Comments on: Legislators pass teacher data shield bill despite reservations

By: Follow the Money

Follow the Money — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 16:02:00 +0000

Rumor has it that Mayor Bloomberg will be demanding that all NYC Principals CALL parents to inform them of teacher scores. This is not a win for teachers. Send a message that this is not okay: tinyurl.com/stopshaming

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 13:57:00 +0000

Every news outlet that published the VAM scores did so with the justification that it was essential information for parents to know. Parents can get the information now, and other stakeholders can see information on a school-wide basis. I’d expect the media to honor the spirit of the law, probably even the Post (seriously).

Frankly, I’m far more worried about how this is going to affect how individual schools are run. It’s a potential nightmare for principals, having to deal with requests to see scores and then the parents who’ll ask for their child to be placed in a particular teacher’s class or NOT placed in another’s. The first issue could be dealt with pretty easily, I think, by making the information available via ARIS.

By: B

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 13:12:00 +0000

As AMNY reported: “But the bill doesn’t punish parents who give out the information on their own.”

It’s privacy with a catch. How is it teacher privacy if, at any moment after receiving the data on the teacher, the parent can give that information to the Post or other newspapers with absolutely NO penalty afforded to them?

@5786d2c8a165799285ab552fb82733c3:disqus , are you seriously going to tell me that in a school district of 1.4 million students (and with more tests coming down the pipeline equals more parents with more information), not ONE parent will violate a teacher’s privacy and report a name to the Post because she or he is quite upset with the teacher’s scores? It’ll be the Pascale Mauclair situation again and again. Let’s not even get into the formula and the numbers used to access these teachers…

I don’t really have any strong feelings towards or against it, but if there’s a catch and there’s no punishment for violating said “teacher privacy”, is it truly teacher privacy?

By: Nycdoenuts

Nycdoenuts — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:06:00 +0000

Vote No!
If having my name is newspaper is the only way to get protection from APPR, then I have to say no thanks to protection from APPR. I’d rather have my privacy; it’s that important to me. It’s something I didn’t have before and something and we both have now. That’s important.

By: brett

brett — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 01:59:00 +0000

Still waiting for info on how PE and other non-core-academic course instructors, as well as pre-k and K-2 teachers, as well as teachers in untested academic courses will be rated. Also, how are those who teach repeater courses going to be fairly rated alongside honors and AP teachers? Oh, and one more thing: I was just wondering when we could set up a rating system for administrators, counselors and school psychologists?

By: Vote NO!

Vote NO! — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 01:51:00 +0000

This is NOT good for teachers. The new teacher evaluation law is very unfair. It will make it very easy to fire teachers. Transparency was the only real protection teachers had against the APPR. Now it will be very easy to fire them under the “cloak of darkness.” That is why so many politicians voted for it. They don’t want the public to see how destructive THEIR new evaluation law is.

By: Nycdoenuts

Nycdoenuts — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 23:28:00 +0000

BEFORE this bill passed, teachers’ privacy wasn’t protected. Now it is. Albany acted to protect teachers…Wow.

In fact, this is the first bill to protect teachers that I’ve seen come out of Albany in a few years. That’s a very cool thing