With unions raising a stink about the remote possibility that a tiny fraction of classroom educators might lose their jobs for failing kids, Gov. Cuomo and Albany legislators are poised to hit pause on using results on Common Core tests as one piece of teacher evaluations.
That would be a big mistake.
The new, more rigorous standards are finally pushing students to learn English, math, science and other subjects more deeply than ever before. In another overdue shift, New York is putting in place ratings that, crucially, promise to identify great teachers, and good, mediocre and awful ones. The last face removal from classrooms.
These ratings take into account student learning as measured via improvement or lack thereof on state tests — the tough Common Core tests. Which is why the teachers’ unions and their supporters in the Legislature have gone ballistic.
With Gov. Cuomo apparently receptive, they’ve dressed up their end-of-session proposal as a “safety net” that would create two separate teacher quality scores — one including Common Core tests, one replacing that piece of the review with local tests, with only the second being used for personnel decisions like termination.
This is nothing but a two-year vacation from true accountability — with the almost-certain sequel being a push to permanently decouple meaningful measures of student learning from the evaluations.
Never mind that only about 20% of teachers statewide even teach subjects and grades that have Common Core tests attached.
Never mind that for these teachers, the tests typically count for 20% of their score, with the rest based on subjective measures such as a principal’s assessment. That protects the vast majority of teachers from consequences.
Never mind that the data is used to compare teachers to one another, not to make absolute judgments, and formulas isolate the improvement kids make over the course of a year.
Never mind that when parts of the state outside the city first crunched the numbers last year, just 1% of teachers fell in the bottom category — making them conceivably eligible for removal only if they flunk a second consecutive year.
The defenders of the status quo live in paralyzing fear that teachers might be singled out for doing an outstanding job or a terrible one on the new tests. They risk the loss of $ 300 million in federal Race to the Top funding.
Gov. Cuomo must see the light and keep both evaluations and the Common Core on track.
http://ift.tt/1lHIWpF
via Great Local News: New York http://ift.tt/1iZiLP1
No comments:
Post a Comment