Heckuva Job Mikey: RBE Writes MORE Campaign Lit

That's a heckuva job this union leadership has done selling you out and making sure your job is in jeopardy, you have lots more work to do, and your salary has stagnated.-- RBE at Perdido St. School

Really, this piece by Reality Based Educator should be printed and go into every teacher mailbox in the city. Or emailed out to every contact you have. Want to help organize for MORE? Gather ye colleagues' emails and send stuff like this out to them on a regular basis.

It is so good I am printing it in its entirety.

Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013

Mulgrew Brags In Daily News How APPR System Is His Baby

Mulgrew has an opinion piece in the Daily News that attacks Bloomberg for not wanting to come to an agreement on a teacher evaluation deal.

He says Bloomberg was the one who blew up the negotiations and points out that both the principals union head and NYSED Commissioner John King have backed the UFT up on that.

Then he notes the following:

To me, all this is evidence that Bloomberg may have decided that it is not in his interest to have a new teacher evaluation system in place when he leaves the political scene at the end of this year.

But that isn’t true for the UFT, which went to Albany and Washington to lobby for the creation of such a system and has been working toward one even as the Education Department has not.

King has said that the city’s Education Department “has not prepared effectively for implementation of the evaluation system.” To meet that need, which we discovered when we surveyed teachers earlier this year, the union has on its own sponsored briefings in the new evaluation methods for hundreds of both teachers and principals.

We are now working on a framework of best practices that the Education Department can use as part of the training system it must outline to King by Feb. 15 if it wants to avoid the loss of even more state and federal funds.

And we are willing to sit down to negotiate the new teacher evaluation system by the governor’s new Sept. 1 deadline.

The UFT is not the obstacle here. We believe the current evaluation system is inadequate. We want a new one that provides educators more nuanced ratings that give them the chance to grow on the job — and, yes, remove those who consistently underperform.

But if we are going to be successful, we will need people on the other side of the table who are interested in creating a system that will truly help teachers improve, not in leaving a legacy of blame.

UFT members, please note that Mulgrew is taking credit for going to Albany to lobby for a teacher evaluation system that uses tests scores, value-added measurements, growth models and the Danielson rubric with the 57 page checklist.

UFT members, please also note how the union leadership wants to see teachers fired under the new, "more nuanced ratings."

UFT members, please note how the UFT leadership is bragging about both of these facts in the NY Daily News.

So next year, when you get Student Learning Objectives that start on September 1 and you must keep folders with standardized assessments and standardized rubrics for students all the year through so that you can be graded on your performance, please know who to thank for that.

And next year when you get a new Teacher Data Report based upon the "state assessments" with a high margin of error and wide swings in stability, as the NY State value-added measurement model is sure to have both of these, please know who to thank for that.

And next year, when you are observed without notice by your APPR with her/his 57 page checklist and you are found to be ineffective because you didn't get a check on 3 of the 57 pages of the list, please know who to thank for that.

It's Michael Mulgrew and the leadership of the UFT who have brought you these "more nuanced ratings" in the form of evaluations based upon tests scores, value-added measurements, growth models, Student Learning Objectives and a classroom observation rubric with a 57 page checklist.

And all this work come with no raise, no salary increase - in fact, you didn't even get the 4%-4% that the other unions got as part of the pattern without having to give any concessions back.

That's a heckuva job this union leadership has done selling you out and making sure your job is in jeopardy, you have lots more work to do, and your salary has stagnated.

I am amazed that Mulgrew is bragging about this in public.

Sounds like he wants to be the ed deform movement's second favorite labor leader (Weingarten of course being the first.)

The sell-out is coming.