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All you who think Joel Klein would not like to institute the same reign of terror on the NYC teachers is nuts. But how much will the UFT allow clowns like Klein and Rhee to pull this garbage off by not sticking up for the tenure rights so many have fought very hard to gain in the past; and the evaluation system the UFT just agreed to is the first step in destroying these protections.

Wow! This is scary. How in the world can we rely on our students to keep our jobs. I chose to work in a school where I can help students who need it the most. I’m scared now. Why should I stay in a poor school district when I know my students test scores are going to get me fired and ruin my career? These politicians like Rhee, Duncan, Klein, Christie, and Obama are going to ruin America’s education system and ruin thousands of peoples’ lives. The way the system was (and still should be), principals can fire incompetent teachers. We all know who they are, if the lazy and incompetent principals did their job and filled out the paperwork to fire them, we would be in a better place now.

I posted this before using the NY Post article. GS states it’s awaiting “moderation” so I’ll try it this way. This is from the Washington Post.

“Although the teachers dismissed for poor performance represent only about 4 percent of the city’s 4,000-member corps, Rhee also announced Friday that 737 other instructors were rated “minimally effective.” Under IMPACT, they have one year to improve their performance or face dismissal. Rhee declined to speculate on how many might be sacked next year. But she said that over the next two years, “a not-insignificant number of folks will be moved out of the system for poor performance.”

Yet the majority of DC teachers voted to ratify the the Randi Weingarten inspired contract. They saw the “dollar signs” and traded away their job protections for raises which for many of them will be illusory. Twenty one percent increases, and $20,000 bonuses will never be realized if you are on the unemployment line!

She fired 241 teachers yesterday, and threatens another 737 next year. That’s nearly 1000 teachers out of a teaching force of 4000. That means 25% of Washington DC’s teachers could be fired a little more than a year after ratifying their contract.

Hopefully this will serve as a message for UFT members. When the fact finders come back with a contract proposal which sells out the ATRs, removes tenure protections, and ends seniority rights, the UFT Leadership will “wash their hands” and sell it as “the best we can do.” The membership should remember what happened in 2005, and what is happening in Washington DC now, and vote NO!

What about all my high school students who don’t come to school, yet are still left on school rosters for $ and to lower the dropout rate. Why am I accountable for this????

From Randi….“Evaluations should include a component of student learning, of course, but there also has to be teacher development and support,” Ms. Weingarten said. “It can’t just be a ‘gotcha’ system, like the one in D.C.” (as quoted in the NY Times…I might quibble with the way “of course” is implemented….if only it could be done fairly and objectively.

You can type that again, Smith.

Check out this article from the Washington Post, ‘The problem with how Rhee fired teachers’:
(Found it at Education Notes Online)

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/dc-schools/the-problem-with-how-rhee-fire.html?wprss=answer-sheet

Here’s a teacher, revered by students and parents, who would have been fired if he hdan’t retired first:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/D_C_-loses-another-terrific-teacher-1000832-98550609.html
Harry Jaffe: D.C. loses another terrific teacher
By: HARRY JAFFE
Examiner Columnist
July 16, 2010
D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee’s mantra is:

“It’s all about getting and keeping good teachers.”

So why, I must ask, would she allow Wilson Senior High to force out Joe Riener, a great teacher who taught students to love literature and prepared many to score well on Advanced Placement tests? Could it be that her vaunted IMPACT evaluation system is flawed, and personal preferences can get in the way of impartial evaluation?

Cards on the table: My daughter took a pair of Riener classes at Wilson — AP English Language and AP English Lit. Math has come easy for her, but she’s always struggled with the written word. Riener taught her — and thousands of students for the last 15 years — to love reading and improve writing.

“The way you learn to write is to write,” he says. “I took students’ writing seriously, read it, commented on it. They improved. That was my objective.”

In 1995, Wilma Bonner, then the principal, brought him on specifically to boost Wilson’s lagging AP classes. Riener had graduated from Georgetown with a double major in English and History. He brought with him a love for classics such as “Huckleberry Finn” and “The Catcher in The Rye.”

“They might start talking about Holden Caulfield’s sour attitude, but we would build from that initial impression to something much deeper,” Riener explains. “The book gets transformed to an exploration of grief and what unexpressed feelings can do to someone.”

Riener fell in love with Wilson kids and they with him. He became faculty adviser to the Players, the school’s idiosyncratic drama club. He convinced Harriet Bronstein, renowned producer of school musicals, to produce them at Wilson. He restarted the Beacon, Wilson’s student newspaper.

I imagine it was his “expressed feelings” that got him crosswise with Pete Cahall, Rhee’s handpicked principal. Cahall is all about authority; Riener is all about challenging it. He’s a rebel; dare I say subversive.

Take the clock. Riener didn’t want one in his room. “I would lose the kids for the last 10 minutes of every class,” he said. “Besides, in my classroom I make the rules.”

Cahall loves rules and clocks. He put one on Riener’s wall. Riener disabled it. Cahall threatened to write a letter of insubordination. Riener relented.

In teacher evaluations over the years, Riener rarely scored well. Rhee’s IMPACT crew gave him low marks, but he could have survived, until Cahall dropped his score 20 points — for not complying with school rules.

Faced with termination, Riener, 62, retired. Ironically, Riener is a Cahall fan. He likes the way the new principal is running Wilson.

“I kept hoping he might see I might be an outlier but I was valuable, and he would leave me alone.”

My question for Rhee: Can her new system accommodate quirky but passionate educators who can inspire?

The answer might come when Riener tries to sign on part-time at Wilson to keep working with students in the drama club and teaching AP English.

“Criticism makes leaders better,” Riener says.

If they can take it.

Experienced D.C. teachers getting fired through a confusing, unclear, bogus rating system and the Sunday Daily News’ editorial section CHEERS.  It’s like cheering the unemployment rate.  Ah, progress.  Again, it sounds like “New York’s Hometown Newspaper” editorial staff no longer cares about the livelihoods of teachers.

Anyone know the racial breakdown of the fired teachers?

Apparently they moderate links on this board…

Put www in front of the following link

tiny url dot com slash 2echde put it in the address box and you should get the article referred to above.

Here’s the piece from Wash Post, Answer Sheet, by Valerie Strauss

The problem with how Rhee fired teachers

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee was entirely correct when she said that “every child in a District of Columbia public school has a right to a highly effective teacher” in every classroom.

But if Rhee really thinks that her IMPACT evaluation system of teachers is going to get the system there, then she is fooling herself, and everybody else who agrees with her.

And this is a problem not only for 165 teachers she fired Friday after they received poor appraisals under the system, but for the rest of the teaching corps in D.C. public schools who have yet to go under the IMPACT scalpel.

Rhee, tough as ever, fired a total of 241 teachers; the others were let go because they did not have the proper licensing, as required by the federal No Child Left Behind law, my colleague Bill Turque wrote in a Washington Post story Saturday.

It may well be that all 165 teachers fired because of bad evaluations under IMPACT were bad at their jobs, but IMPACT isn’t designed well enough to tell, according to a number of teachers and other educators.

According to Turque, about 20 percent of the District’s classroom teachers — all of them reading and math instructors in grades 4 through 8 — were evaluated on student improvement in scores on the District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System, or DC CAS. Those were the only grades and subjects for which there is annual test score data from DC CAS. “Value-added” — a misnomer that ranks with the best of them — will constitute 50 percent of their evaluation.

Judging teachers on the test scores of their students is all the rage in school reform these days — thanks so much, Education Secretary Arne Duncan — but, frankly, this is unconscionable for several reasons, not the least of which is that DC CAS wasn’t designed to evaluate teachers. That’s a basic violation of testing law. Ask any evaluation expert.

Think back to an important test you bombed because you were tired, sick or just got brain freeze. How would you like your pay linked to the results?

But there’s more to the evaluation system than mere test scores, and this makes almost as much or, rather, little sense.

Under IMPACT, all teachers are supposed to receive five 30-minute classroom observations during the school year, three by a school administrator and two by an outside “master educator” with a background in the instructor’s subject.

They are scored against a “teaching and learning framework” with 22 different measures in nine categories. Among the criteria are classroom presence, time management, clarity in presenting the objectives of a lesson and ensuring that students across all levels of learning ability understand the material.

A number of teachers never got the full five evaluations, apparently because a number of master teachers hired to do the jobs quit, according to sources in the school system.

But even if they all were, let’s look closely at this: In 30 minutes, a teacher is supposed to demonstrate all 22 different teaching elements. What teacher demonstrates 22 teaching elements — some of which are not particularly related — in 30 minutes? Suppose a teacher takes 30 minutes to introduce new material and doesn’t have time to show. … Oh well. Bad evaluation.

In a 2009 story, Turque wrote: “IMPACT documents suggest that no nuance will be left unexamined in the 30-minute classroom visits. Observers are expected to check every five minutes for the fraction of students paying attention. Teachers are supposed to show that they can tailor instruction to at least three ‘learning styles’ (auditory, visual or tactile, for example). They can lower their scores by ‘using sarcasm that visibly hurts or decreases the comfort of one or more students.’ Among the ways instructors can demonstrate that they are instilling student belief in success is through ‘affirmation chants, poems and cheers.’ ”

And there’s more, which you can see for yourself here.

IMPACT is actually a collection of 20 different evaluation systems for teachers in different capacities and other school personnel. One thing teachers say it does not do is provide enough support for teachers found wanting to improve.

The overall impact of IMPACT is not only unfair but not likely to do the job it is supposed to do: Root out bad teachers. Some great teachers are likely to be tossed out, and others, who know how to play along when the observers come in but don’t do much when they aren’t, could get a pass.

Of course, every school system should fire bad teachers. But they need a sophisticated and fair system to do that, and so far, D.C. doesn’t have one.

My close friends are highly educated expats from Italy who live and work in D.C.  They send their oldest child to the local public school.  They are confused and puzzled by the school system there.  My friends are outraged that public school is starting up again so early in D.C.  They told me kids need to be back to school about the 3rd week in August.  We Italians believe that summer vacation is very important.  It’s a time to be with family and friends and for children and adults to have unstructured time together.  My friends have written to la Rhee asking why school is starting so early, and of course, have received no reply.  My friends also tell me that their child’s report card reads like a robot-generated document with references to all these silly standards the child was supposed to be approaching or exceeding.  Granted, we’re Italian and have different ideas about public education, but in our country everyone manages to become highly literate and well educated without skimping on summer vacation, treating children like they’re at risk to fail, and treating parents like their idiots.  

More Chicago Teachers have been cut than was reported. Duncan, Rhee, Huberman, Klein and their surrogates, do not anything about building quality schools. This is all smoke and mirrors! They should all be dismissed for being unqualified and performing in an unsatisfactory manner.

Peter,

Why does it resonate? What is the the union’s retort?

When you don’t fight back, you get beaten!

It also resonated with 800 UFT members in Seattle, all of whom clapped dutifully at the man who attacked their pensions days later.

And you’re right, it’s a shame Diane Ravitch can’t be everywhere.

Akademos,

I agree with much of what you’ve written. The question I asked was. What is the union’s retort? Teachers are represented by unions. What has the AFT/UFT said, or done to counter the education “reformers’ ” assertions?

Read the American Educator, AFT quarterly on the AFT website. ..it sets forth a clear national agenda and is widely respected.

AFT is one of few unions that is growing (1.5 m) and organizing, scores of NYC/NYS teachers will be spending two weeks in Southern schools organizing new locals.

Jeff
Attend the rallies, bother your electeds, faxes, face to face meetings, up your COPE. Have u organized parents? attended CEC meetings?

Grassroots organizing brings change.

Peter,

Many of us do these things. However, it isn’t working! The Merrick Academy charter school just fired 11 teachers via “Fedex.” The UFT represents these teachers. This spring NY state legislators introduced legislation that would end seniority layoff protections for NYC teachers. People represented by the UFT. NO OTHER MUNICIPAL WORKERS IN THE STATE WOULD HAVE BEEN EFFECTED BY THE LEGISLATION!

This weekend The DC school’s chancellor fired 200 teachers, and told 700 more that they will be “next.” She could do this because of a new contract touted by Randi Weingarten. She used an evaluation system that is slated for NYC once a new contract is negotiated here.

Should 20,000 NYC teachers worry about their jobs because they are rated “ineffective” or “minimally effective” a year after a new contract is approved?

The 20,000 number comes from the fact that NYC teaching force is about 20 times larger than Washington DC.

Peter,

O course you engage them. But there is a distinct difference between engagement and appeasement.

After billionaires set in motion programs that result in massive school closings, in hundreds of working teachers losing their jobs and livelihoods, you do not applaud them. You do not ridicule teachers who decline from doing so. Frankly, after that performance, you have a lot of gall crying “vituperation.”

You do not enable them by embracing their agenda, by supporting their moves to rate teachers based on test scores, despite an utter absence of evidence to support its validity. You engage them, of course. You do not allow them to walk all over you.

You do not enable what happened in DC. Nor do you bring it to New York.