Making Teachers Better by Using Someone Else's Bogus Scores for Evaluation

Beyond the idiocy of using unreliable, invalid, and unfair test score gains to evaluate teachers, there is the insanity of claiming the evaluations are about improving teachers by using scores that are someone else's.  Is there any other profession that allows such treatment of its members?  Where is Randi and her bullhorn, where is doddering Dennis?

From the NYTimes:

. . . .Proponents of the reforms said the goal was not just to refine the grades, but also to improve teaching through more detailed and regular feedback.

But some teachers said the process felt like a game of “gotcha.”

A kindergarten teacher at Public School/Intermediate School 178 in Queens, Laura F. Bromberg, 36, said one morning in October four adults walked into her classroom: two talent coaches, the principal and the assistant principal. One took photographs. One spoke to children. Another sat in her chair, which she said took away her symbol of authority and seemed to disrupt the class.

“I wound up sitting on the floor,” Ms. Bromberg, a 14-year veteran of teaching, said. “Their presence definitely changed the dynamic.”

Michael Mulgrew, the president of the city’s teachers’ union, said he found fault with the approach.

“Publicly, they’re like, ‘Oh, observations are supposed to be about helping teachers,’ ” he said. “But their language and their approach to it and all of their directions to the schools is like, ‘Wink, wink, it’s not about helping them grow, it’s about going after teachers we don’t want.’ ”

Some teachers also said they were being partially graded on subjects they had no control over. Geoffrey E. Tulloch, a chef instructor at Food and Finance High School in Manhattan, said the school’s English Regents results counted in his evaluation. Proponents of the reforms said the goal was not just to refine the grades, but also to improve teaching through more detailed and regular feedback.

But some teachers said the process felt like a game of “gotcha.”

A kindergarten teacher at Public School/Intermediate School 178 in Queens, Laura F. Bromberg, 36, said one morning in October four adults walked into her classroom: two talent coaches, the principal and the assistant principal. One took photographs. One spoke to children. Another sat in her chair, which she said took away her symbol of authority and seemed to disrupt the class.

“I wound up sitting on the floor,” Ms. Bromberg, a 14-year veteran of teaching, said. “Their presence definitely changed the dynamic.”

Michael Mulgrew, the president of the city’s teachers’ union, said he found fault with the approach.

“Publicly, they’re like, ‘Oh, observations are supposed to be about helping teachers,’ ” he said. “But their language and their approach to it and all of their directions to the schools is like, ‘Wink, wink, it’s not about helping them grow, it’s about going after teachers we don’t want.’ ”

Some teachers also said they were being partially graded on subjects they had no control over. Geoffrey E. Tulloch, a chef instructor at Food and Finance High School in Manhattan, said the school’s English Regents results counted in his evaluation. . .