Burris, Kaufman, Eterno etc. Shake the Tree on John King/Mulgrew Pro-Eval

Where is the UFT on this?  It looks like they are too busy praising Dr. King's new evaluation system to have noticed any flaws.  UFT President Michael Mulgrew said: "The commissioner's plan is professional and fair and is designed to help teachers improve their skills throughout their careers."  ... James Eterno, ICE blog, NEW TEACHER RATING MATH: EFFECTIVE ON TESTING + EFFECTIVE ON OBSERVATIONS = INEFFECTIVE OVERALL

Even an experienced UFT leadership basher like me is astounded at the continued perfidy of the leadership which has reached beyond Vichy comparisons with their cheer leading for the John King tenure ending plan.

While the ink is drying on John King’s decision and our Union touts how great Danielson is as an evaluative tool it is becoming clearer just how much our current contract was changed without a single vote from one of our members... Under 8E of our contract a lesson plan is for the use of the teacher. Who knows what we gave up to get this provision in our contract but it was important enough to stop principals from routinely collecting lesson plans or forcing teachers to spend punishment time creating documents. An extraordinary example of the abuse was when a bilingual Chinese teacher who wrote her lesson plans in Chinese was given a letter to her file because the principal could not read the plan and would not allow her to translate it... Jeff Kaufman, ICE blog, Danielson: What We Lost – The Lesson Plan

Jeff identifies just one change in the contract. There are more but since I lost 30 years of contracts in the Sandy storm, I'll leave it to you guys to check.

Where oh where is the UFT leadership on this? Are we going to allow working teachers to be rated "ineffective," and face dismissal charges, likely as not with the burden of proof on the teacher, in abject violation of New York State Law? I keep reading about how fair this plan is, and while I've never found it remotely so, it's time for our leadership to stand up and say the law applies to all of us... NYC Educator, Reformy John Doesn't Need Any Stinking Laws--NYC Teacher Ratings Violate Statute

Outside the pro ed deform State Ed Department and its cheerleaders inside the UFT, reactions have been flying around so fast it is impossible to keep up. I am trying to collate some of the weekend stuff.

One of the great selling points of the education law that mandated junk science, for the UFT, was that we would get to negotiate precisely how the junk science would be used to fire us. So they wouldn't just be firing us, we'd be firing ourselves. This is what comes of having that much-coveted "seat at the table." .... NYC Educator, Reformy John Doesn't Need Any Stinking Laws--NYC Teacher Ratings Violate Statute

 I just hope we don't see a food fight break out between UFT people and NYC Educator who is being honored at Leonie Haimson Skinny Awards dinner tomorrow night.

At the ICE blog there are some strong pieces by the dynamic duo of Kaufman and Eterno.

Here is James' entire piece:

NEW TEACHER RATING MATH: EFFECTIVE ON TESTING + EFFECTIVE ON OBSERVATIONS = INEFFECTIVE OVERALL

Long Island Principal Carol Burris has examined Commissioner John King's ruling on NYC teacher evaluations and found it does not follow the law.
According to the analysis Burris did, a teacher can be rated effective on the two testing components, effective on the observations (other measures) and still receive an overall ineffective rating. 9 + 9 + 45 = 63!  9, 9 and 45 are all effective scores but a teacher needs 65 overall points to receive a grade of developing and avoid an annual ineffective (equal to unsatisfactory) rating.
Next year teachers will be rated highly effective, effective, developing or ineffective instead of the current satisfactory or unsatisfactory.  Two annual ineffective ratings in a row and there is a presumption of incompetence which will mean teachers will then be guilty until proven innocent when the DOE goes for termination.
Everyone needs to read the June 15 piece on Diane Ravitch's fantastic blog as this is unbelievable.
Where is the UFT on this?  It looks like they are too busy praising Dr. King's new evaluation system to have noticed any flaws.  UFT President Michael Mulgrew said: "The commissioner's plan is professional and fair and is designed to help teachers improve their skills throughout their careers."

I'll admit that my aging brain can't absorb any of this stuff. I can say one thing -- I would be looking for another profession.

Another link to Ravitch's piece:
Carol Burris Reviews John King’s Evaluation Plan and Finds It Wanting --  the test score component and the local growth component are rigged.

One comment: King raised the bar for the city on BOTH of the test score measures.  He made it harder to get out of effective on both the growth measure and the local. Both. 

And we hear that Charlotte Danielson supporters are whining about having her ideas misrepresented: Who Distorted Charlotte Danielson’s Message?

MOREista Pat Dobosz said: Then Danielson needs to speak up but she has compromised herself by taking big bucks to keep her mouth shut as did Lucy Calkins.

Blogger NYCEYE has a bunch of posts:

At last! A devastating critique of the Danielson Framework observations in the high-profile Huffington Post.

Huff Post piece delves into Charlotte Danielson secretiveness, profiteering, alleged expertise

http://nyceye.blogspot.com/2013/06/huff-post-piece-delves-into-charlotte.html

Note how the Buffalo Teachers Union is putting up resistance:

The Buffalo Teachers Federation (BTF) stood up to an ill-conceived APPR; when will the UFT launch its APPR offensive?

Buff. Teachers Fed. Motion Slams APPR Toxic Stew of SLOs, LMAs, Overwork

http://nyceye.blogspot.com/2013/05/buff-teachers-fed-motion-slams-appr.html

Diana Senechal has a piece about principal training bootcamp:

One Tuesday morning in June, a cohort of one hundred novice principals was escorted into a classroom, ordered to fill out a checklist, and then herded into the Low-Inference Room, where they were assigned seats by number and told to fasten their seat belts. “These seats come with seat belts because systemic change is quite a ride,” said a booming voice through the loudspeakers. “You probably don’t want to change, and the teachers are even more resistant than you. So be prepared for some discomfort.”
Bewildered, the principals looked up, down, and around them. Their escort, a consultant named Gil Hines, walked slowly around the room, inspecting the seat belts.
“Which component in the Danielson rubric are we evaluating today?” the voice fairly screamed. “Number 24, provide the answer.”
“Number 24, that’s you, Nina Perotta,” said Hines. “Everyone check your seat numbers, because there won’t be any excuses next time.”
“Which component are we evaluating? It’s on the tip of my brain, it’s something about assessment…”
“Unprepared!” bellowed the voice. “Number 24 receives zero and a warning in the file. Number 96, which component are we evaluating today?”

http://dianasenechal.wordpress.com/2013/06/15/the-low-inference-room/


And at The Chalkface:

Creating Artificial Student Failure in New York @nysed @nysut

JUNE 15, 2013 BY KRIS NIELSEN 10 COMMENTS

New York Teacher, Jennifer Fatone, posted some pretty shocking information on the UOO Facebook site recently, along with her comments and a letter to Steven Katz, the Director of New York State Assessments.  This is blatant.  This is wrong.  If there was any doubt that New York has an agenda to show failure in the public schools, the truth is starting to smack us in the face.  If you are in a different state, pay attention.  If this hasn’t already started in your neck of the woods, it probably will soon.

 And this from Florida

New Florida law: Teachers can’t be evaluated on students they don’t have

www.washingtonpost.com

Why was such a law necessary? Here's why.

Do you have a headache yet? I do. I'm going out to watch my grass grow.