Rally against the APPR at the NYSUT Representative Assembly

It's junket time for at least 800 Unity Caucus minions who will be getting two days off later this week to head up to Buffalo for the NYSUT convention. Our "elected reps" will be told to ignore this event. Baaaaaaaaaaa. Really, aren't they really more spineless than PEP members?

This is led by the heroic Lancaster County Teachers Association (a NYSUT local upstate). Please take a second to sign their petition against the evaluation deal. 

I'm going to follow this up with some great videos of the Teacher Eval event last week.

What: Rally against APPR @ NYSUT Representative Assembly ConferenceWhere: Buffalo Convention Center 153 Franklin Street Buffalo NY 14202
When: Thursday, April 26th
Details: arrive at the convention center, 153 Franklin Street Buffalo, NY 14202where we will stand outside in solidarity against the new APPR regulations. We will be at the Franklin Street entrance from 5:00 pm and 6:00 pm. 

The purpose of this rally is to bring awareness for the need to amend the APPR.  We are not protesting NYSUT and do not wish to cause division, but instead want to show that we cannot accept this terrible plan.

Why:

1. A teacher can earn a perfect score on each of the elements in the New York State Teaching Standards and end up on a Teacher Improvement Plan if the students do not perform well on the tests.
2. Test scores and the teacher APPR scores will be reported to the public via the local and state news outlets.
3. Teachers who do well on test scores but don't choose to do anything innovative will achieve a satisfactory score and will avoid a Teacher Improvement Plan. This discourages doing anything “outside of the box” and encourages “drilling for the test”. Why teach any critical thinking when the APPR is mostly weighted on the test scores?
4. After the local media reports teachers’ APPR scores, Parents will begin demanding that their children be placed with certain teachers.
5. Teachers should no longer collaborate and share any ideas because you are now competing with your colleagues to ensure that parents request you to teach their children.
6. Students that need the best teachers due to various circumstances will no longer be sought out, but rather avoided.