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Will the tenure data for New York City be released today?

I believe last year Bloomberg and Walcott were at a conference together to announce it. I wonder how the city will roll out the number….

I guess (and it is pure guesswork) it will be in the upper 40s

Not quite entirely true.

Some teachers from nearly the very start can see their major tasks in terms of development, gauge student reactions over time and gradually make progress pretty much on their own but also by getting tips and feedback and by observing other teachers. Not so much through feedback on observations which often tells them incidentals, things they can’t realistically change much, and what they already know.

Some very talented and innovating veteran teachers are simply leagues beyond almost any rating officer or coach. Their evolution is their own, though it could be tempered with feedback from casual observations or conferences.

Unfortunately, you are right. There are many schools where the principal and assistant principal are not instructional leaders and cannot help their teachers get better. Ideally, school leaders will predominately be highly effective in the classroom and have a great grasp of pedagogy. Currently, there is a dearth of effective school leaders. This is a true crisis.

I think all teachers, regardless of level of expertise, can benefit from feedback, observation of other teachers, etc. Schools should be laboratories where they learn from their school leader, observe classes and develop a more nuanced understanding of their own teaching, the teaching of others, and how it can best inform their practice. Working with a school leader to help facilitate this process is of critical importance.

Many teachers view a principal as someone who is best if they simply “get out of the way.” I reject this notion outright. Ideally, a leader is someone who pushes teachers to get better every year and provides the resources (observation, informal conversation, time for collaboration for colleagues, meaningful PD) to boost student achievement (however that is defined)

When will this connotation about how building leaders are heros and teachers are villains end!?!

Here’s how that Post piece first described administrators: “school administrators were moving mountains every day” And here’s how they first references teachers: “they had no answer for the no-show adults” That’s a great way to describe administrators and a lousy way to describe teachers!

The problem there clearly seems more like a leadership failure. Specifically:
1. Not addressing the teacher attendance ‘problem’
2. Letting one Gen-Ed teacher cover a CTT (Team teaching with mixed Sp-Ed/Gen-Ed class)
3. Not staffing enough Special Ed teachers for the school

Look, teachers are relatively good, hardworking people. Like any worker, they need to be managed by supervisors. If they’re not, then focus shouldn’t be on them (as it is in the piece). If their attendance is low, the finger should be pointed at the building leaders.

And I think it’s a double slap in the face to those (probably fairly young) teachers: they work under administrators who don’t manage their attendance, then catch the short end of the stick when the press writes about their attendance -while administrators (the ones who failed to lead them in the first place-)are describe as ‘moving mountains’.

Here’s a crazy idea: In this, the age of accountability, let’s hold building leaders accountable for the results they get from their staff…

…and will someone please call for the press to be held accountable in the way they describe teachers.

Post: Yellow Journalism

If the DOE is right, and three instructors are on medical leave, then there’s no story!

No-show is the Ed bus means never ever showed up to date.

Sick-out means feigning illness, usually as a group.

Post means libelous tabloid rag.