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I agree. Student, parental and doe accountability is in dire need. How do you teach students who do not come to school???? Any suggestions DoE!!! Accountability across the BOARD!

Article Twenty—Matters Not Covered

With respect to matters not covered by this Agreement which are proper subjects for collective bargaining, the Board agrees that it will make no changes without appropriate prior consultation and negotiation with the Union.

The Board will continue its present policy with respect to sick leave, sabbatical leaves, vacations and holidays except insofar as change is commanded by law.

All existing determinations, authorizations, by-laws, regulations, rules, rulings, resolutions, certifications, orders, directives, and other actions, made, issued or entered into by the Board of Education governing or affecting salary and working conditions of the employees in the bargaining unit shall continue in force during the term of this Agreement, except insofar as change is commanded by law.

Whoever gets to cross examine Joel at the arbitration or in court is going to really, really enjoy it … can we video it!!!

What about the teacher who gets new students added to their register a month before the test? What about the teacher who has drawn the ire of the principal and suddenly finds his/her classroom full of the “trouble” students? This is just one more attempt by Klein and Bloomberg to try and circumvent the law and screw teachers. These guys are pathetic. Every person who voted for them should be ashamed of themselves.

This is a disturbing trend. If used judiciously, it “might” be a tool to access some sort of effectiveness of a new to be tenured teacher, nevertheless, the system is not made up of necessarily ethical/judicious administrators and evaluators.

Some old timers who have seen this sort of thing and who are nearly untouchable claim that administrators cannot manipulate the type of students a teacher gets, but what these people do not realize is that if you happen not to be in the “graces” of the administration, principal, it is very easy for them to dismantle programs and classes and instead of dividing the loads of classes equally, it is often too common to be assigned classes with troublesome individuals/students who not only are disrespectful to their peers but who have challenged security guards and even the principal. If this happens to be a class that ends in a Regents, then you can see the writing on the wall.

To make matters worse, teachers who are not in the graces of the administration, are short changed by their colleagues who if possible cry wolf and have their worst students removed from their rosters and they magically land in the classes that the black marked teachers have. This is irrespective of levels and whether they have taken the course previously or have the pre requisite levels.

ESL Teacher, The BEDS means nothing. It is often very common to have everything in flux after the deadline of what I believe is October 30th. The system is not accurate to the date and the forms that show the enrollment for students and teachers are changing continuously and even dismantled after the BEDS submission date.

Have you seen the BEDS report asked to be updated every 30 days? It does not happen.
The managerial system is antiquated and does not update but after 1 year. So, do not trust it to reflect your efforts.

I really hope that if this outright of State Law takes place and many highly qualified teachers are denied tenure, that there is a class action law suit against the negligent DoE that will force them to take all these teachers back and pay them their retroactive salaries. This blatant violation of NYS Labor laws and fairness in employment clauses cannot be dismantled at the whim of one questionable set of Education Deformers.

But let me be clear, I agree that these reports SHOULD NOT be used for tenure decisions as their are simply too many variables and inconsistencies involved.

As one of the 700 hundred teachers who will have the data reports make or break the tenure decision, I am at a loss as to what steps I should take. If they are “red-flagging” the bottom 25% of teachers in a given school, and there are only two other teachers in my school who are up for tenure and received a data report, what does that say for my chances? I fear this will come down to favoritism and politics before it has anything to do with real effectiveness.

Peter,

Your advice to Julie is a very sound one; however, two satisfactory ratings does not guarantee a third satisfactory rating and eventually tenure.

It happened to a teacher who did beautifully the first two years, but the third year was given the roughest, most challenging students with the lowest level 1 scores. He struggled with them; he implemented all the recommendations from administration. Everyday he called parents and he would seek the advice of the veteran teachers. But, they were definitely a rough group of students who would make the chancellor cry! Sad to say, he received a u-rating at the end of the school year and was terminated. He went through the appeal process with the UFT, but did not win.

I argued with the principal that the teacher should have been given the less challenging students so that he can continue to work on his teaching, methodology, classroom management, and the implementation of strategies that work.

I’ve been in the system over 20 years and I’ve contended with all levels of students. As an educator, I know that I will not have year in and year out every student passing my class. There have been years where I’ve had the best successes where a large percentage of my students have passed my class and the regents. Then there are those years where I wondered what happened where many students failed and I have to reflect on the outcome and change strategies. But, does that make me incompetent? I don’t think so. I likened students to economy; they have peaks and lows in their scores and learning abilities. So each year I need to adjust my lessons, teaching style and approaches so that I can reach every student. Does this work every year? It depends on the students’ prior knowledge and other factors that they bring to the classroom (attendance issue, family problems, in shelter or not, a newcomer, a student with an interrupted formal education, foster home, etc.). Should I be evaluated based on my students’ scores? The answer is obvious.

Therefore, our goal as veteran teachers should be to take on those challenging students for the sake of the untenured teachers so they can work on their teaching abilities and all the various challenges that come with teaching. After they’ve been granted tenure, they can take on those students who will eventually put them through the teaching challenges each and every day.

Granting tenure based on students’ scores is unfair, unreliable, unpredictable, incriminating, and a career killer.

MF,

We must keep hammering this point everyday! We must make put the writing on the wall for all to see! I glean so much information from your comments. They shed light to issues that members either don’t understand or are afraid to contend with.

Thank you for your comments.

What’s a record?

Thanks for all of your comments. I’ve been in contact with my union rep, who assures me that all will be fine, but I’m still concerned. I work in a high-needs school in Brooklyn. This year I have middle school students who perform at first grade level. I have a large number of ELL students, and what appear to be many undiagnosed learning disabilities. I’m sure most of my students will do fine on the test, but my poor students who can barely read really don’t stand a chance.

I’m doing all I can for these kids, I come to school early, I leave late (sometimes after seven PM), and I know that despite all of my best efforts I have no control over this situation. It’s frustrating to be helpless at defending the most important thing in my life.