NY's Evaluation Plan--A Disaster Waiting to Happen

"Bullets are only one small part of the gun," says Mike Klonsky, on whether VAM, or value-added, should be part of any evaluation system. This notwithstanding, there are various ways of looking at New York's new evaluation system, and UFT High School VP Leo Casey may not see eye to eye with Klonsky.

I'd like nothing more than to agree with Casey. This would mean that all my colleagues and I were not in danger of arbitrary and capricious dismissal based on the junk science that is VAM. In fact, I very much admired Casey's recent piece, In Bad Faith, which nailed the DOE on its abject hypocrisy in the negotiation process.

However, I tend to agree with Diane Ravitch and Principal Carol Burris that the new system is an unworkable mess. First, we're talking about VAM, which is unmitigated nonsense. Whether that constitutes 20% or 40% of teacher rating, it's still another Bill Gates-inspired voyage into the wild blue yonder that's subject to wild margins of error. Today, though the UFT assured us it would not happen, teachers all over the city will have their names and highly dubious scores published in local newspapers. This is what comes of trusting Michael Bloomberg's morally bankrupt Department of Education--and don't be surprised if it happens to every working teacher under this new scenario. In fact, there's now a precedent for it.

Furthermore, the second so-called objective measure of 20%, the part that will be negotiated locally, needs to be approved by three-year teacher and charter founder John King, who's shown no evidence he supports or understands anything other than what Gates and his corporate cronies support or understand.

An important point here is the line in the state agreement, explicitly stating, "Teachers rated ineffective on student performance based on objective assessments must be rated ineffective overall." Diane Ravitch writes:

Unless I can't read plain English, this says that the 40 percent devoted to test scores overrides the other 60 percent. In other words, 40 percent is equal to 100 percent. 

I'm as impressed by plain English as Ravitch is, and that's clear to me. Casey explicitly addresses it in the comments:

...if a teacher scores very low on both the state measure of learning and the local measure of learning — 0, 1 or 2 out of a possible 20 in both components — they will not be able to make the cut score out of the ineffective rating, no matter their score on the measures of teacher performance. Given that there are two different measures, and at least one of them can be an authentic assessment of learning rather than a standardized exam, it is hard to make a convincing argument that a teacher who scores so poorly on both measures is effective in the classroom...

Given that VAM is total crap, and we have no idea whatsoever what the remaining 20% will actually consist of, I'd argue that it's impossible to make a convincing argument a teachers scoring poorly on both measures is not effective in the classroom. In fact, we've agreed to this wacky escapade without any successful pilot program, without any idea what the tests will be, without any idea what the VAM formula will be, without any idea what the remaining 20% will be, and largely without the remotest notion of what we're getting ourselves into. We do know, however, that good teachers can get bad ratings under systems that actually exist, and that teachers were fired in DC's VAM experiment under questionable circumstances.

We also know that there is some history here--if the tabloids approve of anything we do, it's a bad deal. The last time the tabloids admired us, for a solid 5 minutes, was in 2005. We approved a contract that precluded grievance of letters in file, killed seniority transfers, and created a seemingly permanent underclass of teachers known as the Absent Teacher Reserve, or ATR. To my recollection, neither Casey nor any UFT official anticipated that Joel Klein would hire new teachers even as current ATRs lingered in limbo.

And last year, there was an agreement to preclude layoffs that entailed sending ATR teachers from school to school, week to week. At that time, multiple UFT contacts assured me there was no way the DOE had the wherewithal to actually schedule such rotations. The DOE is inept, they said, they could never do it. We now know the UFT was wrong then.

Casey is correct that there is much to be negotiated. He's right that no agreement is perfect, that there are gray areas and many things yet to be determined. It's admirable that he's out there on Edwize personally answering every single comment, few if any of which have been remotely favorable.

But I must tell you, as it's abundantly evident to me--the UFT is wrong now too. In a particularly humiliating turn of events, the New York Principals have shown themselves to be much smarter than we are. They oppose this measure, and you should too. If you do, take a moment to sign their petition.

Can we ever live down having principals analyze this thing better than we did? One thing I know for sure--it would be a lot easier without this preposterous system hanging over our heads--like the Sword of Damocles.

Update: Yoav Gonen, NY Post Education reporter, tweets on how amazingly unreliable VAM-based TDR reports released today are: Maximum margin of error for a teacher's percentile ranking on #TDRs is 75 in math and 87 in ELA

The Audacity of Corporate Nonsense

I'm struck by the recent revelation that E4E shill/ Gotham Schools mouthpiece Ruben Brosbe is leaving for the greener pastures of an educational leadership program. E4E, as you know, is a Gates-sponsored shill organization designed to destroy union from within. Its leaders are not even teachers anymore, but rather employees of the organization who work in schools every now and then.

E4E exists primarily to support demagogues like Bloomberg in their efforts to fire teachers, and particularly to eviscerate the reverse seniority-based dismissals that would occur if ever he decided to fire teachers, with or without reason. In recent bills supported by E4E, Bloomberg's layoffs were not actually layoffs but dismissals, since there was no right of return. And one of the categories to be dismissed would have been teachers who were unable to get tenure. Brosbe's now had two extensions of tenure, and surely would have been cut under this scenario.

Personally, I've seen extensions of tenure for various reasons, some better than others. I don't always agree they're necessary. However, E4E is all about this stuff being valid, all about the quality of teaching, and does not much question the methodology of its corporate sponsors. By their logic, Brosbe does not qualify as an exclusion to the next layoff list.

So my question is this--how hypocritical is it that someone who does not meet the standards for teacher tenure would move toward educational leadership? Ought not our leaders be able to master the most basic and important job in education--teaching? Should someone like Brosbe, unable to meet the standard his group feels is so important, be placed in a position to evaluate others?

I'd love to take a year off and go study at Harvard. Regrettably, like most of my colleagues, I actually have to support myself. This is a problem that affects a lot of us, and our children. It's a problem folks like E4E don't have, what with the corporate sponsors, and who knows who else, that take care of them.

We don't need educational leaders, particularly of Brosbe's ilk, all that much. We need real teachers. And real teachers need real protection from those who'd fire us for our opinions, most of which are eons away from those of Brosbe and company. Those of us who'd advocate for children (and for the working people our children will grow up to be) need support.

Folks like Brosbe and E4E make sure they're in a good place and don't appear to give a damn about anyone else.

The Layoff Deal

Is it, or isn't it?

Obviously, averting layoffs is a good thing. No one can argue with that, except perhaps Mayor4Life and his minions. In fact, it's probably good for him too, as layoffs would prove yet another PR disaster. Should we allow him to endure that at the expense of the teachers who'd be sitting on pins and needles waiting to be called back? That's a tough call. I've lost my teaching job several times, excessed when there was no ATR to fall into, and I wouldn't wish it on anybody.

Now if this simply called for ATRs to be placed in regular teaching positions, that would be a no-brainer. But Gotham Schools says otherwise:

The second concession is that teachers in the Absent Teacher Reserve, or ATR, will be redeployed to fill substitute teaching positions, which are currently filled by teachers who work on a per diem basis. The daily rate for substitutes is approximately $180, according to the city aide. That money would be saved because the ATR, a pool of teachers without full time positions who remain on payroll, would be able to replace those spots. Under the agreement, each week teachers from ATRs can be sent to a different school in their district.

It's that last sentence that's got me nervous. Given the history of the DOE, I fully expect them to consciously and methodically work on making these 1,200 teachers as miserable as they can. This week you're here, next week you're there, no long-term connections with anyone, no being a role model for kids on any regular basis--in essence, you are not really a teacher.

I cannot describe how miserable I would be under such an arrangement, and it's hard to know how anyone could vote to put teachers through this. On the other hand, would voting against it entail voting for 4,000 layoffs? The UFT is going to put it to the DA on Tuesday, yet no one has seen any document containing precise details.

The results of the vote are a foregone conclusion--it will pass by a massive margin.

Nonetheless, I want to hear from all comers, pro or con.

What do you think?

Something for Nothing

Nice if you can get it, and that's precisely what Mayor4Life Bloomberg is demanding from city workers. Basically, you give me 30 million a month, more than I would have saved by firing all those teachers, and I won't fire all those teachers.

Yet nowhere in the article does it mention the actual emergency which necessitated all those firings, to wit, a 3.2 billion dollar surplus. Last year, you probably recall, the mayor dropped the firings by unilaterally canceling the 8% pattern raise all other city workers got for teachers. I'm still not clear how that's okay with PERB, which insists on the pattern for all whenever it's such a stinker no one wants it. In 2005 the UFT agreed to draconian concessions to get a compensation increase that didn't even keep up with cost of living.

The real problem is this--if we give Bloomberg that money, it will not be enough, just as unilaterally canceling teacher raises was not enough. Next year, there will be another crisis. Perhaps the surplus will only be one or two billion, and we'll really need to cut back.  Bloomberg will roll out the LIFO nonsense again, and do his darndest to circumvent the contract he and the Tweedies agreed to. He'll find some other stooge in the Senate to demand we kill seniority protections only for teachers, and only for teachers in New York City, and he'll claim that's the magic bullet to force the improvements he hasn't been able to make over this long, long decade.

Do we want to even consider giving Bloomberg this money? Only if we can preclude a repeat of all this nonsense next year, and the year after. Bloomberg needs a face-saving out for his idiotic and longstanding contention that teachers need to be fired.  That's why it's a good thing they haven't given it up yet.

Let's make him pay dearly for any way out, and let's not give him another in come next year.

Walcott's First Draft

As Chancellor, I want the best for our kids. That's why I'm closing their schools, and allowing charters to take over. After all, charters are better than public schools 17% of the time, so it's crucial we give our kids the chance to enroll in a grueling, dehumanizing lottery process in which they have a small chance of getting into one of these schools. That way, if they do, they have a 17% chance of getting a superior education. Me, I sent my kids to private schools until high school, because I don't take chances with my own kids.

In any case, I'd like to give the rest of you the opportunity to take that crapshot. I figure if 20% actually get into the charters, that 3.4% of your kids will have better schools. But consider this--if I can double the number of charters, 6.8% of your kids will have better schools. Perhaps one day I'll be remembered as the chancellor who managed to get 3.4% more kids better schools.

Let me tell you, I don't take this responsibility lightly. I want to close all the public schools the failing public schools because it's very important to me to raise the number of privately-run charters improve education for that 3.4% all children. We do meticulous research before taking the drastic step of closing a school, and we stand by our findings. We don't care how many people get up and protest at the hearings on closings, and we don't worry about what people say to us at the PEP meetings when we allow public comment.  Mayor Bloomberg knows best, and we all know that he'd fire us if we disagreed with his findings.

Sure, 78% of public school parents think we're going the wrong way. But I ask you, is that a reason to change horses mid-stream? If it means my job? What are you, nuts?  No one wants to have their jobs on the line. That's why that pain-in-the-ass union is always complaining. Sure, some Gloomy Guses ask why we want to fire teachers, reducing the number of working teachers by 6,000, when we're sitting on a 3.2 billion dollar surplus.

That's simply because it's better to have kids in a class of 140 with a good teacher than a class of 25 with a mediocre one. And Mayor Bloomberg and I know what a good teacher is. A good teacher is a low-paid, non-unionized, constantly terrified for her very livelihood trained professional who knows how to look the other way when we commit outrageous violations train her students for a fuller and more rewarding life. And believe me, with the money we save on losing the 6,000 teachers this year, we will focus on expanding our bad ideas opportunities for all our kids.

And remember, I've pledged never to say a bad word about teachers. I shall show the utmost respect while I fire them based on deficits that don't exist usher them into a world of new opportunity and outrageously raise the class sizes of those remaining create new challenges for our always-excellent working teachers.

Thank you, and be confident that together, we will achieve whatever the hell Michael Bloomberg says great things.

UFT to the Rescue?

In Long Island City High School Wednesday night, there was a PEP meeting. I was very surprised when Chancellor Dennis Walcott got up and spoke of a UFT lawsuit. Walcott decried the timing of the lawsuit, citing the inconvenience it would cause kids planning to go to school in September. This was the first I'd heard of it.

Now Walcott is absolutely correct that this suit will inconvenience the kids. Of course, closing their schools didn't exactly help them very much either. If Walcott is truly concerned about these kids, he can simply stop closing schools, start fixing them, and the mean old UFT will leave him alone.

Meanwhile, I know for a fact the city is doing nothing to help closing schools. They send people who give ridiculous useless criticism and pay them big bucks, while improving facilities only in parts of the building the endangered schools have already given up. They pay lip service, but nothing more.

Walcott is a gifted speaker, a smart person, and personally, a large improvement over his two predecessors. Nonetheless, he's determined to carry on destructive and hurtful policies that benefit no one but charter operators looking for extra space. I applaud the UFT for taking them on, and strongly suspect this wouldn't be happening unless they'd thought things through more deeply than the Tweedies, who have all the management skills of the Keystone Kops, pictured at right. Those are the much-vaunted New York State test scores you see slipping away from them.

I only hope the city will finally be compelled to take responsibility for what it classifies as such a massive failure. Whose fault is it if every Bronx high school had to close, or be restructured, or redesigned, or whatever it is they call whatever it is they do? In fact, if there's that much failure after almost a decade, it's time for heads on high to start rolling.

As well as Walcott speaks, he's been part and parcel of every act this administration has taken. If he's as smart as he appears, it's very difficult to conceive of how he could sincerely believe Tweed is on the right track. If they really want to improve education, they will stop vilifying teachers. Unfortunately, while Walcott's pledge to stop trashing us in public is a nice gesture, he'll need to also match it with deeds.

With overcrowding rampant, with people fighting tooth and nail over limited space, with a 3.2 billion dollar surplus, a 2 billion rainy day fund, and a billion in ed. consultants, it's plainly unconscionable to even contemplate laying off one single teacher. So, Mr. Walcott, we'll give you a chance.

But it's time to walk the walk. In the very likely event that doesn't happen, it's time for the UFT to save what's left of the school system.

Stupid, Stupid, Stupid

Our country's awash in nonsense. Here is America, grabbing torches and pitchforks, united against evil teachers. How dare they spend decades working for less than similarly educated individuals? How dare they actually use the job security they got in exchange for giving up all that money to keep their jobs? Who the hell do these teachers think they are?

In Providence, they're simply firing all their teachers, no ifs, ands, or buts.  We all know that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, the guy who answers to the billionaire Koch Brothers (and demonstrates its literal truth in a prank call) is off maintaining he needs to close a budget, and therefore needs to kill collective bargaining for teachers and nurses. The fact that they're ready to give in on all economic issues does not persuade him otherwise.

Closer to home, some poll says 85% of New Yorkers oppose LIFO. The fact that there is no objective system to replace it did not enter into that poll. People just assumed there was, and that was good enough not only for the people giving the poll, but for its unquestioning participants.  Yet once again, the bills coming up to address that situation deal only with New York City teachers. How on earth can a Suffolk County state senator seriously introduce a bill that affects only teachers outside of his district? Only in America.

Mayor Bloomberg has laid down the gauntlet. Let him fire teachers, and let him select which teachers to fire. That's it. Let principals give U-ratings, for any reason or no reason, and you're gone.  Screw the contract, and screw people who've spent decades teaching. If you're principal is crazy, or a Leadership Academy automaton,  too bad for you. When Walmart comes to the city, maybe you can become an "associate" and wear one of those cool polyester vests made by someone in China making 18 cents an hour.

Bloomberg has been threatening layoffs for three years running. Were he to get rid of LIFO, you better believe they won't be mere words. You will see senior teachers dumped to the curb. No more pesky chapter leaders. You'd be crazy to take that job (unless you just took it to get a period off, go to conventions, and not actually do anything). Oppose the principal, get a U, and get fitted for that polyester vest. Contract, shmontract. They can and will do whatever the hell they want, because you can bet there will be layoffs each and every year, whether or not they're warranted.

The most incredible thing is the Fox News-fueled phenomenon of the watchful American, making sure that no one whatsoever has decent working conditions. I've been saying this for some time, but I think Diane Ravitch said it particularly well in her column the other day:

"As for pension and health-care envy, it is a sad thing when working Americans complain that someone else has benefits, instead of agreeing that everyone should have coverage for their health and old age. It reminds me of an old Soviet joke where a peasant says, "My neighbor has a cow and I have none, I want his cow to die." We should not join in this race to the bottom."

It's amazing that people don't realize the futility, the stupidity of such actions. It's like we're all out in the streets of Egypt demanding an even more repressive dictator.

There's a hysteria against taxes--they are evil. We pay too much, goes the myth. Never mind that paying more taxes could improve our quality of life, as Europeans and Canadians know. Never mind that such changes could end up making us more productive, stimulating our economy, and actually bringing up salaries. And never mind that all these various crises could be averted by rolling back tax cuts on the rich. President Obama caved and continued the idiotic Bush tax cuts. Governor Cuomo refused to continue a tax on those making over 200K a year.  The results are cuts to education and health care for the poor. Our priorities are insane.

There is hope. I leave you with the clear and simple voice of Cynthia Nixon, speaking truth to absurdity. I only hope someone is listening.

Klein Meets With Hired Thugs

That's a pretty catchy headline.  I think it's about as accurate as this one:

Klein celebrates no layoffs, hits the bar with young teachers

That appeared in GothamSchools a few days ago.   Not only did it suggest no layoffs, but it appeared under the heading "Bullet Dodged."  In all fairness, the reporter had no way of knowing Mayor Bloomberg had misled the public about his layoff intentions.   Even though he'd lied in the past, even though he'd called revoking term limits "disgusting" before having them revoked,  even though he'd blatantly violated the Taylor Law by unilaterally announcing the terms of a contract without specifically mandated negotiation, there was truly no way for the Gotham reporter to know just how disingenuous he was being at that particular moment.

In fact, no less than the New York Times had just praised Mayor Bloomberg for making a "sensible choice."  They had no issue with his flagrant disregard for law, and their headline read "Jobs Saved: 4400."   If the venerable New York Times, with all its resources, couldn't determine Bloomberg would change his mind three days later, how would one single reporter from GothamSchools figure it out?

However, the Gotham headline was still shocking--it conjured images of the Chancellor getting to know teachers. I found this hard to accept, as his years of vilifying us and our unions suggest he hates us and everything we stand for. 

The article went on to point out that actually he was meeting a more selective group, "Educators 4 Excellence," some young teachers who specifically want senior teachers fired, on the premise that they may not be as good as new teachers.  These teachers appear to trust the judgment of serial liars Klein and Bloomberg to make these determinations.   Or perhaps they simply assume their asses will be covered if seniority goes down the tubes.

They have good reason to believe they'd survive non-seniority-based layoffs--Klein went and specifically praised one of them for going to the Grand Canyon, so you know they wouldn't feel the wrath of their new drinking buddy.  (Perhaps when they become older, if their activism subjects them to being fired at the whims of autocrats like Bloomberg and Klein, they won't have families to support, they won't need health insurance, and they won't have bills to pay, so it won't matter al all.)

The thing that really gave me pause was the "point of clarification" at the end of the piece.  "Clarification" is a funny word.  I always remember Mayor Bloomberg, after having promised to get rid of trailers by 2012, then clarifying to say he would not get rid of trailers.  This "clarification" explained while this faux-grassroots group was called "entirely unfunded," its website was actually paid for by Education Reform Now, the same front group that funded the faux-grassroots commercials urging people not to listen to the teachers' union.  The English teacher in me suggests the word "correction" is more in order.  (Sharp Miss Eyre, on simply seeing the website, suggested they had extra funding months ago.)

The group's co-founder attempts to change the subject by saying he paid for the party himself.  This, of course, comes well after it was falsely reported to be "entirely unfunded," and I've seen no previous attempt on the part of this individual to make that correction publicly.  So--was Gotham misled by the fake-grassroots group?  Or was the reporter simply making an assumption based on the info the fake-grassroots group failed to report? 

In any case, after that admission, far more newsworthy than the cutesy headline, comes this:

Stone told me today that he and Morris have only begun to look for outside funding for the group...

It's kind of incredible, after having specifically revealed that the group had already received outside funding, that anyone could seriously entertain the notion it had "only begun" to look for it, let alone report it with no hint of irony.  Even more incredible is the notion that this group, sitting there with uber-"reformer" Joel Klein, would have to struggle in any way whatsoever to get funding.  What with the hedge-fund managers that have already funded them, it's not very tough to figure out where more money will come from.  Plenty of billionaires and hedge fund managers are ready and willing to throw money at causes that weaken union and hurt working people.

If you want to see a real grassroots group, take a look at GEM.  Agree with them or not, but they are upfront with their agenda, and have no hedge fund managers pulling their strings. When's the last time you saw a feature about GEM anywhere?  Personally, I'd like to see one at the New York Times, at GothamSchools, and everywhere else, and soon.

As for my headline, these teachers may not be thugs.  But they're most certainly doing the bidding of moneyed interests, whatever else they may believe.

How Mayor Bloomberg Puts Children First--He Fires their Teachers, Breaking Yet Another Promise

Actually, first he threatened to fire 4400 teachers.  Then he unilaterally declared neither teachers nor supervisors would get raises for two years, blatantly violating the Taylor Law, and promised no teacher layoffs as a result.   This move was praised by the "liberal" New York Times. 

Bloomberg also violated NYC's prime directive of pattern bargaining no matter what.  Apparently, when the pattern is not a piece of crap, it's not important to maintain it.  Finally, after doing all that, he says he may just fire the teachers anyway.

Because it's his city, he's the mayor, and he can do what the hell he wants.

Over the last few weeks we've given him the rubber room agreement, the new rating plan, and the raising of the charter cap.  As far as I can tell, we've gotten absolutely nothing in return.

Except this, of course.