GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Elizabeth reported last week that the Department of Education plans to extend the new initiative that grades teachers according to their students’ test scores. By law, the report cards may not be taken into account when principals make tenure decisions about their teachers. So what are the reports being used for?

For Bronx teacher Ruben, who blogs at Is Our Children Learning, his first report card, while disappointing, helped him set expectations for his second year of teaching. He writes:

At the end of the meeting I was handed a packet. It was my report card. This is part of a new initiative to hold teachers accountable through the use of reports of “value added” to their students. Groups of students are given predicted performance scores. These scores are compared to their actual results, and the teacher is rated on the basis of these scores.

Now I only have one year of teaching experience, and as anyone who’s been reading since the beginning knows, that first year was, ahem, rocky. So, I wasn’t really expecting a great report. What I didn’t expect was how low my percentile score would be, even after my rating was adjusted for years of experience. And while it was a blow to my self-esteem, it was also a way to focus my expectations for this year. I know I’ve come a long way since last year, so I expect a big improvement on the next report card I see.

One of the city’s first grade teachers explains how being asked to set professional goals inspired her to change some of her teaching practices:

We have been told by our administration that we need to come up with our own professional goals and to help our students set their own goals in all subject areas. At first, I was really annoyed that they were saying this with the upcoming parent teacher conferences and all of the stuff I had to do, but I have to say that really thinking about my goals has given me a little push to do better (not that I’m not doing everything that I possibly can each day!!!), but somehow this process got me doing more. I decided that my goal for this year was to send all of my first graders to second grade reading at least close to the June benchmark (level I). Believe me, from past experience, and based on where my kids are right now, this is no easy feat. I have a room full of B and C readers and it is November.

Bureaucratizing a good idea can defeat the purpose, says the teacher who blogs at Have a Gneiss Day:

We are being absolutely killed with paperwork. Case in point: the kids must write goals for themselves for each marking period. Now, I think it is a good idea for children to reflect upon their strengths and weaknesses, and figure out ways they can improve their grades. However- not only do we have to conference with the kids about their goals, review the goals with them, sign off on the goals, collect the goal sheets, verify that parents have signed the goals, organize the goals- we have to attach evidence that they are meeting their goals. … Days are being wasted that could be used on valuable instruction and completing activities to reinforce new concepts. I’m growing stacks and mounds and piles of papers that need to somehow be organized into some sort of meaningful log so that if “they” come, I can show how I wasted hours of class time….

Who is the “they” for whom her school is gathering all this evidence of goal-setting?

Every New York City school is now subject to a yearly Quality Review by a team who visits for a day or two and looks for evidence of certain practices laid out in a school quality rubric. So her school has to show the reviewers that each of their teachers has been setting and monitoring goals with the students:

Click graphic to enlarge.