 40 million a year in patronage? For that, we still have no one to stand up for us. And the fact is we need someone who will stand for us, rather than simply doing whatever advances her personal ambitions.

Despite popular sentiment otherwise, NYC's 30-year teacher shortage did not occur because the pay was too high and the work too easy. And its legacy benefits neither teachers nor the kids we serve.

Update: Mike Antonucci responds here, asking, "What do you call it when you pay an individual additional money to get the result you want?" I'd call it extortion (but I'm fairly certain Mike has something else in mind.)

Mr. Paige Loves Ms. Weingarten

Ex-US Secretary of Education Rod Paige has a new book. Naturally, I can't wait to hear what he has to say. The book is entitled The War Against Hope: How Teachers' Unions Hurt Children, Hinder Teachers, and Endanger Public Education.

Mr. Paige is widely known for presiding over the "Texas Miracle," which helped ex-Texas governor George W. Bush ascend to the presidency. Later, it was found that most of the miracle resulted from Mr. Paige having cooked the books to make dropouts magically disappear.

Mr. Paige's next great achievement was calling the NEA a terrorist organization. Sure, I too have often failed to see the distinction between mass murderers who blow up buildings and groups of people who teach our children.

Mr. Paige's last dance with President Bush occurred soon after he used federal funds to pay off journalists who promoted his programs. How does someone with such a history retain any influence whatsoever?

Still, Mr. Paige doesn't hate all union leaders.

The book actually praises the president of New York City's United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. It says she is among those union leaders who "have exhibited the unique ability to achieve, or at least to strive to achieve, the proper balance between the interests of the public education system and the well-being of the union's members."

Mr. Paige perceives, correctly in my view, that Ms. Weingarten (who is not a socialist) is a new kind of union leader. Ms. Weingarten has no compunction about halving the prep time of her teachers. She has no problem punching holes in their seniority rights. Ms. Weingarten doesn't think twice about allowing NYC teachers to be suspended without pay based on unsubstantiated allegations. She doesn't hesitate to give back 20 years of hard-won gains, on a silver platter, in exchange for a compensation increase that fails to keep up with inflation.

And, of course, if she hadn't supported and enabled mayoral control, we wouldn't even be discussing the latest incarnation of Mayor Mike's reorganization. It appears after whatever tinkering she and Mr. Blomberg have done, senior teachers will be as unattractive as ever to prospective employers under the "open market" plan. Even after the changes they've made, principals have every incentive to hire only inexperienced teachers and hound them into quitting before five years pass. It appears Ms. Weingarten, once again, has opted for a quick fix while the city has demonstrated long-term vision.

Ms. Weingarten is a good friend of Mr. Paige and his ilk. The only problem is that leaves 80,000 teachers and 1.1 million children to fend for themselves. If you think Mr. Paige, or other guys who cook the books to dress up their results give a damn about teachers, parents, or the kids we serve, I have a bridge to sell you.

Thanks to Norm

Mr. Bloomberg Has Some Splainin' to Do...

Well, there are liars, damned liars, and then there's the blue ribbon panel with Rod Paige, Joel Klein, and Mayor Mike. While he hasn't gone all out and fabricated a miracle, as Mr. Paige did, Mayor Mike's figures are highly suspect.

A few months back he was failing to count dropouts among those who failed to finish high school, resulting in a discrepancy between city and state figures. However, he appears to have negotiated a more favorable interpretation, so that accountability can continue to apply only to teachers.

But despite that, there's yet more bad news for Mayor Mike, presented by the formidable Diane Ravitch, who's cast a highly critical lens on Tweed's much-ballyhooed claims about test scores:

...the first state test results that reflect the mayor's reforms were reported in 2004. Since the mayoral reforms began, there have been three state tests from 2004 to 2006. So what has happened to scores since the mayor's package of reforms was installed? Instead of a 12 percentage point gain in fourth grade English arts, the gain was 6.4 percentage points (from 52.5% meeting state standards to 58.9%). Instead of a 32 percentage point gain in fourth grade mathematics, there has been a gain of 4.2 percentage points (from 66.7% to 70.9%). Instead of an 18 point percentage gain in eighth grade mathematics, there has been a gain of 4.5 percentage points (from 34.4% to 38.9%). Only in eighth grade English was there an appreciable gain, from 32.6% to 36.6%, but the score is only 1 percentage point higher than it was in 1999.

And that's not all:

None of the gains, by the way, match the test score gains in the city schools that occurred the year before mayoral control began...

I wonder what would happen if the tabloids ever printed the truth about Mr. Bloomberg's educational revolution. I suggest we all sit while we wait to find out.

The More Things Change...

...the more they stay the same. Mayor Bloomberg's proposals remind me of nothing more than the folks who come to school each year to tell us how this is the way to teach, this is the only way to teach, and no teaching can ever occur unless you teach this way. They freely admit, of course, that they said the same thing last year, but that way, for some inexplicable reason, no longer works.

I've learned to block them out altogether by closing my eyes and focusing on one simple word, which unfortunately is not fit to publish.

So last year's reforms, as brilliant as they were, are not reform-minded enough, and this year we need to reform the reforms so as to create a reformation that's so well-formed, we can discard it utterly when reform time comes around.

There's a lot of talk about tenure. I have very mixed feelings about that. We ought not to grant tenure to people who are unfit to teach. Still, I don't believe this mayor is seriously looking to reduce the pool of available teachers. Supply and demand is a tricky thing, and NYC has been able to keep teacher salaries below market rates for over thirty years.

Do you really think we've seen the last of intergalactic recruiting? I doubt it.

But the mayor now says if you can't raise the kids' test scores, you may not get tenure. This, of course, makes the plainly idiotic assumption that the teacher is the only factor affecting test scores. Well, let me tell you, it's easy to raise test scores. Just do what Rod Paige did, and make sure kids who mess up statistics get left behind somehow. Or take all the tests yourself. There are lots of ways creative teachers can get around this, just as Mayor Mike himself doesn't count dropouts in his own statistics.

Are those the sort of teachers we want? Will we be surprised at the occasional indiscreet newbie who gets caught? Will the mayor get away with this nonsense?

One person who clearly doesn't know is UFT President Randi Weingarten, as usual, the proverbial deer in the headlights. Ms. Weingarten feigns shock at this utterly predictable finger-pointing. Mayor Mike has many fingers, though, and we all know which way they point. How on earth can Ms. Weingarten, his number one collaborator, be surprised?

She's now stood up to protect tenure, though as far as I can tell, it's not precisely under attack. Aside from the preposterous testing proposals, the threat seems more along the lines of enforcing existing agreements. And if it were under attack, or it is actually attacked, who would you want to protect it?

With Ms. Weingarten's explicit approval, mayoral control came into being, thus enabling the campaign of outright fear and loathing we've been subject to the last few years. Ms. Weingarten has thus far been too timid to speak against its renewal. For teachers, she's endorsed the sixth class, perpetual hall patrol, 90-day unpaid suspensions, a bought-and-paid-for phony opposition party called "New Action," and the all-new purgatory that is the Absent Teacher Reserve. For children, she's refused to make class size any part of contract negotiations.

Perhaps Ms. Weingarten, from her downtown ivory tower, has determined her actions will help us retain new teachers. The only potential improvement Ms. Weingarten has proposed was 25/55, and the other night, the mayor seemed to come out squarely against any enhancements to pension plans (In fact, it's almost certain he's got other notions entirely).

At every step, this mayor has outmaneuvered her. Like New York City's 1.1 million public schoolchildren, we need strong leaders who will stand up to bullies. Like them, we need leaders who will demand small class sizes in contract talks. We need leaders who understand what a raise is, what cost of living is, and who won't toss our hard-won benefits into the trash for less than nothing. We need leaders who understand that making a difficult job even more difficult is not precisely the key to retaining teachers.

We don't need Ms. Weingarten and her band of overpaid sycophantic Unity-New Action patronage cronies. They know only how to shut up and sit down for fear of endangering pension #2.

Thanks to Schoolgal

cross-posted to Take Back the UFT

The Blue Ribbon Panel

UFT President Randi Weingarten supported and enabled mayoral control. She later spoke against it, but declined to endorse Bloomberg's opponent in the next election (apparently in return for a contract). She helped create a monster, and it's growing every minute.

Bloomberg took the ball and ran with it. For a while, he made it seem as though he wanted to improve things. He took the LAST test, required for NY teacher certification, passed it, and then declared (correctly, in my view) that any high school graduate ought to be able to do so too.

He then sent Joel Klein to Albany to beg for the right to retain and hire thousands of teachers who'd failed that very test. He and Mr. Klein have perfected a science of moving kids from one school to another in order to emulate progress. When fourth grade scores go up and eighth grade scores go down, they declare victory.

Mayor Bloomberg made huge noises about ending social promotion in fourth grade. As a result, he held back roughly the same number of kids that got held back before he started complaining. To save money, he stopped offering required services. Another great vehicle for showing progress is his policy of removing dropouts from the graduation statistics.

In view of their accomplishments, Bloomberg and Klein were chosen for this prestigious panel--which brings us to the next most prominent member of the panel, ex-US Secretary of Education Rod Paige. Mr. Paige presided over the Texas Miracle, which also involved the Houdiniesque "disappearing dropout." Mr. Paige was later involved in paying journalists to push his policies, after which he quietly disappeared himself (from the Bush White House).

This distinguished panel has determined our best course is to have schools run by private companies, eliminate teacher pensions, and raise teacher salaries (to a level Nassau County reached years ago, and NYC will reach in two years). Thus, by giving with one hand and taking away with the other, they expect to draw more teachers.

I'm hoping the people we trust to teach our kids are smart enough to see through that, but who knows?

In any case, I like the CFE recommendations better: good teachers and smaller classes for all schoolchildren. They're simpler, don't aim to bamboozle anyone, and work very well where I live. However, the panel, which prominently includes people who historically prefer illusions to improvements, goes with unproven theories instead.

Of course I'm only a teacher and a public-school parent.

You'll never see the likes of me on a blue-ribbon panel.

Thanks to reality-based educator

O'Reilly Blames American GIs for Nazi Executions

In an ongoing effort to characterize alleged events in Haditha and documented atrocities at Abu Ghraib as business as usual, Bill O' Reilly, has on at least two occasions blamed a Nazi WWII massacre on American troops.

That, perhaps, explains why the Fox motto "fair and balanced" makes no claims as to accuracy. And since accuracy is no longer an issue, it's easy to continue calling it "fair and balanced."

Note also that O'Reilly has stated that teacher unions are "not good Americans." Better we should cower at the mercy of lying anti-labor thugs like ex-US Education Secretary Rod Paige (The NEA is a "terrorist organization.") and hope for the best. O'Reilly supports "right to work" for teachers since unions have the inconvenient effect of amplifying the voices of working Americans.

Shocking News

I missed this while I was preparing the carnival, but Newsday, on May 23, 2006, pointed out that school violence was being underreported. Thanks to the Education Wonks for pointing us to this story.

I learned of this practice very shortly after I started teaching in October 1984, and I can only conjecture that increased accountability has worsened the problem. I'd be very interested in hearing from NYC teachers who aren't already aware.

However, there are well-established precedents for fudging educational statistics.

Many forget non-educator US Education Secreatary Rod Paige, who came into prominence via overseeing the "Texas Miracle," in which the dropout rate miraculously dissipated to vitually nothing. This was accomplished through the time-honored practice of cooking the books, and its reputed success helped President Bush to nearly defeat Al Gore in the 2000 election. Among Mr. Paige's other accomplishments are paying off journalists to shill for his programs and declaring the NEA a "terrorist organization."

So why are the Gloomy Guses at Newsday suddenly begrudging our principals a few helpful falsehoods?

How We Do Things in Texas

Sure, the Dallas school district gives free lunch to 80% of its impoverished students. But it turns out the district is property-rich, so millions of dollars will now be funneled out to support other districts. Dallas isn't the first Texas district to have its property values sneak up from behind, either.

It kinda makes ya yearn for the good old days, when serial liar/ex-US Secretary of Education Rod Paige could cook the books thoroughly enough to convince the sleeping press corps there was a "Texas Miracle." Rod later went on to call the NEA a "terrorist organization" and slink away, after paying off Armstrong Williams and other journalists to hype NCLB.