The letter that Bill Cala sent to all of the legislators who voted for the budget.
Dear Members of the Assembly who Voted for the Budget:
I am a life-long New York State educator. I have taught and have been
the superintendent of school districts in urban, rural and suburban
settings. I am currently in the Fairport Central Schools. Your vote
for this budget language is the death of anything resembling a
comprehensive, just and fair educational system in this state. I have
read the language for teacher evaluation (Given the Message of
Necessity, it is highly unlikely that you read the bill given its
girth). It is myopic and will not ever come close to measuring the
quality of a teacher. It is abusive, vindictive and serves no
educational purpose. The American Statistical Association, the American
Education and Research Association and two major studies (Rothstein,
2012, 2013) have demonstrated beyond any doubt that the system that New
York uses and the one you have just approved are fatally flawed, do not
and cannot work.
As you may have gathered by the responses you are receiving via phone
calls, social media and e-mails, no one thinks this is a good idea
except those of you who voted for it on the floor. This legislation is
demoralizing and punitive to the people who care for and love our
children every single day. Not only will the evaluation system fail
miserably, but it is having a chilling effect on the entire profession.
In conversations with two local colleges that certify teachers, it has
been made clear that new candidates for the profession are dwindling.
The University of Rochester currently has NO new candidates. Nazareth
College has nine (9). This legislation puts the current fiasco of an
evaluation system on steroids, subsequently further destroying any
future teaching prospects.
Yesterday's column in the Albany
Times-Union by LeBrun very succinctly defines the damage you have done.
The use of "he" refers to the governor. You all endorsed this plan, so
replace "he" with "you:"
"If it can be considered an accomplishment, he has succeeded in beating
up even more on teachers, his perennial punching bag. No matter what he
claims, he is encouraging more standardized testing, the juice that will
be driving his newest iteration of teacher evaluations once the State
Education Department and Regents get around to codifying the terms.
Too much testing is already driving students, parents and educators crazy. Odds are
that there will be increased pushback from school districts, the
teachers' union, parents and, at some point, legislators whose jobs will
be on the line. School boards will be caught between rebelling parents
and teachers and the threat of greatly diminished state aid, not to
mention a tax cap that limits how much revenue can be raised locally.
In all, it is a bleak formula for creating a nurturing environment for education, with no relief in sight.
What is especially problematic is the effect Cuomo's cockamamie newest
teacher evaluation plan will have on good teachers in so-called failing
schools. What teacher in his or her right mind will now gamble a career
on the outcome of tests given to chronically low performing students? Or
on the observations of an outside evaluator who may know nothing of the
challenges in that particular classroom? Equating student
accomplishment with teaching ability is universally absurd because many
factors contribute to how a student performs, with few of them under the
teacher's control.
But that one-to-one, cause-and-effect
formula the governor says exists falls apart in schools where poverty
reigns, where the definition of a good teacher is probably quite
different from that in a high-performing suburban school. Bottom line:
troubled schools are least reliably served by standardized tests
measuring student accomplishment and teaching ability.
Yet they
are the very schools critics like Cuomo and his billionaire charter
school buddies insist will be best served by his brand of tough love on
teachers. All the while the governor has underfunded these schools more
than those that perform adequately or better.
Now, there's the
stuff of a Cuomo education legacy. He's become our No. 1 governor for
shortchanging so-called failing schools in financial aid even with a
court order hanging over the state's head to fork it over.
Cuomo's high-flying legislative ethics package, no doubt designed to
impress federal prosecutor Preet Bharara, falls so far short of anything
significant that it's hardly worth discussing.
The dumbest
lawyer in the Legislature can see the loopholes. Let's just wait until
the next legislator is indicted and then we can pick up the thread of
what promises to be an eternal quest.
There's lots of
legislative session left, and I suspect we have not heard the last of
the governor's recently enacted education reforms. I'm told that many
legislators did not have the details of what they passed, relying on
talking points they were given by the leadership that proved less than
accurate. Once again, rank and file legislators were largely excluded
from any meaningful role in the process and had only a few hours to look
at a stack of bills in that bleary closing session last Tuesday and
early Wednesday
morning. Once again the governor abused a message of necessity to get
around a three-day aging of bills, denying proper scrutiny."
We
all hoped that the Assembly would have had a backbone and stood tall
against the governor's tyranny. Instead you collapsed and approved tax
breaks for yachts and planes. Instead you approved $400,000 for Dean
Skellos' pet projects. Instead, you chose money over common sense. Our
children will suffer as a result of this legislation. No doubt our
teachers and the entire public institution of education will be crushed,
but our children will be collateral damage. The purposes of public
education are to make good people, to make good citizens and to find and
nurture the unique talents and skills of the individual learner. This
legislation violates these three principles by ignoring them completely.
We are voters and we will remember each November.
William C. Cala Ed.D.
Superintendent, Fairport Central Schools
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