Why MORE?

Speaking with you the day before meeting with my principal was very helpful. It allowed me to better register what really is, as Julie has stated, "clear as mud." The UFT selected part of our committee was the only prepared party at the the table. The principal and her supervisors were unprepared and relied on our take and interpretation of the choices to be made. We advised that our school trigger the default model for the local MOSL. The principal agreed. Could not have done this without MORE support and Julie's wonderful ability to break down the entire task before us so that we could choose between the "noose or the sword."
Thanks for everything.

Ahhh! The smell of Democracy and open and diverse discussion. Our pals running the UFT should try it sometime. MORE did the hard work the UFT leadership would not do in analyzing the impact of the new world of evaluation.

If it wasn't for Julie and others dissecting this nonsense (Julie Cavanagh Analyzes Teacher Evaluation Options...) I would be totally clueless.  I couldn't get our DR to come to our school to explain this to us. She kept saying, "If you attended our spring info sessions you'd know..." BS, we know this thing was far from finished then.  MORE was there for me and my chapter with information and discussion. The petition will be circulated tomorrow. .. High School chapter leader

MORE activists and their supporters have been on the case. MORE members comment on the work of MORE on the evaluation.

Thank GOD for MORE and my brothers and sisters here I walked into school knowing more than anyone, including my administration, on how to explain the ridiculous "advance."

There is no one to turn before I joined MORE and here we are educating, helping, supporting each other. Its awesome, I'm happy to have each other. I always feel disconnected at UFT DA's. There is no solidarity, no personal connections. Next time you walk into a MORE meeting take a look at the smiles, laughter, embrace of each other. This is what a union meeting ought to be, this what we do.

The meetings and discussion over email and in person, blog posts, summer series, have done for me what my union was supposed to do. Everyone I know is turning to MORE for advice and push back against this asinine system.

We are here, we are answering questions, we have a petition, newsletter, and a day of action on 10/9 to fight this. Our union leadership sends out an email meant to do nothing but appease....

Thanks to MORE I'm able to be a better leader, organizer, and more importantly than ANYTHING I'm a better teacher. Frankly MORE meetings do more for my pedagogy than any DOE PD ever has ever.....

Usually I go to services for the high holy days, as I did yesterday and the 3 or 4 hardcore retired Unity folks make every effort to avoid me, although they're good friends with my mom. Well they couldn't run to me fast enough at Rosh shashona services. They wanted to know all about the new eval system, how bad it is, and one even said they saw our petition and it's awesome (he never acknowledged before that I was in UFT/MORE). This made me feel like we accomplished something, very little, but something....

Thanks so much to everyone else who shared advice, links and asked great questions, wrote emails posts, brought interesting things to meeting. And the Change The Stakes/High Stakes Testing crew for explaining how we ought to tell parents that this is wrong, the eval crew for writing a POWERFUL petition. I am more convinced than ever that WE are the union....

There is no one to turn before I joined MORE and here we are educating, helping, supporting each other. Its awesome, I'm happy to have each other. I always feel disconnected at UFT DA's. There is no solidarity, no personal connections. Next time you walk into a MORE meeting take a look at the smiles, laughter, embrace of each other. This is what a union meeting ought to be, this what we do....

"What MORE should do" is where I say, WE are MORE, every member can have a voice and put into what we do. That's what keeps me going and able to start the school year with a hope that would, otherwise, not be possible. Recently, colleagues from my last school called me because of my affiliation with MORE and NOT the Unity District Chapter Leader to ask about the evals. So, that's a huge sign of success for everyone here....

UFT Leadership Must Do MORE to Publicize Political Attacks on Teachers as Reason for Resistance to Tweed Evaluation Plan

I have lots of interesting material on the failure of UFT policy – so much that I can't put it all in one post – so I'll do a series. When you finish reading it all throughout the upcoming week, you are going to rush over to the State of the Union registration page and sign up for next Saturday's conference (there's a $10 fee because the rental is a grand) or if you don't register, next Saturday you will wake up and rush over to catch the action.

I am doing a workshop titled "UFT 101" and will be joined by Bruce Markens, the only non-Unity caucus district rep for a decade (the guy you can blame for Randi eliminating elections for DR's). I believe every single ed activist (old and young) from the teaching corps will be in the room at some point. Head over and register at: http://stateoftheunionconference-estw.eventbrite.com/

Today I'm focusing on what many of us consider a failure of UFT leadership in responding to the attacks on teachers for political reasons and Tweed's continued support for principals who do so. That commercial running that attacks Bloomberg's failures? I can live with that but it doesn't do anything to make OUR case for resisting ed evals without some protection, including a call for an independent investigation of abusive principals (I presented such a resolution at a DA in 1999 or 2000 and Unity killed it).

Let's start with my 2-minute speech at the Jan. 18 PEP meeting:

"As long as you support U ratings for political activity we will dig in our heals on teacher evaluation."  While the UFT walked out, GEM's Norm Scott does what the UFT doesn't: Challenge Walcott and PEP on political persecution of teachers at Panel for Educational Policy Jan. 18, 2011



http://youtu.be/a2kwh5qdS8M

Mulgrew letter to parents "lame" says Brooklyn chapter leader
Mulgrew response on the ed eval where he has openly said how much he supports Cuomo (and in the past how much he loves working with the lying, double-dealing Regent head Merryl Tisch).

A Brooklyn Chapter Leader, takes a shot at the Mulgrew letter to parents:

Lame Mulgrew letter to parents.

How hard is it to explain that without an appeals process as part of teacher evaluation, teachers will have to put administrators first rather than the children and parents they serve? Not only the truth, but much more palatable narrative/ case to make to the larger community, especially parents. Instead the focus is on bashing Bloomberg (that kind of attack politic is never favorable in the eyes of the public) and "helping" teachers, which while true that is part of what an evaluation system must be/should be, not the strongest part of the argument in terms of mass public in an ad.

Of course the UFT could be out there shouting Peter Lamphere [who was U-rated twice for being a functioning chapter leader] from the rooftops and getting him in front of any reporter that will listen, but we know why that is not happening. (Peter is one of the leaders of the opposition within the UFT.)

Philissa Cramer at Gotham Schools reported on this letter:

In the ad, Mulgrew also reiterates his call for third-party negotiation to hammer out the final details of a new evaluation system for at least some city schools. Both Chancellor Dennis Walcott and Mayor Michael Bloomberg have dismissed the call for arbitration, saying that the sticking point — whether an independent party would hear the appeals of teachers who get low ratings, as the union wants — is not open to discussion.

But when push comes to shove Mulgrew won't trot out Peter Lamphere--- and I should point out that Gotham has given Peter a lot of space to tell his story while the NY Teacher has not. (See links below but search Gotham for Peter's name for more).

I also used my time at the Dec. PEP meeting to call Walcott out on the Peter Lamphere case and will continue to do so at every opportunity to make the point that Walcott is not really interested in quality teachers when he supports principals who U rate them for political activity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZEyvRRZbBME



Isn't it time for the UFT to gather Peter and others and call a press conference? Isn't it time for the UFT , which got NYSUT to fund his suit on one U rating to do the same on the other? After all, he was only doing his job as chapter leader. The UFT's failure to do so sends a chill down every CL's back.

-------------------
FEB. 4- STATE OF THE UNION: TIME TO FIGHT BACK
Register at: http://stateoftheunionconference-estw.eventbrite.com/

Saturday, February 4^th, 2012
10:00 am to 4:00 pm
at The Graduate Center for Worker Education

25 Broadway, 7th Floor

New York, NY 10004

By Public Transportation: Take 4, 5 to Bowling Green and cross the street. Other stations in walking distance include the : R, W to Rector Street; J, M, Z to Broad Street; 1 to Rector Street; A, C to Fulton Street/Broadway Nassau station to the 4 or 5 train. We are near the Fulton Street Transit Center, in addition to several local and express bus routes, the Staten Island Ferry and PATH train service to New Jersey.

Directions:  http://workereducation.org/contact-us
Find us on Facebook: State of the Union

$10.00 pre-regestration

$15.00 at the door

Scholarships available upon request.

 E-Mail - stateoftheunionfeb4@gmail.com

Peter Lamphere | GothamSchools - do a search for articles -- see list below.

Principals, Parents and Teachers Stand up on Ed Eval While UFT Tries to Make a Deal

How sad that so many principals in NY State are standing up on the teacher evaluation mess while the UFT tries to make a deal. Here are a few quick hits.

Principals with principles

Audit Culture, Teacher Evaluation and the Pillaging of Public Education

In this program we speak with Sean Feeney, principal from Long Island New York, about the stance he and other principals have taken against the imposition of value added measures in the new Annual Professional Performance Review in New York State. We also speak with Celia Oyler, professor of education at Teachers College Columbia University, and Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, about the impact of value added measures on teacher education and the corporate powers behind these measures.

http://education-radio.blogspot.com/2012/01/audit-culture-teacher-evaluation-and.html

Also: Rye Principal Retires to Fight Ed Deform
----------
NYC Teacher

The Doenuts Blog: The Paradox of the Turnaround Model

Thought experiment.
Let's say you're taking a bubble test and you have only an unsharpened pencil. Clearly you have a problem. Right?
So do you:
A)Sharpen the pencil or
B) Replace it with another unsharpened pencil?

I hope that analogy makes sense in a few moments: The Paradox of the Turnaround Model

---------

Parent:

 On Wed. night at the CEC 2 meeting, I will be presenting our analysis showing how NYC’s progress in student achievement since 2003 is the second smallest among 10 cities, as measured on the national assessments called the NAEPs.  NYC is also the only city tested in which non-poor students have lower average scores now than in 2003, when the mayor’s policies were first implemented.  Please join us!

Reporter:

Gabe Pressman, veteran NBC reporter, has an analysis which cites our research, and shows the way in which the mayor’s program of high-stakes testing and class size increases has led to a decade of failure: City Hall Fails the School Test

There has been a lot of heat on teacher evaluation systems in recent weeks, from the Mayor, the Governor and the mainstream media, but little light.   Please check out my post, pointing out the responsibility of influential columnists in particular to dig a little deeper at  http://goo.gl/7rP1X

Please also check out the eloquent account of a teacher who recently quit the profession because of the DC evaluation system, similar to what the Mayor is proposing here.

More soon,

Leonie Haimson

-----
Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on the right for important bits.

Leonie on Teachers to Be Measured Based on Students' Standardized Test Scores

Click on image to enlarge


"Using a complicated statistical formula, the report computes a "predicted gain" for each teacher's class, then compares it to the students' actual improvements on the test. The result is a snapshot analysis of how much the teacher contributed to student growth. "

Leonie Haimson writes to her listserve:

What factor did they use in terms of improvements -- one year's gains or losses in test scores? Such a small number of students as are included one class would likely lead to an even more unreliable measurement than the progress category at the school level, which culminated in the highly unreliable school grades.

How does such a highly erratic and variable measure get teachers "comfortable with the data, in a positive, affirming way," as Chris Cerf asserts? How exactly does it "help teachers identify their strengths and weaknesses" as Randi writes?

Moreover, according to the "performance predictor" chart above -- the formula was supposed to control for class size at the classroom and school level. Did it?

It appears so. "The teacher data report balances the progress students make on state tests and their absences with factors that include whether they receive special-education services or qualify for free lunch, as well as the size, race and gender breakdown of the teacher's class."

In an oped about evaluating teacher performance in the Daily news in April, Klein wrote that “Nor should test scores be used without controlling for things like where students start academically, class size and demographics.”

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/04/08/2008-04-08_beware_the_teacher_tenure_trap.html

Will we ever get to see the formula? How much of a factor did they attribute to class size?

I'd like Eduwonkette and other statistical experts to be able to analyze it.

Sample Teacher Data Reports on Student Test Scores

Usually I'd put these up on Norms Notes. But this issue is important enough to put them on the main blog.

How about that formula for measuring teachers (see below) or analyzed it in terms of its reliability? If it turns out to be unreliable – as has every other formula the DOE has developed in recent years -- how can it be useful even for diagnostic purposes?

The NY Times report today said this:

The teacher data report balances the progress students make on state tests and their absences with factors that include whether they receive special-education services or qualify for free lunch, as well as the size, race and gender breakdown of the teacher’s class.

Using a complicated statistical formula, the report computes a “predicted gain” for each teacher’s class, then compares it to the students’ actual improvements on the test. The result is a snapshot analysis of how much the teacher contributed to student growth.

The reports classify each teacher as average, above average or below average in effectiveness with different categories of students, like those who score in the top third or the lowest third on the test, and those still learning English or enrolled in special-education programs. It also contains separate measurements on effectiveness in teaching boys and girls, though it does not distinguish performance by students’ race or income level. Teachers will also be given a percentile ranking indicating how their performance compares to those who teach similar students and to a citywide pool.

Teaching Resources
http://schools.nyc.gov/Teachers/Resources/teacherdatainitiative.htm

Teacher Data Initiative

A few things to keep in mind when viewing the sample Teacher Data Report:

* The sample Teacher Data Report contains illustrative, not real, data.
* The name of the teacher and the school are fictitious—any resemblance to the name of an actual teacher or school is purely coincidental.
* The sample report is a working draft. The reports' format may be revised based on additional feedback from teachers and school leaders before they are distributed.

Assistance understanding the reports
Schools will receive training on how to read and interpret Teacher Data Reports before they receive their reports. In addition, Web-based tools will be available to help teachers and school leaders understand Teacher Data Reports at the time that the reports are made available.

Click to enlarge