As for the link to the NYSED page, eh, I am not fans of these two but I don’t think that means much. I have been teaching for a very long time, have been certified since day 1 of my career and can’t find my name in there. And my brother, for some reason, who is not a teacher, has his name there with no record.

No one denies that there are tons of problems plaguing the school system. However, I just find this organization to be totally self-serving and lacking any real understanding of how the system work, especially the budgeting end.
There are so many other ways that education can be made for the kids- improving parent outreach and involvement, for example.

Yet, Sydney has the gall to claim that certification should be a way we measure teacher quality. Again, she knows it all!

You have to be kidding!

For highlights about the importance of teacher quality, see page the data on page 16, and then the discussion on page 21.

Click here for the link, and open the PDF to read the report:

http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/Social_Sector/our_practices/Education/Knowledge_Highlights/Economic_impact.aspx
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Long-time teachers have every right to be skeptical about their proposal, since TFA functions as a combination human resources department, recruiter for leadership training and union-busting fifth columnist cadre for corporate ed deform. Look no further than its role in the shock doctrine tactics employed in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, where the unionized teachers were unilaterally fired and the school system privatized. Guess who brought in the bright-eyed, idealistic scabs? Yes, Wendy, there’s a special place in hell for people who manipulate the idealism of naive young people (carefully selected for their lack of historical awareness and unexamined class biases), and use the rhetoric of social justice for the selfish ends of the rich and powerful.

I’m always struck by the Stepford Wives quality of TFA rhetoric: “Achievement gap…buzz, whirr, click… value added… great teachers…buzz, whirr, click… innovation…”

Ah, innovation. Yes, just like the “financial innovation” that TFA’s hedge fund and investment bank patrons gave us in recent years, and with ultimately the same results.

Should the proposals of these two go-getters become official policy, the practical result will be the further destruction of teaching as a career, and the the further chaining of students and teachers to numbers that are determined and manipulated by people with agendas that have nothing to do with education, but everything to do with the encroachment of private interests into the public schools.

Meanwhile, Sydney and Evan will most likely follow the path of most TFA alumni: off congratulating themselves for the cup of coffee they shared with the “underprivileged” while they await their interview at Goldman Sachs.

If they fulfill the destiny of the typical TFA recruit and really do leave teaching, than they are nothing more than dilettantes.

It is unclear to me how the founders’ performance in their respective classrooms over the past three years lays the ground for their credibility in establishing E4E. I searched the E4E website and didn’t find any dogmatic approach to eliminating “last in first out” or establishing a fair, merit-based system – am I missing something? For those who are criticizing the inexperience of these teachers – at exactly what age can they legitimately begin to question their new profession and challenge their colleagues to make positive changes?

While I don’t know Sydney or Evan very well, I have spent enough time in their classrooms and observing them with their students to know that they are both great teachers who care immensely about their students, as do most of us at PS 86… perhaps with the exception of those immature and cowardly enough to post the lies about Sydney and Evan that I read on this blog.

The real issue here is value added data as I am sure E4E and Evan would argue. We would need to see where his students came in and how much they improved to know what effect he really had on his students. At this point, the only people that have access to that information are Evan and our administrative staff. I have no idea how he performed in this area. I am in Evan’s classroom once a week and the progress that he has made with some of his students is amazing. His class has at least 11 IEPs and many students who have had behavior issues for many years. He also just received another student who was causing too much disruption in another class and I have never heard him complain.

Evan is not the best teacher in the school and I don’t think he would claim that he is, but he has contributed a great deal to his grade and his students in his 3 years. He also told me today that he would be at 86 next year.

I am not sure who this “large group” of teachers that are so against Evan and Sydney are, but I can promise they have not approached him about anything and ever been turned down. Evan has been receptive to all of my suggestions and seems to be genuinely interested in becoming a better teacher. He was also genuinely interested in my comments about education reform, which do not align with his. He had open ears and we have spoken several items and i think that both of us have learned from each other. I would be sad to see Evan leave 86, to leave teaching, and I know the school and students would be worse off with out him.