Corporate ed reform schoolers across the country are in emergency mode to try to implement the latest testing deliver system, the Common Core, before parents and teachers and students can force a halt to the madness. In doing so, deformers make their desperation apparent as their agendas take precedent over learning or the opportunity to learn.
In New York, high stakes decisions will be made this year based on test scores for which teachers and students had no materials or time to prepare. This is the perfect opportunity to bring this violation into the courts. From North Country Now:
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In New York, high stakes decisions will be made this year based on test scores for which teachers and students had no materials or time to prepare. This is the perfect opportunity to bring this violation into the courts. From North Country Now:
___________
Sunday, March 31, 2013 - 8:39 am
New York’s largest teachers’ union is asking parents to join teachers in opposing the state’s use of what the teachers’ union calls “hastily implemented standardized tests for high-stakes decisions affecting students and teachers.”
For months, a statement from New York State United Teachers says, it has been pressing the state Education Department to acknowledge teachers’ growing concerns with the state’s implementation of new Common Core learning standards and new standardized tests that students must take in April.
“While NYSUT supports the ‘potential’ of the new Common Core learning standards and fully embraces the principle of accountability for students and educators, two-thirds of teachers said in a poll that their students lacked textbooks and materials aligned with the state’s new standards,” the union statement contends. “Even worse, many teachers say students will be tested next month on material that has not yet been taught, with the state still distributing materials and guidance to teachers as late as last month.”
NYSUT says that Education Commissioner John King Jr. and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, among others, have acknowledged student test scores “will plummet - likely up to 30 percent - yet New York is still permitting the scores to be used to unfairly labeling students and measure teacher effectiveness.”
“Teachers have repeatedly urged the state Education Department and Regents to use this year’s tests to measure the state’s progress in implementing the Common Core, not for high-stakes decisions affecting students and teachers,” said NYSUT President Richard C. Iannuzzi. “They aren’t listening.” . . . .
The rest here.
Dick Iannuzzi, along with Mike Mulgrew, stood on stage in February 2012 and happily announced the APPR deal with Governor Cuomo, Regents Chancellor Tisch and NYSED Commissioner King.
ReplyDeleteThe NYSUT dropped the lawsuit against the NYSED and the Regents for upping the test-based part of APPR to 40% at the behest of Governor Cuomo.
When Carol Burris raised very vocal concerns about how APPR was going to implemented, the UFT sent out Leo Casey to attack her.
For anybody in the leadership of either the NYSUT or the UFT to now claim they are shocked, shocked that the NYSED, the Regents and the local districts are all going to use these new Common Core tests for APPR next year is a total sham.
They knew going into these deals that was EXACTLY what was going to happen.
Hell, that's what APPR was designed for - as Burris pointed out over at Valerie Strauss' Washington Post blog, a teacher can be declared "effective" or "developing" on all three parts of APPR and STILL be declared "ineffective" overall.
The whole rationale for APPR is to give districts the power to shed expensive veteran teachers via value added measurements with margins of error larger than Governor Cuomo's ego and Danielson rubrics longer than War and Peace.
For the NYSUT or UFT leadership to now say they are surprised and disappointed that Common Core tests are going to be used as a bludgeon against teachers as part of the APPR agreement is jive.
The moral bankruptcy and political expediency that infects the UFT and NYSUT leadership is only surpassed by their hypocrisy.