It is worth repeating this comment from proof of life as a prime example of how the UFT operates to obfuscate the issues and confuse the membership. Sign a deal that rewards teachers for teaching to the test and further encapsulates high stakes testing, but then make it look like they are against the overemphasis on testing. Sort of like having a high stakes testing task force spend a year issuing a report that says much of what PoL below talks about but then doing the very opposite. Check out Lisa North's comments on the ICE blog where she says:
The UFT High Stakes Testing Committee spent a year studying the issue and conclude
d, "those who advocate for the misuse of student test scores to evaluate individuals, schools, and entire school systems are ignorant of or choose to ignore the fact that the makers of these tests never intended them to be used for those purposes."Bah, humbug, hypocrites.
Comment from Proof of life:
The UFT is circulating a Petition Against DOE School Report Cards. Some highlights of the petition include.. "By awarding a school a grade from A to F , the progress report trivializes the complexity of teaching and learning. It is a punitive system that ultimately hurts, not helps, schools." Then it goes on to list major concerns "* overemphasizes testing *will potentially drive schools into doing even more test prep at the expense of learning. * is based on a curve so that there will always be losers" It goes on and on, but I personally love the last bullet * demoralizes whole school communities that have worked hard for the success of their schools.. Sounds to me like a petition against MERIT PAY!! What a contradiction. Can't have your cake and eat it too!
Fiorillo makes some very valid points about the " $3000 " plan. I don't feel it insinuates that teachers aren't doing the best job they can, as companies have bonus incentives all the time based on achieving benchmarks, especially in the sales arena. The question is, what are those benchmarks, are they reasonable, and are they going to be applied uniformly school by school ? My impression, from a presentation by our Borough UFT rep, was that each school would set its own benchmarks, within some guidelines set forth by Tweed, and that everything would have to be agreed upon by the four person committee. Another question I have is that not all schools will have the option of participating, even if that option has to be agreed upon by 55% of the UFT membership. Will the schools be cherrypicked by Tweed based on some sort of expected complaince or agreement by the " Committee" ? Wasn't there a Committee during the French Revolution ?
ReplyDeleteOff with their heads ! Or was that Alice in Wonderland ?