GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Only in the New York City school system as run by Emperor Mic hael I, the despot who thinks that a law limiting him to two terms of servicde doesn’t apply to him because the city needs him so much, and the lackeys he has appointed to run the school system, would there be gloating over an increase in U ratings.  Are all these U ratings justified?  Is there any study that has been done showing these ratings make any sense.  Are they the product of the appointment of some many incompetent Principals straight out of the Leadership Academy who wouldn’t know a good teachers  if they stumbled on one.  After all we all read about several Principals here who told Assistant Principals to rate teachers unsatisfactory before they even saw them teach.

In the smaller high schools, are there subject area specialists for each subject area who are able to provide the proper training for teachers who are border line teachers?  Are these ratings based on the worthless value added scores full of error after error?  Are they based on results on Regents exams where teachers refused to cheat and change grades to make Principals look good?  Are they based on quotas imjposed by superintendents being pushed by their superiors to make sure there are more U ratings to show there is greater accountability inm the school system?

Yes the Emperor is really pushing to improve the school system on the backs of the teachers.  And publications such as the two daily tabloids eat it all up.  I can just see their editorials tomorrow.

Is it just me or does this article seem biased in form? Here are a few quotes from the article that seem quite subjective in nature: The u-ratings are, “setting teachers along a path that could lead to termination”. “In 2005-2006 just 981 teachers were denied tenure”. “Principals are responding to the city’s sustained push to usher more weak teachers out of the system”. It seems to me that the author of this article is actually in favor of having the city dole out more u-ratings. This does not seem like objective reporting to me. 

So what constitutes a classroom management problem?   Teachers are not allowed to raise their voices, not allowed to fail kids, there is no detention or any consequences for disruptive behavior.  Poor instructional practice?  What does that mean?  In my experience, it means something different to each principal.  I have news for Mr. Bloomberg and the other geniuses at Tweed; if there is an increase in poorly rated teachers, this increase is a reflection of the poor policies put in place by the DOE.    Teachers do not perform (for better or ill) in a vacuum.  They operate within a larger context and their poor performance reflects the limited support of the school administration and the wrong-headed policies of the larger system.  If I were Mr. Bloomberg, I would stop gloating over how many teachers are unsatisfactory for a moment, and figure out what his education department can do better to support what’s happening in the classroom.

Bias by way of pretending not to be informed. SO TIRED OF IT!

UFT of course contributed to the increase in U ratings with the 2005 contract which took away a teacher’s right to grieve most unsatisfactory observations.  

Oh for the day the media finally exposes the huge glut of principals “trained” and hired during the Bloomberg administration. Way too often, these principals and APs have little or no teaching experience, and they have cronyistically harassed so many excellent veteran teachers out of the system (and gotten fat bonus checks
for saving money at their schools by replacing these higher-paid veterans with novice newbies:  the blind leading the blind). Oh, that day this is exposed cannot come fast enough!

Why does no one look at this huge, obscenely expensive, unjust-to-the-children scam, borne out of the Bloomberg admin. having broken up so many of the traditional big high schools and middle schools – leading to the “need” for so many more principals and APs to staff each of these “schools within a school,” as well as the loss of the economies of scale of those big schools? 

Bloomberg wants to continue to waste money on the latest flavor of the month theories of how to fix the fact that “Johnny still can’t read,” and then unfairly blame the teachers when yet another year goes by and Johnny is a year older and just as illiterate, saying, “See? Look at all the money we threw at the problem! We tried! It must be those fatcat teachers’ fault.” No one looks at the administrators — the very ones given the job of spending all of that money implementing those flavor of the month theories at the local school level.  WHY?

The NYCDOE is rotten to the core! Why does no one in the media (yet) care about this juicy scandal?  Doesn’t anyone want to admit that the Emperor is not wearing any clothes?

So U ratings went up from 2.3% to 2.7% of all teachers, a minimal change by any reasonable standard, and yet you talk about a 16% increase, a misleading statistic if there ever was one. Is there any capacity here to think beyond the talking points of Tweed? Gotham Schools wake up: you have nothing to lose but the chains on your mind.

That’s wonderful and common sense based, but it’s fantasy. The reality in New York is that Danielson’s Framework is being used as a basis for lengthy, involved rubrics to evaluate teachers. That, as difficult as that is, it only counts for 60% of a teacher’s “score” and that the other 40% is culled from standardized exams.   That reality, having passed through all the legal channels, is on its way for the next school year for many schools (and all for the following) and there is nothing (that I know of) that will stop that from happening. It seems (to me) to be the most difficult teacher evaluation system of any R3T state and it is, in point of fact here. 

There are no student surveys, no colleague observations and no parent surveys that count toward that. Given my choice, I would rather deal with those incompetent colleagues and enjoy job protections than put my own self (reputation, career, self-confidence) on the line with the possibility of getting rid of them.

In short, the NCEI is late and the point that you made, intelligent and agreeable though it is, is moot.

Where were you, and they, when all of the debate about this was going on?

Thats not always the case. In some schools principals don’t know what their doing and always point the finger at the teacher. There should be a new rating system for princiopals. The DOE wants to lower the payroll and get rid of tenure for future generations of teachers. This constant fight isn’t helping. Parents should get more involved. The school system isn’t a daycare.