Hundreds of Long Island public school principals including six in Wantagh and Seaford are challenging the state Education Department and criticizing new standards for evaluating educators.
The new rules went into effect in September as New York State worked to win federal money under the Race to the Top program, which the White House said is designed to promote "innovation, reform, and excellence in America’s public schools."
Teachers and principals are evaluated, in part, on student performance on standardized tests. In an open letter regarding New York State's APPR legislation, all five building principals in the Wantagh School District and Seaford Middle School Principal Daniel Smith were part of 368 principals across Long Island to address the concerns over the new rules.
“As building principals, we applaud efforts aimed towards excellence for all of our students. We cannot, however, stand by while untested practices are put in place without any meaningful discussion or proven research,” they say on a new website.
“At first glance, using test scores might seem like a reasonable approach to accountability. As designed, however, these regulations carry unintended negative consequences for our schools and students that simply cannot be ignored,” the principals say.
Teachers and principals receive a rating of 0-100 with 20 to 40 percent of their score coming from their students’ test performance.
“I applaud all those principals for taking a stand,” said Tom Vereline, president of Wantagh United Teachers. “Most districts feel as if they are being rushed into the new evaluation system.”
Vereline emphasized that “the vast majority of educators support some sort of new system” but the implementation of it needs to be reviewed more before proceeding.
“We realize that given the high property taxes Long Islanders pay, they want to know their children are being taught by qualified educators,” said Vereline. “However, there are just too many uncertainties in the new system and if we don’t proceed carefully, implementation of it may do more harm than good.”
The website, which includes a copy of an open letter, lists several objections to the system, arguing that tax dollars are being diverted from schools to testing companies, trainers and outside vendors; that the emphasis on evaluations will damage children as schools put too much focus on test results, and that educational experts say there is no evidence that such a system improves students’ education.
“We, principals of Long Island schools, conclude that the proposed APPR process is an unproven system that is wasteful of increasingly limited resources. More importantly, it will prove to be deeply demoralizing to educators and harmful to the children in our care,” the website says.
The letter was written by Dr. Sean Feeney, principal of The Wheatley School in East Williston and president of the Nassau County High School Principals Association, and Carol Corbett Burris of South Side High School in Rockville Centre. In July, Burris sent a memo to U. S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan in July, outlining her objections to poor evaluation systems.
The state Board of Regents approved the evaluation system in May. “These evaluations will play a significant role in a wide array of employment decisions, including promotion, retention, tenure determinations, termination, and supplemental compensation, and will be a significant factor in teacher and principal professional development,” the state Education Department said at the time.
Educators are rated on this basis, the department said.
- 20% -- student growth on state assessments or a comparable measure of student achievement growth (increases to 25% upon implementation of a value-added growth model);
- 20% -- locally-selected measures of student achievement that are determined to be rigorous and comparable across classrooms (decreases to 15% upon implementation of a value-added growth model); and
- 60% -- other measures of teacher/principal effectiveness.
"I disagree with your recital on why tenure came about, and thus on its even greater relevance today." Tenure was insitituted in the late 1800's intitaly to protect College professors when it was deemed neccessary due to the UNDUE influence, prejudices and BIAS administrative, sponsors ,parents and collegues had upon a professor retaining employment.because of gender, nationaltiy or teaching methodologies. It Was Never initally intended for TEACHERS. However it rolled down the educational path and was indoctrinated to encompass Public school teachers The intent was to eliminate from the process for rentention , Administrative & individual BIAS along with any undue outside influences. Tenure was NEVER intended to guarantee a job for life, its sole premise to insure an individul (PRIOR TO CURRENT FEDERAL AND STATE LAWS) had a objective process in place to insure DUE CAUSE. So Chris, if you leave a sole individual in charge( a principal) to determine who is or is not a good teacher without any documented objective standards and guidleines to judge by then we are REVERTING to WHY tenure was institued in the first place. Personal assumptions, and bias lead to subjectivity and in no book i know of is that a fair method of evaluating ANYONE. So to continue to leave the process to the prinicpals discretion as you suggest isnt effective it HASNT been effective because basically thats a form we have in place now and it OBVIOUSLY isnt working.
I guess one all-American way to solve this would be for Seaford to embrace and implement the new evaluation system, as a pilot or trial program, and meanwhile Wantagh and many other LI school districts can wait, watch, and evaluate the results (cost-benefit and pedagoical efficacy) of the pilot program in Seaford...for about 5 years. What do you say? More important, what do your Superintendent and your school board say? Go ahead and ask them.
Regardless of who did or didnt sign,the protest letter, the fact remains ALL NYS School Districts MUST abide, comply and participate and if i am NOT mistaken if a SD decides it will NOT or can not implement with in the time frame the District will be penalized a % of state aid.
Huh?
In Wantagh, parents are pouring over test results to see which school out-scored the others, an unintended competition for sure, but the polar opposite of what you are suggesting. Close a school to prove a point and fire the staff? Nobody wants anything like that to ever happen. And if it did, then where do you put the kids, you know, for their education? Or, are you really all about hurting school employees and so what if the kids in Seaford don't get an education? PS - they have not closed Roosevelt Middle or High School. They (NYS) did give Roosevelt $208 million of YOUR tax money to fix their problems. It didn't work, but, it seemed a better alternative to closing the two secondary schools in Roosevelt and farming-out the students to the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District.
If collectively we all dont support steps however small to identify and correct problems in education (and yes Chris there IS a problem in Education) , then we are as BAD as the problem itself. Lets see where this APPR leads us before we beat it to death !
Sure APPR is going to happen, and then eveyone will then think, believe, understand, expect that, as in Lake Wobegon, where "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average" that all of our teachers are positively the best (as a result of APPR). The upside of this folderal will be that 'last-in, first-out will again be a publicly & parentally acceptable practice for excessing teachers.
The bad news is that we actually don't rate very well at all. According to the Programme for International Student Assessment, which compares test scores among the 34 nations in the OECD, the US is ranked 14th in literacy; 17th in science; and a woeful 25th in math. Secretary Duncan has regularly referred to this data in advocating for more stringent teacher evaluation. So kids enterintg the workforce, find themselves burdened with the challenge of a weak labor market, competing against better educated workers from other nations willing to work for much less than it takes to maintain a decent of standard of living in the US, and suffering the reputational damage that comes from having received an education that the world sees as mediocre. Any wonder why unemployment disproportionately impacts those in their twenties? When you read or hear comments about APPR being made by education administrators, it's clear that there's much resistance. But I'm not hearing a coherent vision that convinces me that there exists a meaningful systemic improvement plan either and that's disturbing.
Albany has to take the bull by the horns , ignore the teachers lobby machine called the Union and make substantive changes to exisiting laws to ALLOW us to place the STUDENT first, not the employee and we all realize That means hell can freeze over before it happens. Money talks gentlemen,, and the Teachers union has VERY deep pockets. I wonder what would happen if PARENTs and taxpayers filed a class action suit against the Local school districts, the State AND the Union itself! Now THAT would be interesting!
The axiom, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" applies here, especially to Wantagh and Seaford and most of the rest of Long Island schools. If it ain't broke, don't go throwing money at a problem that does not warrant having money thrown at it. FIx the serious, glaring problems is Roosevelt, in Hempstead, New York City, Rochester and Yonkers, They need fixing. Wantagh and Seaford and Half Hollow Hills, Jericho, Port Washington and Syosset kids will be able to compete successfully with kids from any other nation, no "woeful" excuses needed. No, I do not "wonder why unemployment disproportionately impacts those in their twenties". I know the reason. I and hundreds of thousands of people like me at the leading edge of the Baby Boom cannot afford to retire "on-scheduel", and WE are occupying the very jobs which those in their twenties should be filling, insteasd of living off of their parents in their childhood homes, unemployed or 'woefully' under-employed.
By stating "we dont need to improve" "that it isnt broken" is doing the youth of our communities a GRAVE misjustice. By remaining stagnat and NOT striving for improvement constantly we are handicapping them. Chaminade taught you better, it taught you always strive to be better to improve, to reach higher to BE the BEST YOU can be, to GIVE the best you can give ... There is aLWAYS room for improvement Chris. Take your head out of the South Shore muck and wake up!
/ http://education.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-high-schools/rankings/gold-medal-list Also newsweeks rankings http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/features/2011/americas-best-high-schools. Tell me WHERE are Seaford and Wantagh ranked on the list as compared to Jericho, Syosett, Port Washington, ETC..? Facts not wishful fantasy....
I DONT read Newsday for some of the Same reasons you reference Newsday is Offensive on so many levels and typically not a reliable unbiased source since it was purchased by Cablevision.
" The 1982 Triborough Amendment to the Taylor Law prohibits a public employer from altering any provision of an expired labor agreement until a new agreement is reached. This amendment, which was originally approved with the strong support of unions, has the effect of requiring automatic pay increases where a salary step schedule or longevity schedule exists, even though the labor agreement has expired. Consequently, a public employer's salary costs continue to rise even when labor negotiations have reached an impasse.The Triborough Amendment also undermines the collective bargaining process by discouraging unions from offering concessions or givebacks since, as long as no agreement is reached, the terms of the current contract remain in effect. Not only is New York the only state in the nation known to have such a requirement, but in the private sector, where collective bargaining has existed for more than 60 years under the National Labor Relations Act, no similar obligation is imposed upon employers who are parties to a labor contract. The dramatic impact that the Triborough Amendment has on collective bargaining translates into a negotiations process that discourages compromise, putting New York's taxpayers at an extreme disadvantage. The Triborough Amendment should be repealed so that public employers and employees can be encouraged to work together to achieve labor contracts that are both fair and affordable."
Interesting read
"...when companies move jobs overseas it's game over. We might think we have a good educational system, but that's not unique in this world anymore and when companies can find comparable and much cheaper skilled labor elsewhere, where do you think they're going to locate jobs? Unless our educational system becomes demonstrably superior I think our kids really will be at a competitive disadvantage - whether they come from Seaford, Wantagh or Hempstead." Perspective: companies move jobs overseas to take advantage of lower labor costs. American (as well as other countries') engineers design and refine manufacturing processes, replication, and packaging systems for products to be idiot proof, enabling US manufacturers to move jobs offshore for lower labor costs and reduced skill levels. With the exception maybe of software developers and digital systems analysis, there are not huge cadres of highly skilled yound people staffing the sweat shops and child- and prison-labor mills of China and India. They are largely peasants-turned-production-workers performing dumbed-down, mindless, repetitive tasks for a pittance and a crappy gray uniform with a little matching peaked cap. Education in Wantagh and Seaford is superior in many way to many places. Our kids get a better than fair shake at good jobs. But good jobs get more scarce every day. They will never disappear, however, just harder to get. A crisis looms that education can't fix.
The Programme for International Assessment rankings I cited above are empirically based. In other words, it's based on how our students perform on tests relative to students from other countries. We might be opposed to that kind of methodology; we might even find it objectionable. But the point is it actually doesn't matter much what we think; it's what the players in a world economy think that matters and they do look at stuff like this. That's why there is pressure coming out of Washington being applied to all states - even the ones where we might think we have a "good" school system, albeit in a U.S. context. My personal opinion is that by far the biggest risk we face is our own complacency. I think assuming that the only jobs we've lost are positons that are relatively unattractive is a dangerous premise.