Monday, September 17, 2012

NYC teachers, Have you seen your growth scores?

I have heard that city teachers and principals have not seen their NYSED growth scores yet. They are available upon teacher and principal request 4-8 if the district does not give them out. I suspect that Tweed is holding them because they do not want teachers and principals to see how awful they are while they are negotiating APPR. Why don't city teachers and principals demand to see them? ----- Carol Burris

Have NYC teachers asked to see their growth scores?  Do they want to see them before they are incorporated in the new evaluation system? -- Leonie Haimson

Spread  the word that teachers should request to see their test scores NOW,  before this even worse system takes over next September. The UFT has to  agree to an evaluation system by around Jan 15 ---- Lisa North
Leonie issued this interesting bulletin - take heed, you won't be seeing the UFT battling in the streets over this.
FYI, the state technical docs prepared by the consultants AIR reveal that there was no attempt to control for class size, the racial/ethnic background of students, or many other variables that logically might affect outcomes.

They also apparently found big peer effects but did not control for them either – one reason that that charter schools do better on  some measures, because they can push out disruptive students.

Here is the link to where all of the technical manuals on growth scores reside.  http://engageny.org/resource/resources-about-state-growth-measures/ 

These were the only student/classroom level factors apparently considered:

--Economic disadvantage (ED) (but did not differentiate free lunch or reduced lunch – a big difference, with very different expected outcomes)

--Students with disabilities (SWDs) (but not types or severity of disability)

--English language learners (ELLs)

Also, I wonder if anyone knows the percentage NYC teachers were rated “ineffective” compared the relatively low figures statewide? 

With far larger classes on average in NYC, and larger numbers of free lunch and minority students, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were higher percentages of NYC teachers rated “ineffective”  here than elsewhere – penalized for teaching at risk students in worse conditions.

Follow-up

Carol Burris and I Dissect A Bizarre New York Times Editorial

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