Mamie Till Mobley

"There was an important mission for me, to shape so many...young minds as a teacher. God took away one child but...(gave) me thousands. And I have been grateful for the blessing." Mamie Till Mobley

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Teacher evaluation ends tenure puts cart before the horse

The teacher evaluation system touted in the media simply erodes teacher tenure further or ended it completely because two  "ineffective" annual reviews essentially starts a 90 day appeals process to terminate a teacher.
Never mind the so call assessments and standardized tests, the "rigorous and nationally recognized measures of teacher performance" are yet in place. But certainly, those lining the pockets of Governor Andrew Cuomo, the likes of Democrats for Education Reform are applauding, while still contributing to his coffers.
What makes it more egregious is the kowtowing behavior of the New York  State United Teachers,  President Dick Iannuzzi called it "good for students and fair to teachers."
The  most laughable feature  is the "I gotcha" observation, the unannounced one, what many teachers have described as gestapo tactics.
Also, principals hardly have time to be instructional leaders in urban school districts where many buildings are short staffed. Now they have to do multiple observations in a given year to buildings that have sometimes 50 to 100 teachers. And districts have to hire "independently trained observers" more consultants in cash strapped times to help implement the teacher performance requirements of the evaluation. Interesting to see how they schedule these new multiple observations.
And there are far too many principals that have never been teachers and too many of them have spent less time as teachers than the ones they are suppose to observe. And they have the audacity of touting it as a "national model."  It's simply an erosion of teacher tenure.
The teacher evaluation system agreed on Thursday is archaic  more suitable for the one room school house than a modern public school system with teachers in fields such as speech therapy, home and careers, social workers, psychologist, counselors, physical ed, art, music, technology, etc. It targets the classroom teachers in math and ELA assessments and high school teachers in core subject areas.
What's so embarrassing is the New York State Education Department almost canceled  the  January Regents if it were not for the pleas of Mayor Michael Bloomberg to his rich buddies to donate to have them reinstated and still there is concern it will happen again  next year.  It's the old adage of putting the "cart before the horse" this teacher evaluation system.

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Whitney Tilson (3rd background)

Whitney Tilson (3rd background)
"Let’s be honest: we need a lot more well-off, well-educated white folks with a personal stake in both charter schools and education reform in general if we’re going to take reform to the next level, both politically and operationally.Whitney Tilson, hedge fund manager and major funding angel for the school privatizing Democrats for Education Reform, thinks there’s not enough rich, educated white folks.( Preaprez) click photo to his blog.

Arne Duncan

Arne Duncan
U.S. Secretary of Education, click photo