Comments on: Facing own teacher eval deadline, charter schools just say no

By: CitizensArrested

CitizensArrested — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 06:02:00 +0000

What other ways are charters held accountable? Oh yeah, to the stockholders, got it.

By: Bill Cala

Bill Cala — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 20:36:00 +0000

The whole APPR bundle was part of extortion by the feds for a pot of money that in the final analysis will be less than the cost of implementation (see Mid-Hudson study). That aside, evaluation by tests with little to no validity is an outrage in and of itself. The state (Cuomo et. al) was nuts to sign off on RTTT funds as were the local districts for complying from the beginning. The entire evaluation system should be rejected by charters and regular public schools alike. While not a conspiracy theorist, I do believe charters want no part of their data being analyzed as it will surely validate whate we have seen relative to their poor performance in studies on charters (Stanford).

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 03:38:00 +0000

I can only refer you to the quotes from James Merriman excerpted above. Charter schools are given a lot of latitude with respect to hiring and evaluating teachers, and apparently many of them evaluate their teachers in a way that’s severely out of alignment with what the state requires districts to do. If the state law changes, or if there’s sudden parent interest in seeing evaluations, I’m sure the charter sector will adapt.

Out of curiosity, even if every charter was ordered to open up all of its evaluations, do you honestly think you’d find anything that would surprise you? They prefer to hire first-time teachers, they stick tightly to the curriculum and strongly emphasize classroom and time management, they expect their staff to put in a ton of hours . . . it’s not a mystery at this point.

By: I noticed that...

I noticed that... — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 02:19:00 +0000

The DFER, Students First (ha,ha), SFER & all those astroturfers are nothing else but rebel rousers who don’t understand anything at all about evaluation or care the less bit what the evaluation would do to all teachers. They only care that they’re being funded and paid by billionaires and most likely they would go shopping at Walmart just to support Walton Family.

By: Cindy C.

Cindy C. — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 01:20:00 +0000

I indeed wish NYC public school teachers could tell the SED to buzz off. However, unfortunately, we don’t have that option. Charter schools are lucky that they can get away from the trap of evaluations from the SED, and for that I tip my hat to them out of wishing we could do the same. As I mentioned in my above post, I hate charter schools. I actually taught in one for a year and it was a nightmare. As much as the UFT is selling us out, at least we still have our pensions, seniority, due process, and tenure. (for now at least) Seems to me the only benefit of working in a charter school is that the teachers are not subject to the horrible new evaluation system that is just around the corner for us. For that, I respect that they can tell the SED to buzz off and I simply wish we could do the same.

By: BloombergMustGo

BloombergMustGo — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 23:52:00 +0000

I assume you would also respect public school teachers telling the SED to buzz off?

By: BloombergMustGo

BloombergMustGo — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 23:52:00 +0000

I assume you would also respect public school teachers telling the SED to buzz off?

By: leonie haimson

leonie haimson — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 23:10:00 +0000

Isn’t it ironic that DFER, Students First, SFER & all the astroturf orgs set up to support privatization and charter expansion are pushing so hard for a damaging evaluation scheme that the charter schools themselves reject?

By: Cindy C.

Cindy C. — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 22:36:00 +0000

As much as I hate charter schools, I gotta respect the fact that they are telling the SED to buzz off. Good for them on that call!

By: Mary Conway-Spiegel

Mary Conway-Spiegel — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:22:00 +0000

…Except charter schools move into district schools…they become part of the district and “claim” they draw “a significant number of students from the neighborhood.” Charters urge us all to comparison shop knowing the education being offered is superior.
Outrage is descriptive, but how about competitive? “Race” To The Top and Charter co-location exist to create choice, to create healthy competition in the name of improving education for all. So it seems odd that Charter advocates, teachers, schools wouldn’t want to make their competitive edge public in the name of the very thing they stand for – Choice.

By: zeno

zeno — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 20:53:00 +0000

Good piece if information to know especially as we NYC public teachers are invited to put our feet to the fire re: our evaluations. Unbelievable

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:11:00 +0000

On this issue, I side with the charter operators and organizations.

There’s nothing in the state law that calls for charter school teachers to be evaluated on the same basis as district school teachers, or for any such evaluations to be publicly reported. If charter authorizers want to start working this requirement into future authorizations/renewals, then that would be a different story.

I’ll save my outrage for when charter schools make absurd claims about educating the same students as district schools, for the appalling and immoral decision some operators make to not fill seats opened by attrition, and for when charters are given second and third chances to stay open even after clearly failing to meet the standards set by their authorizers.

By: BloombergMustGo

BloombergMustGo — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:47:00 +0000

“Merriman said the state’s demand is unreasonable because many charter schools don’t necessarily evaluate their teachers based on those guidelines.”
So… many of the posters here at GS and in the editorials of many of the newspapers and in general feel that because taxpayer money is used to pay public school teachers, the taxpayers are entitled to see the teacher evaluations and the state has a right to impose their system of evaluations. All in the name of “accountability”.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I am pretty sure that taxpayer money is used to fund charter schools also. Where’s the outrage????????????