Perhaps this entire process of closing and shutting schools based on some bogus School Progress reports and the like is simply 1 card out of many that are being used to outwit and destroyed the hard earned protections that teachers have earned through the decades. It is a shame.

What also amuses me are the people in the Teaching Fellows and other non traditional teacher training programs that demanded that ATR/tenured teachers be fired in order to “give them jobs” perhaps thinking that they would be better than the experienced teachers that were hugging up the teaching positions and yet, lets see the outcome, several small schools staffers have themselves become ATRered, abused, Ued and everything else.

The only way that fellow teachers and union members will survive the continuous barrage and the attacks to our basic right from King Bloom and his lawyer sidekick is to stick together in principle and action, divided we will be cut into pieces and there will be nothing but little match stick of schools in NYC down the road.

PS: I totally entirely agree with you Abismael G. Nevertheless, this site with the likes of opposite opinions shows that we are simply preaching to those in the know and not to the audience that REALLY needs to hear how it really is.

As for Queens Parent, you know nothing about our profession, except that we impart information. There is much, much more to what we do. I’m humble enough to know that I likely know little about the intricacies of your profession, but you, sir/madam, do not understand humility or how to communicate, which is why your points are so skewed by whatever you think you know that you come off as biased, pompous and self-righteous.

By the way, that leads me to my other point, just because you were in a grade school classroom, back in the 60′s, it doesn’t mean you know about how truly sick some of the students and principals are, in the current New York City Dept. of “Education.”

John Hancock was nothing but nice to you, and even conceded some points to you that he shouldn’t have. You still disrespected the man. I won’t concede anything, because your points are all wrong. Again, you know nothing about the amazing work that we do: WE ARE EDUCATION. Without educators, no one, including yourself, would be in a position to function at high levels, because they’d lack fundamentals.

No, we don’t have accountability: we have the railroading of numerous teachers, for the sake of accountability stats that the mayor uses to wash the brains of self-righteous, sanctimonious know-it-all “citizens,” like you. And yes, some of us actually support each other, many just cover their behinds. People like you prove that we must the former, at all costs.

Polo, just one thing, as a former teacher who was only in the system for a couple of years, as a result of having been set up by an unethical principal, I’d like you to know that they’re going after us (non-tenured teachers) just as much as tenured teachers, just in different ways: discontinuances, denials of tenure, and our u-ratings are often career ending and swift. Three of my former colleagues are actually unable to find jobs, because of having been unfairly marked as incompetent, by unscrupulous principals, while working in schools unfit for any professional. One actually found a position, but the DOE blocked his hire.

Principal Quality, Please!

The emperor has clothes. Wink. Wink. I have a tendency to believe that many of those schools that got A and Bs in their Progress Report earned them due to their increased capacity of “making” grades look better, and that is something where they did not do “group work” or “workshop models” for.

To reward teachers for having the majority of their students to pass THAT test, I do not think so.

Moreover, if you look at the small schools that have smaller classes where the entire administration and the teachers are bearing down on students with individualized care, the children might benefit, but at what cost?

The turnover of the staff and the head administration rate of these newly fangled schools is terrible and their success rates begin to drop steadily after the first year.

There needs to be a sustainable model where the faculty and the Administration structure is longer lasting and not a Potemkin village model that follow a Boom and Bust pattern.

Moreover, do you believe that the type of education that is being provided at the small schools or even the regular schools today should reflect what the students will encounter in the real world?

Then perhaps we should wonder to guess what a College lecture hall truly resembles a regular HS classroom in NYC. There is nothing in common.

That is what the great majority of these cookie cutter graduates have problems finishing our 2 or 4 year colleges, and THAT is a crime on the poor, to make them believe that their diplomas are worth something later to find out that they have not gotten prepared for the real world.

For argument sake, what if one teacher was successful in getting the same kid(s) to come to school regularly and do well on standarized tests … would the teacher receive a pat on the back, and/or higher salary, etc… and the teacher(s) who were not successful in getting the kids to come to school regularly … should we seek to replace them with teachers who have the same qualities as the “successful” teacher?

To go back to the argument, I would not place my tenure or my job on the line depending on how they perform in their standarized tests. After all, who in the right mind would put their necks on line for students who have missed 110 schools days the previous year, have an issue when you tell them to focus and buckle down to work and still miss school sporadically this year? How do you expect these children to do in standarized tests?

This is the absurdity of the argument when it comes to what King Bloomberg and his Joe K want for the school teachers.

I am as strong on this issue as anyone but I must question teachers who describe kids as “poor quality.” and say “a teacher, unlike all others, can be given some incredibly defective “parts” and sometimes it’s really hard to make that BMW when half the parts are corroded and disfunctional.”

Even in my worst classes most of the kids were decent. Maybe learning disabled or from difficult homes, but decent.

I’ve considered certain kids damaged but never thought of them as corroded. I don’t think this is a matter of semantics but of attitude.

Last week, Mayor Bloomberg announced that a cornerstone of education in his third term would be linking teacher tenure to test scores. As a new teacher comes up for tenure at the beginning of their fourth year of teaching, student testing data could be used to determine the teacher’s effectiveness and whether they should gain tenure. This measure is opposed by the United Federation of Teachers, which believes that many measures should be used in addition to student test data when assessing teachers. Unclear in Bloomberg’s plan was how test data in ELA and math would be used to evaluate teachers of music, art, science, and social studies, that have no or very infrequent state tests. Many teachers in these subjects are asked to incorporate ELA and math standards when they are barely related to their discipline.

Thompson saw this overdependence on two state tests as a weakness of Mayor Bloomberg’s education plan. His platform called for moving away from testing and teaching the “whole child”. Most students in grades 3-8 are only tested in English language arts and math. Thompson called for focusing on “science, civics, history, arts, music, geography, and physical education”. Under mayoral control these subjects have suffered in favor of the two subjects covered by state exams. Bloomberg and other school leaders have emphasized the importance of making our students competitive in the global economy. In the 21st century, citizens and leaders will need to know the background of global problems and how government institutions work in order to use these tools enact change. If our students will have to interact with people from around the world, they will need to be exposed to the arts, history, and culture of the peoples they will meet and work with. Sacrificing the ability to be informed and culturally literate citizens certainly won’t make our students more competitive. Equal weight must be given to equally important subjects and tested through alternative assessments to the state exam, such as portfolios employed by some schools in the city.

Though Mayor Bloomberg won the election and Thompson’s ideas are not required to carry any weight, the failed candidate has a point about teaching “the whole child”. ELA and math are important subjects aren’t the only subjects that our children need to learn. If students are going to be prepared to change and improve the communities where they live, they will need tools that history, civics, and the arts can provide them. Thompson’s plan to emphasize these other subjects is in the best interest of our students. I hope that in the mayor’s third term he take this idea and implement it.

Telling children that teachers, NOT STUDENTS, are responsible for their test scores is the kind of “accountability” that will sink any educational system. Give me a break, Mr. & Ms. Politician!

Your experience as a teacher and with the union should make you aware of the ineffectiveness of the UFT in so many areas. Even the law they had passed protecting teachers up for tenure from having test scores be used was somewhat bogus and mostly for PR for the members. I get too many calls from non-tenured teachers who have just about no protections. And some of them are asked to sign a waiver extending tenure for a year. Now Bloomberg claims, and will probably win, that the UFT even didn’t get this one exactly right by leaving a loophole. And of course the law expires this June and the UFT will do nothing to fight it. So a lot of this is smoke and mirrors.

I find it hard to believe that you think the major problem in this school system is how teachers are evaluated. When you say, “I do believe that the present system of bifurcated ratings has nominal (if not detrimental) value. What system of evaluation should be used? I dunno” you are expressing the essential contradiction in coming up with a system of judging teachers.
If you don’t know, why would anyone else know?

What about student evaluation? Parent? Colleagues? Independent auditors?

Or maybe let’s just not bother. I could make that case too and argue for using the money saved for supplies. There seem to be as many teachers under assault for political reasons as for bad teaching. Our struggle should be to create the best conditions possible for every teacher to do their best. Of course some may be “better” than others, though the term “better” is subjective. Some are better at some things than others.

Are there teachers who don’t give a crap? Yes there are. And it shows in their work. But they can also figure out ways to get good scores. In fact some of the poorer teachers were pretty good at that and had few concerns about their kids not getting a fuller and better rounded education. They would never bother to take their kids on a trip (which is a lot of work) or provide enrichment and excitement for their kids. Ironically, my principal loved these people the most.

My solution is more teacher control of the work place. That would make everyone more responsible to each other and not to a supervisor who is often a crap shoot in terms of competence. If teachers chose their supervisors (as they often do in Europe) I think we would see better supervision, not worse. Can we find any examples of this? I say why not try some experiments and see what happens.

I got the clear impression you were implying there’s no evaluation in public schools. While I’m sure there are exceptions, that’s absolutely not the norm. Of course the UFT relies on legislation and litigation. What else can you do when you have an administration that openly defies laws on a regular basis? I only wish the UFT placed less faith in the good will of these folks, which is a consistent and inexplicably repeated error in my view.

As for the Bloomberg agenda, the default here in NY is at-will employment, where working people can be fired for any reason or no reason. That’s what Bloomberg wants for teachers, and none of this is new at all. Joel Klein’s 8-page contract laid out this administration’s vision for working people–no rights at all.

I’ve got a kid who wants to be a teacher, and that’s not the future I want for her. It’s not the future I want for my students either. Blanche DuBois may believe in the kindness of strangers, but I don’t.

Patrick Sullivan, a member of the Panel for Educational Policy, representing Manhattan, recently asked Dr. Marcia Lyles, Deputy Chancellor, Mr. Klein and the Panel for Educational Policy, “You say there is progress, but what you say and what is shown on the screen are two different things! So what kind of progress are you talking about: positive progress or negative progress?”
The roomful of attendees, seeing the same ridiculous thing, erupted with laughter!

I am honestly tired of even Mr. President comparing the educational system of Korea as a model. Korean being an extremely homogeneous and competitive society where moms and dad slave away and spend about 50% of their take home income into making their children into test taking, superman studying students who need to get that nth percentage point in order to get admittance to the best University programs.

Arnie Duncan blabbing that the US needs to expand the hours and also the days in school to be competitive is utter nonsense, as if students who barely find joy in the 8 periods they spend in school and who often find more joy in playing hookie and going to class are going to “buy into” that message that more hours of class will translate to a “better life” is something that they truly desire.

The difference between the US vs Korea/Japan/China is that there, yes, the hours and also the days of school are longer but there one thing that they have learned to do, never ever to undermine teaching and teachers.

So, let me get this clear, we will expand hours of class, days of school, take away tenure, allow students to do what they please, to play hookie, to have parents and administrators to boss teachers around while we insult and ridicule the teachers who are supposed to make it all happen with the lowest pay average of many professions?

That will be a recipe for sure success.