UFT Unity's Shiny New Talking Point

I actually blogged something very close to this a few days ago, but after hearing Mulgrew harp on it at the DA, after hearing it was mentioned before I showed up at a CL meeting, and after seeing tweets like the one below, I'm gonna address it directly.

.@morecaucusNYC You want principals to have total control over eval? We disagree. ref="https://twitter.com/Unity_Today">@Unity_Today

— UFT Unity (@UFTUnity) March 24, 2016

First of all, this is a strawman, a logical fallacy. I have never, ever heard anyone from MORE say they want principals to have total control over evaluation. What MORE says is precisely what Diane Ravitch does, to wit, that teachers ought not to be rated by junk science. And that, frankly, is the only thing there is other than principal evaluations.

The other Unity talking point, one some Unity person threw at me on Twitter earlier today, is that there are only 700 double I rated teachers, down from 2,000 U rated teachers. I suppose that is from the last year they have records, but who really knows where they get that stuff from? Anyway, let's suppose they are correct. There is still a problem here.

Back in the bad old days when the principal had total control over evaluation, when that nasty principal sought to remove you via 3020a he had to prove you were incompetent. He had to make a case and demonstrate before an arbitrator that the stuff he wrote had validity. And that was a tough mountain to climb. That was why those mean old principals were so rarely successful.

Under the plan that Unity wants us to fall in love with, a double I-rated teacher has to prove he is not incompetent. That's a tough mountain to climb too, except it will be you climbing it instead of the principal. Now sure, there is the UFT Rat Squad, and if they say you're doing a swell job, the burden of proof will revert back to the principal. In fact, Unity will proudly declare they do just that 30% of the time. So what does that mean?

That means that 70% of the time, UFT teachers have the burden of proof on them. Compare that to the S-U system, when that happened precisely zero percent of the time.  And if that isn't enough, under the new Cuomo education law, the one the UFT declined to oppose, the one Mulgrew thanked the legislature for passing, we may not even get the dubious benefit of the UFT Rat Squad. Mulgrew says he's working on it, but as his caucus misrepresents MORE's position, it also condemns "small locals." That's code for Stronger Together, the new caucus in NYSUT that opposes the reformy nonsense Mulgrew and his BFFs have enabled for us.

And again, that non-principal evaluation stuff that Unity seems so proud of? It's VAM junk science. The American Statistical Association has determined that teachers move test scores by a factor of 1-14%. Yet in our evaluations, it counts 40%, and next year could count 50. And who knows? Maybe they help you out. In my high-performing school, I have seen members brought up from developing to effective, particularly the first year. It appears to me the supervisors wised up somewhat the second year, though, and started giving lower ratings to that lucky few. I could be wrong. But what difference does it make whether I am or not when our ratings are largely based on a crapshoot?

I know a person from another school who got an ineffective rating due solely to test scores. She was not precisely doing a jig over the new system. I'm sure she's not the only one. But if she is, she is one too many.

I am personally flabbergasted that this is the best talking point the highly compensated minds at Unity could muster. Back to the drawing board, fellas.

Hello, Heaviness

Rodney Dangerfield used to have a routine about heaviness. It followed him everywhere. He'd wake up in the morning and say, "Hello, heaviness." The heaviness would answer. It would say something like, "You're gonna be drinking early today." Dangerfield, of course, felt the heaviness because he didn't get no respect.

In case you hadn't noticed, teachers don't get no respect either. So we feel the heaviness too. Administrators don't understand it. They're too busy writing up observation reports about things that may or may not have happened. It really doesn't matter, as long as they get enough of them done in a timely fashion.

And you, all you have to do is grade stacks of papers, write IEPs, consult with your co-teacher, consult with your other co-teacher, go to your teacher team, go to PD, call the parents, patrol the hall, go to meetings, keep a record so you don't lose your license, go to another school to mark papers, proctor 500 exams, grade 200 more, reflect on all you've done, ask the kids to reflect on it too, write your class midterm, analyze your department midterm, and intervisit with your colleague to show school spirit. Oh, and you have to write lesson plans. And teach the classes. Did I forget that part? Well, you'd better not.

Anyway, the heaviness. It's the Danielson rubric, don't you know. Can your 30-year-old supervisor give the highly effective lesson he expects from you every time he darkens your doorstep? Who knows? It doesn't matter. He read in the book what it is, and goddam it you'd better deliver, or you're on a one-way trip to Palookaville. What's the matter, can't you deal with a few stinking observations?

Well, here's the thing. If you have a supervisor who isn't insane, it's likely you can. But how many of you can say that? And even if you can, this system was expressly designed to get rid of lowlife teachers like you and me. Cuomo said so when Bloomberg wanted to get rid of LIFO. This will thin the herd, he suggested. Then when it didn't, he called the system "baloney," and worked to make it even worse. 50% junk science, because the current system isn't crappy enough. Wear sunglasses and dress hip because your rating is going through a matrix.

Oh, and by the way, because not only do you suck, but your supervisor also sucks for not issuing enough negative ratings, we need outside observers. That's the only way we can make sure we fire enough of those stinking teachers. And make no mistake, that's what the current system was put in place to do. The only reason the system is changing is because it wasn't doing so efficiently enough.

Are we paranoid? Perhaps. But they are out to get us, they've said so quite openly, so maybe we're reacting entirely appropriately. Still, in any case, there's the heaviness. Every day before we go to work, we say, "Hello, heaviness."

Sadly, it's gonna take a lot of work before we can say goodbye.

Staying Ahead of the Curve

I don't  know much about the writer of the quote at left. Oddly, I found it on Facebook, posted by the writer himself. I'm wary of people who quote themselves, but I love this sentiment. Look at Andrew Cuomo, with no moral center, doing any damn thing his contributors want. He only rolls it back when his popularity is swirling the bowl, and even then, not nearly enough to change much of anything. NYSUT and UFT leadership appear not to notice, and spend millions of our dues dollars on what appear to be pro-Cuomo commercials.

Thinking teachers and parents are paying close attention, though, and don't buy the "moratorium" nonsense that rolls back just a little bit of the test-based drek that passes for teacher evaluation in New York State. Our kids are still taking the same number of tests, including the ones that now seem to count for nothing whatsoever.

It's surreal that we live in a country where Bill Gates can dictate that test scores dictate the life and death of schools (not to mention the careers of teachers). Yet Gates sends his own kids to schools that aren't subject to his whims and caprices. Reformy folk like Gates, Rhee, King, Obama, Cuomo and Bloomberg opt their kids out of programs they impose by opening their wallets. When we do the same by declining to allow our children to take the tests, it's an outrage. The taxes we pay for our children's schools can be withheld, they say. Our children will suffer, they say, because we didn't conform. That's not taking care of those in their charge.

Of course, the folks above appear interested in taking care of only their own children. Otherwise, why would they impose a system they deem unfit for their own children on our kids? Of course there is hope for our kids. Opt-out is burgeoning in New York State, despite the druthers of test-happy zillionaires and the politicians crawling through their pockets. Parents and teachers aren't blindly accepting this nonsense anymore.

Classrooms don't need to be test-prep factories. Classrooms can be windows of kindness and encouragement in a tough world. A test-obsessed America makes that tougher each and every day. How can you be kind to children when you're gonna lose your job if they fail that test? It's an awkward balancing act, and every thinking teacher I know feels that pressure pretty much every moment.

Despite that, most of the kids know whether or not we care about them. Most of the kids know whether or not we have their interests at heart. It's harder for us, of course, because we're subject to all sorts of external pressures that have little to do with their welfare (not to mention ours). I can't imagine being a new teacher today, and trying not only to learn a very complex job, but concurrently dealing with all the red tape and nonsense that make actually doing the job a near impossible dream.

It's a balancing act, a juggling act, and it's really getting tougher to maneuver every single day. It's too bad we can't just do our jobs, help our students and give them that little bit of guidance they need. It's too bad these kids will lose so many people who could help them due to myopic to outright hostile leadership.

But we stand, we stay, and we care. How we broadcast that message over the Gates-propagated noise machine is just one more issue for us.

Mulgrew's Minions: When We Win We Win, When We Lose We Win, and When Nothing Happens We Win

That's the message we get from Michael Mulgrew and his Minions in UFT Unity, and it's pretty consistent. Last Thursday I got an email from Mulgrew. Of course it was a mass email, as he's far too important to bother speaking directly to the likes of me (or you). It said that Cuomo's committee had recommended a multi-year delay in judging teachers by Common Core junk science. That was confusing to me.

After all, hadn't Mulgrew repeatedly told the DA that junk science was great? Under a "growth model" everyone would be happy and life would be a dream. Hadn't he told us that before the advent of junk science supervisors could rate us any damn way they pleased, and that we were basically stuck with whatever they said? Hadn't he touted the value of the wholly untested and unresearched "growth model?" Nonetheless, the committee's opposition to it represented a Great Victory.

Of course, the email neglected to mention what's contained here. Thanks to blogger Sullio for sharing this:

The Education Transformation Act of 2015 will remain in place, and no new legislation is required to implement the recommendations of the report, including recommendations regarding the transition period for consequences for students and teachers. During the transition, the 18 percent of teachers whose performance is measured, in part, by Common Core tests will use different local measures approved by the state, similar to the measures already being used by the majority of teachers.

Reading Mulgrew, you might think there'd be an absence of junk science. You'd think we'd be once again at the mercy of our supervisors. Yet capricious and whimsical though Mulgrew says they are, it would be yet another Great Victory. When they don't have all the power, it's a Great Victory. When they get it back, it's a Great Victory. And even though there have only been recommendations and nothing has actually happened, it's another Great Victory.

But even that may not be a good assumption. If the quote above is accurate, that means the recommendation is simply that we substitute one variety of junk science for another.  The draconian and vindictive 50% test score rating, enshrined in law, still stands, And the fact is it's still only a recommendation, not a fait accompli.

Also unaddressed was  the fact that, under our agreement, any teacher with two ineffectives is still guilty until proven innocent. The DOE no longer needs to bother proving those teacher are incompetent. Rather, those teachers will have to prove they are not incompetent.  Of course, whether or not that happens could very well hinge on the UFT Rat Squad. If they vote thumbs up for the embattled teacher, the DOE will have to prove incompetence, as they did 100% of the time before Mulgrew enabled this system, another Great Victory. And as Mulgrew told us at the DA, the Rat Squad only votes thumbs down 70% of the time. That, of course, is yet another Great Victory.

As you see, no matter what happens, it's a Great Victory for Michael Mulgrew and his army of oath signers. No matter what happens to us, or how we feel, they never lose. The fact that teacher morale is swirling the bowl and has been for almost a decade is neither here nor there. Because as miserable as you may be, as long as Mulgrew's Minions get the word out that everything is fine, there are conventions to attend and cushy union gigs to pick up. And best of all, competence is not a factor at all. All you have to do is show unconditional loyalty, and they don't even care if your school votes you out as chapter leader. Vote as they say and keep your gig.

I really have to wonder how whoever writes Mulgrews emails and op-eds manages to keep spitting that stuff out. Most thinking people would probably choke on it.

Mulgrew Misses Mark in Daily News

I'm reading Michael Mulgrew's piece in the Daily News and agreeing with much of it, but I find myself confused by the great disparity between his words and actions. I agree, for example, that it will not be possible to Fire to the Top, and that getting rid of teachers will not help our students. Mulgrew gives examples of schools that have had tremendous turnover. I can understand why people don't want to work in these places. In fact, as someone who absolutely loves being a teacher, as someone who hates to say this, I even understand why people don't want to teach at all.

Mulgrew advocates fixing schools that are perceived to be broken. A bigger problem, though, is determining precisely what that fix entails. If, for example, we are judging these schools purely on test scores, it's important we get to the source of the low scores. I'm not sure, from the column, that Mulgrew rejects the notion of failure based on test scores. In fact, Mulgrew helped craft the current APPR system, the one that is making working teachers almost universally miserable. Mulgrew not only accepted test scores as a factor to rate teachers, but went so far as to thank the Heavy Heart Assembly for accepting Andrew Cuomo's plan to exacerbate the situation, a plan the governor wanted specifically so as to fire more teachers. Make no mistake, placing the burden of proof on the teacher at 3020a hearings can and will achieve that goal.

Now Mulgrew seems to think the whole firing teachers thing is problematic. Why, then, did he not lay down the gauntlet when Cuomo turned the heat up on junk science evaluation? In fact, why didn't Mulgrew take a position against Cuomo when Zephyr Teachout opposed him in not one, but two primaries? Come to think of it, why didn't Mulgrew oppose him when he ran the very first time, a Democrat proclaiming he would go after unions? Isn't that fundamentally counter to what we stand for as unionists?

Mulgrew doubles down on the assumption these schools are failing, and prescribes the following:

Customize curriculum and instructional practice. Traditional teaching methods and approaches haven’t worked in these schools. The system has to abandon off-the-shelf curriculum, revamp the training that teachers get and focus on delivering lower class sizes, individualized instruction and curriculum that’s tailored to the students’ current knowledge and skills.

Is this not the same Michael Mulgrew who said he would punch our faces and rub them in the dirt if we tried to take his precious Common Core from him? Does Mulgrew actually assume that it is "teaching methods and approaches," rather than outside factors like poverty, special needs, or lack of English ability that cause low test scores? (To his credit, Mulgrew later asks for wraparound services, which actually may help.)

I also strongly agree with Mulgrew that smaller class sizes are key to delivering better education. But despite the valuable lip service provided here, the only instrument that has regulated class sizes for the thirty years I've been teaching has been the UFT Contract. In all that time, and for decades before, neither Mulgrew nor any of his predecessors has even tried to negotiate down what are, in fact, the largest class sizes in the state of New York. Mulgrew may argue that we went for money instead, but we haven't seen a whole lot of that, and what we will get will be ten years after the overwhelming majority of city workers got it.

Here's the thing--history has established there are many ways to raise test scores. You can cherry pick the students. You can dump those who don't work out. In fact, you can dump entire cohorts, like Geoffrey Canada did, and American Express will still pay you to do commercials. Or, of course, as we're seeing more frequently lately, you can cheat.

As none of those options are available to us, Mulgrew is now blaming others for failures. Mulgrew told the DA he had staked our reputation on turning around these schools. But Mulgrew accepts the reformy criteria for failure and success, i.e., test scores. And that is a crucial error.

It isn't the schools that are failing these children, and it isn't the teachers either. It is the nation, the state, and the city that allows them to grow up in poverty. It is a country that pays starvation wages and makes both parents take multiple jobs to make ends meet. It is a country that allows people to spend so much time working that they neglect their families, a country that allows Americans to suffer and die as a result of not having health insurance. It is a country that takes junk science in lieu of education, and it is union leaders like Michael Mulgrew who not only accept but enable and encourage such nonsense.

These are the issues we need to face if we want our kids to succeed and excel, be your standards reformy or reasonable. This is why I turn down perks and jobs to represent members rather than leaders. This is why I decided to join MORE/ New Action and oppose Mulgrew in the coming election.

This is why I'm a teacher, and this is why I'm staying until they shoot me down with junk science.

Michael Mulgrew and Happy Talk

The APPR system, the one that UFT President Michael Mulgrew boasted he helped craft, hangs over the heads of every teacher in New York State. Every thinking teacher knows jobs are on the line, and that junk science ratings could render you a Moskowitz test-prep clerk or a Walmart greeter. Yet Mulgrew tells The Chief (behind a paywall) the following:

“We know that two years ago, morale was basically at an all-time low,” Mr. Mulgrew said. “My feeling is that now it’s definitely getting better.”

My jaw drops as I read this. All I can say is Mulgrew is spending way too much time with loyalty oath signers. He seems to have no notion of what rank and file feel every single day. Perhaps he's taken too many of those happy pills, and just can't stop basking in the glow of those awesome victories no working teacher really knows about.

After all, it was a victory when we got all 22 components of Danielson, as opposed to the 7 Bloomberg wanted. It was another victory when we got 8 components of Danielson, as opposed to the 22 for which UFT fought. It was a victory when we earned the UFT transfer plan, which allowed teachers (including yours truly) to move to other schools and escape unreasonable supervisors. It was another victory when we tossed that in the trash and rendered our members wandering ATRs.

I have never, ever seen teachers so demoralized. My school is one of the least risky in terms of the junk science aimed at teachers' heads, but last year I saw an unprecedented exodus of young teachers, including one who I'd considered to have a more positive outlook than just about anyone. It is simply incredible that the President of the United Federation of Teachers can be so utterly out of touch with what we're living through. That, however, appears to be very much his choice.

Michael Mulgrew is notorious for his failure to answer email. I'm the chapter leader of the largest school in Queens and he can't be bothered to respond to me. That's why, on the very rare occasions I send him email it's likely to be posted here. That way at least I know someone will read it. A few months ago, Mulgrew asked that the entire DA get on Twitter and push a couple of hashtags (full disclosure--I was already on Twitter, and I participated), but he himself did not. It's quite clear he can't be bothered with that social media nonsense (Maybe it's just a fad.) and prefers to spend time communicating with people sworn to support whatever he wants.

Where does Mulgrew get this feeling things are getting better? Evidently, if you only spend time with people who tell you what you want to hear, you tend not to get the whole picture.

What myself and the Chancellor and [Principals’ union president] Ernie Logan have decided is we’re going to try to isolate our schools as much as we can from the craziness from the state level,” he said. “We’ll do whatever we’re legally responsible for, but we know that stability is the key to education.”

These are strange words from a man who not only presented the Heavy Hearts matrix as an improvement over the current system, but also thanked the Assembly for passing it. How on earth do you isolate schools from a system that not only demands teachers be judged by junk science, but further exacerbates the situation by raising its weight? How do you tell working teachers that they're better off in a system where the burden of proof when facing dismissal is on them rather than their employers?

I suppose it's pretty easy when you yourself have not been in the classroom for years and almost everyone with whom you speak has signed an oath to agree with you. I hear from real teachers every day of my life. Not only do they not talk like Mulgrew, but they don't remotely appreciate the things he touts as improvements.

The only thing left is to break them out of their cynicism long enough to vote next spring.

Leadership Defense of APPR Is Total Nonsense

Teachers all over the city, all over the state, and all over the country are stressed out almost as a matter of course. This is because everyone wonders about the ratings, the ones on which their jobs depend. Sheri Lederman's lawsuit brings this some attention, but not nearly what it merits. As Governor Cuomo and the editorial pages blather on about getting tough with teachers, it seems like nothing more than a diversion so no one looks too closely about the hedge funders and billionaires who've bought them off.

UFT leadership sold us this bill of goods. I don't know how many meetings I've been to in which I've heard that this was an improvement. Before, I'd hear, the principal could just say you suck and you'd get a U rating. That wasn't as big a deal, I'd argue, and everyone would scoff. But it wasn't, because burden of proof was still on the DOE to establish you were incompetent, or unfit, or whatever. Now, if the UFT rat squad determines you suck, the burden of proof is on you, the teacher. And it doesn't get any better under the Heavy Hearts plan.

At one meeting, a District Rep. whose name I do not recall got very testy with me when I referred to VAM as junk science, a concept accepted by both Diane Ravitch and the American Statistical Asssociation. He said he'd be happy if his principal's negative determination were contradicted by the junk science. What he didn't say, what with the test score rating being essentially a crap shoot, was that the teacher well-rated by a principal and dragged down by junk science was also a possibility. Essentially, this UFT employee was endorsing tying our jobs to a crap shoot.

Unfortunately, the case of Shari Lederman shows that to be true. This is a woman whose principal very much liked and supported her, but because of low VAM scores got rated ineffective. Lest anyone think this is an extreme and unusual case, just this week I met two teachers in the same situation. One was a chapter leader from a small school who got an excellent rating from her principal. Another was a young teacher who got a good rating, but whose MOSL numbers were abysmal. If I happen to meet two such people in one week, how many are in the state? I'd argue that one is already too many.

In our high-performing school, our MOSL committee decided to share the joy rather than have individual teachers rise and fall on the basis of junk science. As our grades are generally OK this seemed to work. Almost everyone in our building got scores of 16 on both state and local measures. I got a 15 on state measures, though, and I hear some people did marginally better or worse. I have no idea whatsoever why that is.

What sort of system is it in which virtually no one understands how scores are calculated? What sort of system is it in which scores are meaningless but a person's job could hang in the balance?

And here's the thing--in a building like mine, in which junk science scores are almost uniform, people can still get bad ratings. Are they merited? I can't really say, not having seen the lessons and not having total confidence in the magical Danielson Framework. I don't believe rubrics translate to fairness. I don't believe personal prejudices are overcome by a system that assigns a 1-4 rating for various aspects, and I don't believe a computer calculation takes ratings out of the hands of anyone.

If you have a supervisor who really doesn't like you, threes become twos, twos become ones, you become developing or ineffective, and your morale is in the toilet. Is the UFT rat squad a check against this? If you're rated developing, it's not a factor. If you're rated ineffective, you have to depend on the kindness of rat squads, not a prospect I'd much relish. And as far as I can tell, the Heavy Hearts plan won't even afford you that option. Burden of proof will be on you, and there won't be any rat squad to turn a thumb up and declare otherwise.

This is not an effort to identify good and bad teachers. It's a witch hunt to divert attention from why kids really have issues in schools. For one, think poverty, which Gates won't address, and bought-and-paid-for politicians do virtually nothing to mitigate.

Watch What They Do, Not What They Say

That's the mantra of Norm Scott, and nowhere is it more apparent than in this Facebook post from AFT President Randi Weingarten:

Ok-I am not beyond a selfie with the President.... particularly on Labor Day when he says as he did at the Greater Boston Labor Council Bkfst: "if I were looking for a good job that builds security for my family, I would join a union" 

Now I certainly don't begrudge Randi a selfie with the President of the United States. And the guy has done some good things. While I'd much prefer single payer, Obamacare keeps my daughter (and many others) on a medical plan until 26. Americans don't have to face rejection for pre-existing conditions to acquire an insurance policy. While there should be none, there will at least be fewer bankruptcies on the basis of catastrophic medical emergency.

But on the union front, President Obama has not particularly walked the walk. I mean that in a very literal sense. When campaigning, he said he was going to find a pair of comfortable shoes and walk with labor if it was in trouble. Yet search though he may have, we did not see hide nor hair of him in Wisconsin when there was a popular uprising against current Presidential candidate Scott Walker. I mean, I understand losing stuff in the closet, but he's the President of the United States. I have to assume he doesn't need to run to the mall when he needs a new pair of shoes.

As a teacher, I am now rated by junk science test scores. This is a direct result of Obama's Race to the Top. At a time when states were dying for money, Obama pushed high stakes testing and junk science to a level GW Bush could only have dreamed of.  This has demoralized every teacher I know. The only ones crowing about it are the leaders of E4E, and they aren't teachers anymore anyway. The American Statistical Association is very clear that judging teachers by test scores is nonsense, and the President, along with every editorial board in New York and dozens more around the country, can't be bothered to acknowledge that, let alone respond.

And while it's nice that Obama will be photographed with Randi, now that he doesn't have to worry about re-election or midterms, I haven't seen him fret much about union over the rest of his term. One of the large reasons I voted for him the first time he ran was that he promised to support the Employee Free Choice Act, which would've enabled unionization via card check. It would've prevented a lot of anti-union management from prevention unionization. As far as I can tell, he did not lift a finger to do that, and I voted for the Green candidate rather than Obama mach two.

Right now we are at a crisis. We are facing a SCOTUS decision that will effective render all public unions right to work status. Without automatic deduction of dues, Wisconsin unions have withered and all but died. This will be particularly damaging to a union like UFT that's been hands off and managed top-down. If fewer than 20% of working teachers can be bothered to vote in union elections, what percentage will pay dues?

As bad as leadership is these days, they can be persuaded, and if enough of us crawl out of our collective coma, they can even be replaced. But there's gonna be little hope for that if nothing is done. And as far as I can tell, President Barack Obama has done considerably less than nothing for union over the last seven years or so.

On Keeping Young Teachers

Our school's a relatively good place. I'd argue that most of the administrators aren't even crazy. Yet the maniacal footprint of the reformies is everywhere, and there's no escape for a working teacher. This is brought home to me by a few of the people who've left us this year. And no, I'm not talking about retirees.

I was recently contacted by a teacher who stayed late every night writing lesson plans, not the first such teacher who's contacted me. I remember the last one I knew, who happened to be in my department. Because I'm chapter leader I keep very strange hours and stay late for all sorts of reasons. But this young woman stayed for hours after work each day, plotting out lesson plans in excruciating detail. I could not persuade her to do anything differently, and eventually she left. Perhaps she's a reluctant workaholic. Who knows?

What I keep hearing from teachers in trouble, from teachers not in trouble, from teachers who don't care one way or the other about trouble is that they're tired of being in a fishbowl. They're tired of thinking the boss could walk in at any moment and catch them doing something less than Danielson-worthy. They're tired of being constantly auditioned for a job they already have.

The teacher who just contacted me is taking a job elsewhere, and I often hear from teachers who are considering jobs elsewhere. It's heartbreaking to me because I think this is the best job there is. Don't get me wrong, I hate the new gotcha system as much as anyone. And given this blog's been up over a decade, I probably complain more than just about anyone. But the classroom and the kids inside of it aren't the problem at all. (This notwithstanding, I also know a bunch of other teachers who've left without sharing detail with me.)

Yesterday I heard a young teacher who I'd deemed almost a Renaissance man had left. This guy was conversant in multiple subjects, and had perhaps the most relentlessly positive attitude of any person of my acquaintance. I was certain the kids loved him, because it appeared everyone else did. Last year he surprised me by confiding how unhappy he was under this new system. I was shocked. He was the last person I'd have expected to complain about anything.

To me he's a bellwether of sorts. If a guy like this can't make it in a school like mine, how is any teacher to make it anywhere? Sure there will be a lot of young teachers who persevere and push through, but at what cost? Do we seriously want the people who are to be role models to our children to be constantly walking a tightrope and hoping for the best?

Even now there is a lawsuit to strip us of due process and render us at-will employees. Who the hell is going to speak up when special ed. kids are poorly served if they can then be fired for a bad haircut? Who's going to report safety hazards? Who's gonna bother calling the union about the moldy trailers? And for goodness sake, who's gonna want to take an already crazy job like chapter leader?

A former student of mine just took a teaching job in my school. This is a very, very smart and capable young woman. Will she make it, or will she wither under unreasonable pressure? I hope for the former, but I'd understand the latter.

We really need to make this job one worth having, not only for the teachers who come after us, but also for the kids they'll need to serve. People who believe Campbell Brown represents the children we serve are laboring under a serious misconception, and will need those reformy broomsticks surgically removed from their asses at the earliest possible opportunity. I only hope they have health insurance adequate to the task.

Breaking Up the Daily Grind

Some days, when you're blogging, you really have nothing to say. Or at least I do. On those days, I'll usually scour the news for something worth writing about. There's always something going on.

A worse problem, in my opinion at least, would be having to run staff meetings on a regular basis. Our school, multi-session and chronically overcrowded, is not on the Mulgrew/ Fariña teacher torture plan, so we still have monthly faculty and department meetings.

I don't envy the supervisors at all. Every month they have to come up with something to meet or talk about. I've been doing this for thirty years now, and every now and again I come upon some meeting leader who is, shall we say, less than inspired. I guess there's always some nonsense to read or talk about, but don't sentient supervisors recognize when the mandated topics really don't merit a mention?

In fairness, sometimes they do. At a memorable faculty meeting, a supervisor came to us with a revolutionary new program that consisted of a renamed motivational activity. I can't remember the term. Maybe it was tipping-off activity. He also said we needed to use the words, "each, every, and all" of you. He said that would surely grab the attention of your students. He said this in a tone dripping with sarcasm, and it was obvious he did not buy it at all. I didn't either. I generally address my class as, "ladies and gentlemen," and while I'm not sure why I do that, I'm certain the "each, every and all" thing would have no effect whatsoever.

I'd like to see more such presentations. It would be a lot more interesting when the Next New Thing came out to see a supervisor making tired faces and acknowledging with us that it was just some trendy crap that would end up on next year's junk heap, replaced by the Next Newer Thing. Sadly, I've seen very few supervisors who grasped that concept. More supervisors have embraced The Thing enthusiastically, and had no problem telling us how indispensable It is. They tend to show little to no awareness that they told us about some other indispensable thing just last year.

While I've seen New Things almost every year since I started teaching, it's become more egregious lately, with the advent of junk science teacher ratings. Now not only is there new crap to deal with, but it's also confirmed by the American Statistical Association to be crap. Not only that, but it's high stakes crap and your job depends on it.

In the short run, here's not a whole lot we can do about it. It's particularly tough with a union leadership that embraces and supports every shiny piece of crap that comes down the pike--mayoral control, charter schools, co-location, two-tier due process, whatever. UFT President Michael Mulgrew was part of a team that designed the original junk science law, and when Cuomo and the Heavy Hearts Assembly rendered it even more draconian, he, or whoever writes his memos, actually thanked them for it. That's just a little depressing.

But be of good cheer. When you go to the first staff meeting of the year, you can divert and amuse yourself by printing out the illustration above. Listen for each platitudinous pronouncement, and once you hit five you can yell "Bingo!" and break the thing up. Make sure the papers are widely distributed so you aren't the only one yelling.

Always remember--in union there is strength.

What Do Mulgrew and Christie Have in Common?

Chris Christie says it's time to punch teacher unions in the face. This isn't surprising coming from the bombastic lunatic he is. This is a guy who makes agreements to fund pensions in exchange for higher contributions from state employees, and then turns around and says, "Screw you, I'm not paying." This is a guy who shouts down young teachers in public. This is a man who will take a state helicopter to watch his son play in a little league game. And I don't suppose we need to discuss the Fort Lee traffic issues any further.

We know that Christie means us no good. We know he has no regard for public education, and that he has contempt for public school teachers. We know he thinks we only work part time and are therefore overpaid. So it's not very tough to oppose Chris Christie, or indeed any and all of his fellow GOP contenders for President.

What's really striking here is that Christie appears to have taken a cue from none other than UFT President Michael Mulgrew, who suggested that people who tried to take his precious Common Core would get their faces punched and pushed in the dirt. It's incredible to be able to draw a parallel between someone who clearly hates us and everything we stand for and someone whose job entails representing our interests, but there you are.

Sometimes, it's good to be angry. For example, when we went five long years without a contract, a lot of teachers were pissed off, and justifiably so. A rep from UFT came to my school a few years ago when we were hanging tough on teacher evaluation. I was very supportive of that. I believe I upped my contribution to COPE to show my approval. A member asked when we were gonna get the raise that the cops and firefighters got. The UFT rep said union leadership was very smart, a line I often hear at the DA. He said that Bloomberg could not get the new evaluation system until he negotiated a contract, and that the member would get the contract.

Shortly thereafter, the smart leadership agreed to an APPR system without a contract, and if I recall correctly it was to help ensure NY State got Race to the Top money. This money went toward things that were of no assistance whatsoever to NY teachers and students, but for some reason we supported it. Not only did we fail to negotiate an APPR system, but we placed our faith in Reformy John King as an impartial arbiter. Anyone who's followed the King's career, one year teaching public school, two years charter, then running a charter school to running NY State education, knows he's just about as impartial as Bill Gates or the Walmart family.

So what's the point? Is Mulgrew just like Christie simply because they both wish to punch us in the face? No.

The point is this--no one should be talking about punching teachers in the face. It's a little more outrageous when it comes from the President of the largest teacher local in these United States, but it's absolutely unacceptable from everyone.

And while it's clearly necessary to fight demagogues like Christie, we ought never to have to be threatened by our union leaders. It is their very job to support us, not the nonsensical corporate programs foisted upon us by the likes of Christie's BFFs.

Double Whammy

For years we've had the APPR system hanging over our heads. Gates thought it was a swell idea, and the UFT participated in the MET program that enabled it all over these United States. But since VAM is based on nothing resembling science and has no validity whatsoever, the geniuses who enabled it decided to balance it with actual ratings from supervisors. Since VAM is pretty much a crap toss, and pretty much rates students rather than teaching, it's supposed to be objective. The subjective balance is the supervisor rating.

Of course, if your supervisor has an agenda counter to yours, hates you and everything you stand for, or gets peeved when you report her for grade-fixing, that part of your rating could end up swirling the bathroom bowl. In fact, the DOE recognized just such a case and has demanded that several poor ratings be reversed.

When the junk science APPR first came into effect, I complained loudly at a UFT meeting that it was nonsense. A district rep. I do not know get very angry with me. He said that if the principal gave him a bad rating, that maybe the test scores would bring his rating up. (That's unlikely since district reps teach only one class and are not included in junk science ratings.) I did not bother stating the obvious--that if his principal gave him a good rating, that maybe the scores would bring it down. The argument, though, endorsed a crap shoot for a high-stakes teacher rating. A colleague remarked it was akin to telling people to smoke cigarettes, because maybe they wouldn't get cancer.

But there is, in fact, a cancer in our system, and it is the high-stakes testing system Gates pushed, and we, the UFT and NYSUT, swallowed hook, line and sinker. It claimed another fatality last week but the casualties are too numerous to count, and are everywhere. Neither teachers nor supervisors ought to be in a position where they need to falsify test scores to satisfy nonsensical quotas.

But as long as we are, not only are the test scores unreliable, but the supervisor ratings are as well. For example, I am clearly a terrible teacher. My students, having arrived from every corner of the world yesterday, last week, or six months ago, don't even speak English. There is no question whatsoever but that they will fail every single English-based test they attempt. And since the tests have nothing whatsoever to do with the basic English I teach, there is no way I can ever get a good rating.

So what is my supervisor to do? If I get a good rating, if she thinks I'm a good teacher, she must be wrong because my kids failed the tests. If she gives me a bad rating, how are we to know she isn't just covering her own behind so as to shirk responsibility for the miserable test scores of my students?

Mulgrew defended the system to the DA, suggesting that those of us who criticized it, like me, like Diane Ravitch, were simple-minded and contrary, fretting that the sky was falling. After all, only a small percentage of us got poor ratings. There were a couple of points he forgot, though. One, of course, was the high stakes attached and that those with poor ratings were looking at job loss. Another was the consequence of the paucity of poor ratings, to wit, the draconian Cuomo/ Heavy Hearts plan facing the entire state. It was rolled out for the express purpose of firing more teachers, and if it fails it's likely as not we'll see an even worse plan.

The entire system stinks. The test scores are meaningless as to actual teacher quality, and the supervisors are under so much pressure to produce test scores that they simply cannot be objective. Can you imagine being a supervisor in a school with poor test scores and fighting for the careers of teachers whose kids got them? It would be like wearing a big red "Kick me" sign. Or, more likely a "Fire me" sign.

Rubrics most certainly do not guarantee objectivity, not for supervisors, not for teachers, and especially not for kids. It's insane to take all kids, no matter what learning disability, no matter what home environment, no matter whether or not they know English, and say, "You're 12 years old, and therefore must know A, B, and C." It's even more insane to say if the kids don't know A, B, and C that their teachers are incompetent and must be fired.

And yet now, in 2015, that is precisely where we find ourselves.

Perdido--Fariña Unwittingly Admits VAM Is Invalid for All

Perdido Street School nails Carmen Fariña to her own words. Fariña thinks there should be an asterisk to so called highly effective teachers who move into renewal schools. After all, if they're highly effective at one place, how can they be developing or ineffective at another? If they do the same things, they should receive the same rating, Shouldn't they? Don't we have a rubric, and don't rubrics make everything equal all the time? Haven't we eliminated human error?

Well, of course we haven't, but that's the theory. The other part of the rating, of course, is test scores. Since students bear no responsibility for their test scores, since environment is not a factor at all, since home life has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not kids pass tests, and since parents play no role whatsoever in the behavior of their children, it's important that teachers be responsible for the test scores of their students.

And to take it a step further, since teacher assessments are meaningless, even though teachers are rated for assessments, we can only rely on standardized assessments. The only true way to determine how kids are doing is to use tests written by people who've never met the kids in question, and do not differentiate from kids in Scarsdale or Roosevelt. Because while teachers are regularly told to differentiate instruction, the assessments are all the same and may not be differentiated at all. That makes sense, doesn't it?

The main point Reality Based Educator at Perdido makes is this--if the "highly effective" teacher moves to a troubled school and has a rating drop because of the school population, isn't it just as possible that the "ineffective" teacher from a troubled school might move to a better performing one and be "highly effective?" That's a great point. I know a social studies teacher who told me his passing rate on one of the Regents exams tripled when he moved to my school. He said he used the same techniques, and even suggested he might have been slowing down due to his advancing age.

The problem, of course, is public perception. In the Times today there's a piece about how Bloomberg's reformy initiatives are thriving in Albany, where Andrew Cuomo is on sale to the highest bidder.  Students First NY, Families for Excellent Schools, and E4E are the multi-headed dragon funded by those who wish to eradicate union, degrade teachers and teaching, and privatize education so as to enrich their shadowy funders.

Once again, I'm struck by the ignorance of the Times reporter who says teacher unions oppose this stuff. In fact, we're in bed with the reformies. Randi Weingarten helped negotiate a whole lot of VAM-heavy contracts around the country. The UFT has its own charter schools, and has colocated buildings. The UFT, in fact, partnered with Gates and the MET program that was the predecessor to the junk science nonsense we're living through nationwide.

Union has potential. Fast food workers have finally achieved something in NY State by edging a little closer to a working wage. This is because they stood together even without union and made a national noise. If we teachers are going to make progress, we have to start moving forward rather than backward. We have to get out a message like that at Perdido rather than inviting Bill Gates to keynote our convention. We have to tell Hillary Clinton that we want her to support science rather than voodoo before we endorse her.

It's common sense. But as they say in Spanish, common sense is the least common of all the senses.

Turning a Building Around

Thanks to Andrew Cuomo and his Heavy Hearts Assembly, a whole lot of schools in NY State are looking down the barrel of receivership, i.e. state takeover. In a year or two, if Chancellor Fariña and her counterparts can't make test scores and graduation rates go up, Governor Andy and his hedge fund BFFs can turn over school leadership to Eva Moskowitz, or whoever they feel like.

I live right next to Roosevelt, where state takeover has been failing pretty much forever.  But why bother with history when all your programs are based on ignoring not only that, but also research and practice? If poor test scores are invariably aligned with poverty and high needs, why not ignore that utterly and blame the teachers? That's what newly-minted Commissioner MaryEllen Elia has done, blathering some hogwash about how these schools have been failing children for decades.

Here's the thing--there are ways to improve test scores. Eva Moskowitz and her corporate charter counterparts have one. First, you don't take the same kids the public schools do. You make extra steps to gain entrance. You make school a living misery, focused almost solely on tests. Then you get rid of those who don't measure up, and don't bother replacing them. Then you make a lot of noise about "no excuses" and vehemently deny the playing field is rigged.

Another route to school improvement is GW Bush's preferred methodology--the "Texas Miracle." Basically you just cook the books and base a national education program on fraud.  Or you could always erase to the top. We collectively assume programs like GW's and Eva's are models, things to be  admired and replicated. That, in fact, is why my neighbors, schools like Van Buren, Grover Cleveland and John Adams, are facing a very uncertain future.

In the two city schools facing these draconian measures this year, more than half the staff won't be returning. In an agreement with the city, these educators will get jobs elsewhere. I think those who left did a smart thing. They've avoided the ATR, and they've also avoided sitting around in targeted schools with guns to their heads. In fact the principal of Boys and Girls has so little confidence in his own ability to accomplish the turnaround, he took a big old bonus regardless of consequence and made a deal to be able to return to his old school if things go south.

I've heard Mulgrew say at the DA several times that we need to succeed in this venture. I certainly hope we do, but there are issues here that bear our attention. The prime issue is that there is no basis whatsoever to assume we will succeed. We cannot cherry pick, we cannot counsel kids out, and we cannot leave slots open as kids leave. It's particularly absurd to assume we're gonna reverse the trajectory of kids who've been attending school for a decade or more. Moskowitz doesn't just take on high school kids. In fact, the history of "miracles" has to do almost entirely with either outright fraud or using selected kids and comparing them to the population at large.

Until and unless we address poverty, the underlying cause of a whole lot of our problems, that isn't going to change. In a few years, they can fire me as an ESL teacher, but that still won't mean newcomers will arrive speaking perfect English. They can close or take over my school, but that won't mean the severely disabled kids we enroll (unlike Moskowitz and even most public schools) are gonna ace the Physics Regents.

The underlying assumption, that state tests are the only measure of what kids achieve, is ridiculous. For one thing, I'm no genius, and my tests are a whole lot better than state tests. My tests are written by me, in response to the needs of my kids. Conversely, the NYSESLAT, on which I will be rated, is designed to test Common Core skills. My kids need to learn English before they can deal with this nonsense, and the geniuses who run the country have just denied them extra time to do that. Bear in mind that the extra time was still not nearly enough, but better than nothing.

I'm very sorry to say that our schools are being set up for failure. It is an egregious error on the part of the UFT to accept all the false assumptions about our kids and schools and say we're gonna prove them wrong. The way to prove them wrong, in fact, is not to step on their rigged playing field, accept their rules, and hope for the best. We prove them wrong by doing our job, by teaching America.

America needs to learn that we do a whole lot more than prepare kids for tests over which we have no control. America needs to learn that, while MaryEllen Elia may indeed believe life is a big test, she has failed it by making such idiotic pronouncements. America needs to learn that the highly regarded American Statistical Association says that not only do teachers affect test scores by a factor of 1-14%, but that undue focus on test scores actually impedes us from helping kids, the most important thing we do. American needs to learn that the best predictor of college readiness is not the arbitrary crap the geniuses in Albany dream up, but rather teacher-issued grades.

There are, in fact, kids who do poorly on tests who can succeed because they get along well with others. There are some who get excellent test scores but who aren't really very good students.  Life is not, in fact, a test, and we don't spend most of our time figuring out which dot to blacken. Life is messy, people have feelings, emotions, and desires, and teachers who ignore them are not likely to be successful.

It was an egregious error for the Heavy Hearts to agree to Cuomo's draconian plan to fail our public schools. Worse still was UFT President Michael Mulgrew's thank you note for having done so. Whoever wrote that for him should be fired. We're in a very rough place, and we have no one but ourselves to blame.

Staking our reputation on doing what has never been done anywhere is not the wisest thing to do. Enabling the government to shirk its responsibility to the neediest of students is irresponsible on our part. We need to do better, not only for our own sake, but also for the sake of the children we are charged to serve.

You can replace the teachers and principal, but they're not the ones who need help. The kids need help, and they're not, in fact, the ones who are failing. It is us, their caretakers, who are failing, by ignoring their problems, studiously pretending they don't exist, and blaming their teachers and schools. 

NYSUT, 3020a, and the Newly Sharpened Sword of Danielson--Burden of Proof Is on You

NYSUT has published a fact sheet on the Cuomo/ Heavy Hearts revision of state APPR. It is less than encouraging, to say the least. The thing that really stands out, the thing I hadn't heard at all before, is this--

• If a teacher receives two consecutive ineffective ratings, the district may bring a 3020-a proceeding and the burden of proof shifts to the teacher with the hearing completed within 90 days.

This is something new. No more UFT Rat Squad, because it's now a LOSE-LOSE. No matter what happens, it's on you to prove you are not incompetent. (Sorry, all you UFT members who took money to rat out your colleagues. Doubtless other opportunities will present themselves. Maybe you can be peer observers.) So if the Boy Wonder Supervisor determines it's time to dump you, you get classes calculated to fail the junk science portion, you get bad writeups, the Boy Wonder sees things that didn't happen, fails to see things that did, and two years later you have to prove he's lying, likely with no evidence whatsoever.

Another interesting development is the Teacher Improvement Plan (TIP). While the UFT agreement states that it should be collaborative, because perhaps you as a teacher have some inkling as to where and how you can improve, the Cuomo/ Heavy Hearts plan does away with that entirely. If the Boy Wonder states you have to do 20 pull ups every lunch period to attain Nirvana, that's pretty much what you have to do.

There is an appeals process, but I'm not clear it will help UFT members who have insane supervisors. There are specific grounds for appeal, but unless you've actually videotaped lessons it won't help teachers with supervisors who make stuff up or selectively rate things.

NYSUT plans to appeal the TIP requirement, and to try to attain more realistic scoring bands. What I don't see is any objection to burden of proof on 3020a or general objection to junk science. Naturally I'm shocked, since I watched all the Revive/ Unity candidates, none of whom lifted a finger to stop the APPR law, relentlessly criticize Richard Iannuzzi for having negotiated it. Oddly, none criticized Mulgrew, who was there at the side.

Since Mulgrew praised the Heavy Hearts for having negotiated this abomination, he owns it. And so does his subsidiary, Revive NYSUT/ Unity.

It is our job to inspire children. How we do that with the Sword of Danielson hanging over our heads is a mystery, to say the least. It's unconscionable that our leader, Mike Mulgrew, expressed support for this abomination. How on earth does he get all punchy over Common Core, used to label us as failures, and not raise fist one over this?

It's good to see the possibility this awful system will be delayed for one more year. As someone who teaches beginning ELLs who will certainly bomb on tests, particularly tests like the NYSESLAT that fail even to measure what I teach, I see it as a one year reprieve from being fired for the crime of doing my job. This system will cause teachers to teach to the test as a fundamental survival technique. As per Campbell's Law, as per history, it will inspire cheating.

As per common sense, it will do nothing to address the factors that contribute to low test scores, which are exclusively economic. But with New York State manipulating test scores to prove whatever they wish proven, along with Governor Cuomo's well-documented desire to fire more unionized teachers, things are looking particularly dismal for us this week.

Evaluation Blues

Yesterday I spoke with a young teacher who told me this was his worst year ever. I asked him why and he told me it was the evaluation system. He says it has him and everyone on edge. I asked whether he had gotten a negative rating and he said no, he hadn't. He was just feeling a general vibe of uneasiness. He told me our school wasn't what it used to be four years ago.

One of the things I found really shocking was that this is a guy who generally complains about nothing, ever. He has this very positive vibe, and this makes me think he must be a great teacher. I would be very happy to have someone like him looking after my kid. He told me that, though there is a whole lot of focus on test scores, that he doesn't worry about that first and foremost. Who knows where our kids come from? Who knows what they have going on at home? It's our job to show them there's a whole world of possibility out there.

I agree with that. Particularly if home is a place of uncertainty, or worse, there's a need for kids to see adults who are getting by. There's a need for kids to see there is possibility, that there is a way to maneuver through this world while managing to stay happy. That's why it's counter-intuitive, not to mention idiotic, to stress out teachers to the breaking point. If this teacher feels stressed out, then so does every teacher.

It's easy for Michael Mulgrew, who has not taught in years, to stand around and say we have fewer bad ratings this year than in years past, so the system is a victory. I can only suppose it's also easy for Mulgrew to ignore the fact that this is the very thing that motivated Andrew Cuomo and his Heavy Hearts to worsen things for working teachers. For Michael Mulgrew, it really doesn't matter whether that plan causes more teachers to get bad ratings. Because there's always a silver lining. Under my leadership, 95% of UFT teachers didn't get fired this year.

Under UFT Unity leadership, the Teacher Improvement Plans were 8% less degrading and humiliating than last year. Under our leadership, 12% fewer teacher meeting weekly with the supervisors who rated them ineffective have contemplated suicide. Under our leadership, we haven't had a catastrophic natural disaster in over two years.

Unfortunately, when you live in a system where absolutely everything is a victory, no one feels it when things are bad. No one knows when things are bad. Things are not permitted to be bad. And the great thing is most representatives have actually signed an oath to perpetually agree that this is the best of all possible worlds, the best of all possible school systems, and the best of all possible evaluation systems negotiated by the best of all possible union leaderships.

I'm not sure what I would say to such people if I had signed the oath. I suppose I could trot out the stat about fewer people getting bad ratings. But I know if the guy I spoke to yesterday is stressed out, so is every working teacher. That's not how you treat role models for children, not if you actually care about those children. 

Extra Credit: Name the bluesman in the photo.

Why Teaching is Still Better than Russian Roulette

There are a lot of naysayers about the revolutionary new APPR system that UFT President Michael Mulgrew helped negotiate. There are even more people complaining that, when the Assembly moved to make the system even worse, that Mulgrew actually thanked them and declared the Twitter campaign, the one in which he did not participate, a rousing success. These people, of course, ignore the beauty and wonder of the new system.

For one thing, as Mulgrew frequently points out, the number of poorly rated teachers is lower than it used to be. Sure, in the past, a negative rating did not come with a humiliating Teacher Improvement Plan, where you sit every week with the person who gave you a crap rating and soak up his insights on why you suck or how you should observe the ducklings who follow him blindly into whatever. Sure, in the past, the burden of proof to establish your incompetence was on the DOE, and you did  not get observed by the UFT Rat Squad to determine whether or not it would remain that way. And sure, two negative ratings did not automatically send you to 3020a.

But if you have a free pass to the next meeting in Schenectady, if you want that free tuna wrap while the proles all slink away from the delegate assembly, and if you want that all-important patronage gig or the possibility of a lucrative union career outside that inconvenient classroom, you don't think about that stuff. You do as you're told, question nothing, and champion mayoral control, charter schools, high-stakes testing, junk science and Common Core for the kids you serve. Because after all you're a role model and how will children learn to suck up and surrender their principles if you don't lead by example?

What Mulgrew has yet to touch on, of course, is the clear advantage our current APPR system, or even Cuomo's new system has over Russian Roulette. Now everyone knows Russian Roulette is a game in which 5 of the 6 chambers of your cartridge are empty. So you have a one in six chance of actually killing yourself. But in APPR, your chances are considerably less. Let's say Cuomo achieves the Jack Welch model of shedding 5% of teachers each year, whether or not they actually deserve it. Every teacher will then have a 19 to 1 shot at keeping his or her job each year, and it seems to me that everyone would have a 50/ 50 shot of making it to ten years. 

So for all those nagging critics who say, oh, teachers shouldn't be judged on baseless systems like VAM or so-called growth models, for all those who are freaked out over the possibility of being fired for no reason, for all those who teach kids who don't speak English, kids who have severe learning disabilities, or even kids who never study, stop your whining. Take a look at Christopher Walken, above. He made believe he was playing Russian Roulette and his career turned out fine.

All you need to do is make believe we're working under a reasonable evaluation system and for all you know, your career might turn out fine too.

MaryEllen Elia and the Middle of the Road

Florida, land of Jeb Bush, is one of the least teacher-friendly states in the union. So it's kind of surprising to read that Revive NYSUT leadership is encouraged by Florida import MaryEllen Elia as state education commissioner. What would it take to discourage them? Attila the Hun? Perhaps the Regents considered him but rejected him for having been dead for centuries. But why should that deter them, since dead ideas are pretty much what NYSED trades on?

For example, here's a snippet from reformy Chalkbeat NY's piece, from which their "Rise and Shine" characterizes Elia's tone as "middle of the road."

Elia emphasized that, in her own view, state tests should not be the only metric used to rate teachers and principals...

Actually, I know of no one who says state tests should be the only metric used to rate teachers and principals. But let's look at what "middle of the road" entails. Apparently, it means you are somewhere between the highly regarded American Statistical Association, which has determined that teachers account for somewhere between 1 and 14% of test score variation, and no one. This is what passes for reasoned discourse on education nowadays.

On opt out, here's how Elia came in:

"Opt-outs are no good for teachers or parents."

This, of course, was before she even began her gig. Now, according to Chalkbeat, she's really raised her game.

Asked about the New York’s growing number of parents opting their students out of the state tests, Elia cited her experience in Hillsborough County, the large Florida district she oversaw for most of the last decade. Town hall meetings there helped explain the changes to parents and keep opt-outs low, she said.

Doubtless Elia, not having troubled herself with the most cursory research, would be surprised to learn we've actually had town hall meetings in NY. The first resulted in testy, tone-deaf John King pulling out, calling public school parents and teachers "special interests." Evidently, we should listen uncritically to utterly objective billionaires like Gates, Broad and the Waltons, who know what's good for our children (but not theirs, of course).  Critical reading should be reserved for Common Core tests and eschewed in everyday life. Doubtless New Yorkers can't wait to have more meetings with yet another figurehead who made up her mind before even showing up.

The incoming commissioner also reiterated her support for charter schools — noting that Hillsborough County had 45 — if they are shown to be improving student performance.

That's middle of the road, right? After all, some charters get better test scores, and that is the only factor that's important. That's reasonable, isn't it? And as for the ones who don't, well at least they don't have those awful union contracts that give teachers due process, and what reasonable person opposes firing teachers? Elia continues:

“I think there’s a place for quality teachers to go in and give feedback to their colleagues and their peers,” she said. Exactly how much test scores should account for depends on the rest of the rubric, she said, adding that she did not yet fully understand New York’s method for calculating teachers’ value-added scores.

Well, who does? And why should she bother to have studied it? After all, she's only going to preside over the system. And maybe the calculation method is totally incomprehensible anyway. That's a good reason to not have kept up with it. Apparently the middle of the road position is to support a system that judges teachers on junk science while not even pretending to understand it.

Extreme positions, on the other hand, are quite different. There's the extreme position, evidently held by no one, that test scores ought to count for 100% of a teacher rating. Then there's the other extreme position, taken by wild-eyed radicals like Diane Ravitch and yours truly, that we ought to consider things like research and practice in education, and reject absolutely every form of junk science.

Therefore, MaryEllen Elia is in the middle of the road. It's quite gratifying it is to know that Revive NYSUT is "encouraged" by that.

Doubtless we're in good hands all around.

“During her first school visit, Elia told teachers, ‘Opt-outs are no good for teachers and no good for parents.’ It is concerning that she would make such a judgement prior to reviewing New York State Common Core tests or exploring why the resistance to those tests has been so strong.” said Ruth Quinn, a school board member from Ulster County. - See more at: http://www.nysape.org/albany-continues-to-ignore-parents-ensuring-the-optshyout-movement-will-grow.html#sthash.7BG9QqsK.dpuf

“During her first school visit, Elia told teachers, ‘Opt-outs are no good for teachers and no good for parents.’ It is concerning that she would make such a judgement prior to reviewing New York State Common Core tests or exploring why the resistance to those tests has been so strong.” said Ruth Quinn, a school board member from Ulster County. - See more at: http://www.nysape.org/albany-continues-to-ignore-parents-ensuring-the-optshyout-movement-will-grow.html#sthash.7BG9QqsK.dpuf

Revive NYSUT Breaks Yet Another Promise, Offers Kudos for Heavy Hearts

Michael Mulgrew thanked the Heavy Hearts of the Assembly for passing the most anti-teacher bill I've ever seen, and the folks at NYSUT hemmed and hawed, giving the impression they were not in line with Punchy Mike. But weeks later, the lovefest continues, and Magee and Pallotta are grateful to the heavy hearts. Why?

Because we've put off the insane evaluation system for a year. In 2015-2016, teachers will likely be rated just as they were the previous year. This is, somehow, a victory. It's ironic, because I watched all the Revive candidates all over the state, and they condemned the current system as an abomination, heaping blame on then-President Richard Iannuzzi. They conveniently and consistently forgot that their biggest and most influential supporter, Punchy Mike Mulgrew, also took part in negotiating this system.

As bad as this system is, the new one will certainly be worse. Cuomo has no qualms about what it's for. He wants to break the public school "monopoly" and he wants to fire more teachers. It's unconscionable that NYSUT leadership gives cover to weasels who call themselves Democrats and attack working people. And while it's better they go in for the kill later than sooner, it certainly doesn't merit our thanks. 

Remember, as it says in their campaign flyer above, Revive NYSUT was against APPR. That means, by my estimation, that they opposed it in its current form. Now, they have not only failed to do that, but they've endorsed a bill that worsens it simply because it does so later rather than now.

This is just another in a series of "clarifications." Revive NYSUT was against Cuomo, but not when he was running in the Working Families Party primary. At no time did Revive make a move to support Zephyr Teachout, at that point the most dire threat to the re-election of our anti-union, anti-teacher anti-Working Families governor. And when Zephyr Teachout decided to oppose him in the Democratic Primary, at no time did Revive support her then either. In the general election Revive sat on their hands and did nothing. Only after he was elected did they react, shocked and stunned that Cuomo continued to be Cuomo.

As for their alleged opposition to Common Core, at no time at the AFT convention did any of Revive's so-called leaders stand up to Punchy Mike's threats to push faces in the dirt if they laid hands on his Common Core. Magee basically suggested that it was Common Core or chaos, and there was no middle ground. Revive claims to favor NYSUT transparency, but their actions are so murky and contradictory that their words mean little or nothing.

VAM is junk science, pure and simple. Dusting it off and dressing it up as a "growth model" is doubletalk, and if we accept it we are as stupid as they think we are. For the sake of the children we are supposed to teach, I hope that isn't true.

Teachers are under attack. NYSUT and UFT need leadership. We're not getting it, and until we do we're going to continue to be handed barrels of garbage with big red bows wrapped around them. Leadership will continue to tell us to roll the barrels into our homes, ignore the stench, and hope for the best.

If we don't demand better we're getting precisely what we deserve.

Calling Veteran Teachers "Developing"

Mark Naison posted on this a few days ago, and got me thinking. Imagine teaching for twenty years and get labeled "developing." That's a pretty demoralizing prospect. Then, the question becomes whether or not you deserve it. Is it possible I've sucked all these years and no one has bothered to let me know? If that's the case, is it my fault? Weren't people supposed to tell me? What do they pay those supervisors for anyway?

Worse, I guess, would be if I didn't suck and some supervisor were telling me I did. Fortunately, we now have a Danielson rubric which specifically tells us what does and does not suck. So now, we can sit down with our supervisors and find out. You did this, and it did not suck. But this other thing you did, it sucked a lot.

Here's the thing, though. What sucks and does not suck is often in the eye of the beholder. For example, your supervisor might say that 29 students participated and that did not suck. Or, he may turn around and say 2 students did not participate and that sucked indeed. It doesn't really matter that it's 29 to 2. To suck or not to suck, that is the question, and your supervisor is the omniscient and all-powerful Oracle, empowered to decide precisely just how much you suck.

The essential problem with this system, you see, is not whether or how frequently your supervisor tells you you suck, nor why you suck, nor how much you suck, nor how accurately said supervisor gauges your relative suckiness. The essential problem is the system itself. It is certainly not designed to support or improve teaching. It is designed expressly to fire teachers, or conditions under which to do so would not be written into this law. In fact, the only reason Cuomo pushed for a new law is because teachers were not being fired with sufficient frequency. After all, why did all those hedge funders donate millions of dollars to his campaign if he can't actively ruin lives and careers?

And here is another thing about this system--Michael Mulgrew can stand up all day long and praise it. He can cite stats about how few teachers got negative ratings. He can even ignore those who actually have negative ratings as though they don't exist (and I'd like to see you try to defend this system to them, Punchy Mike). The truth is no working teacher likes this system. Not the ones who suck, not the ones who don't, not the ones falsely accused of sucking, and not even the ones who suck without being recognized as such. And if you poll the supervisors who aren't insane, you'll find they don't like it either. If some teacher doesn't suck, and no kids complain about that teacher, and the supervisor observes a healthy culture in that room, why does that supervisor have to visit another three times to see the same thing? Wouldn't that supervisor's efforts be better spent actually helping a teacher who needs the help?

It's degrading to label people developing, and it's particularly egregious if your 15-minute drive by does so in error. Maybe it was a bad moment. Maybe it was a good moment and you didn't recognize it. Maybe you don't understand the rubric you're using. Maybe you've been supervising for 20 years and are traumatized because no one's ever asked you to write anything before. Who knows?

What every teacher knows is this is a "gotcha" system. It's demoralizing to absolutely everyone, no matter what the ratings say. And Andrew Cuomo's Heavy Hearts Club Band just wrote a song that makes it even worse.

That's not how a society that values its children treats their teachers.