New York Times: Union Urges Change In Grading for Schools.
In what she called the most controversial part of the proposal, Ms. Weingarten suggested that the Education Department also be judged on what kind of support they provide to schools, from how much money spent on each student to class size and staff access to computers and student data.
“Accountability flows in two directions — from the school up to the department and from the department back down to the school,” Ms. Weingarten said. “Both must fulfill their complementary responsibility to ensure that students learn and achieve.”
New York Daily News: Teachers union creates own grades for schools that includes safety, teamwork.
Dismayed that the city’s school report cards focus largely on test scores, the teachers union has created an alternative that also measures safety, teamwork and other factors.
United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten unveiled to city leaders as well as the Daily News Editorial Board what she billed as a “common sense” formula for rating schools.
New York Post: TEACHERS: GRADE ED. DEPT.
If schools can be graded, so can the Department of Education.
Teachers union president Randi Weingarten yesterday unveiled a counterplan to the Department of Education’s system for rating schools from A to F that would include an assessment of how well the department supports each school.
Her proposal would lessen the emphasis on testing by allotting letter grades to schools on each of four measures: student achievement, safety, school teamwork and DOE support.
New York Sun: Teachers Want Less Reliance On Tests for Scoring Schools
The United Federation of Teachers would drastically reduce the city’s reliance on standardized test scores for judging school performance under a plan for a report card system for schools that it rolled out yesterday. ..
Council Member David Yassky, who attended the speech, said he plans to introduce a bill as early as next week that would seek to transform Ms. Weingarten’s suggestions into law.
“I think this got it just right,” he said of the union plan.
4 Comments:
1 paulrubin
· Mar 14, 2008 at 11:06 pm
How much do you want to bet that Bloomberg and Klein come up with a response (unless they ignore this altogether) something along the lines of it’s no more acceptable for teachers to grade them than for students to grade their teachers. Wait, don’t students now sort of grade their teachers with these DOE Learning Environment Surveys? Afterall, these surveys impact the Progress Report grades and low grades can shut schools down and result in excessing into the ATR, etc. The teachers should have the same power to cost jobs at Central if you take this reasoning to its logical conclusion.
2 Civil Servant
· Mar 15, 2008 at 4:45 am
I do not think we have to be defensive here.
Elected officials are responsible for running the schools and are responsible to the voters.
If the electorate is unhappy with the results of school ratings, they will express it at the polls.
The method of rating schools based upon test scores, does not fix blame. All it does is give a rating of one school in relation to others.
Teachers are rated pursuant to the terms of the UFT agreement, with procedures in place for review and appeal.
I do not see any relationship between school ratings as they exist now and ratings on the quality of teaching staff.
The public is knowledgable enough to evaluate the demographics of schools and neighborhoods, and the UFT through their advertisements and PR can keep the public advised of their position on this position.
3 Peter Goodman
· Mar 15, 2008 at 8:19 am
The UFT plan suggests the Department move from the current summative assessment … simply a grade without any mechanisms for differentiating among schools, to a formative assessment, more nuanced, that “grades” the Department as well as the school.
The Department, through the Support Organization model has been distancing itself from it’s primary responsibility, improving school capacity and instruction. Currently a low achieving SURR school and a high achieving school receive the same levels of support, with no Tweed interventions, the UFT model would “rate” the level and effectiveness of Tweed actions … a welcome addition to the process.
Let us not forget that the orginal Tweed plan was a mix of public and private Educational Management Organizations (EMO)who would have had the primary responsibility of working with schools while Tweed stood aloof from the day to day operation of schools … a major step toward privatizing public education.
4 R. Skibins
· Mar 16, 2008 at 1:39 am
A great way to cut the budget would be to scrap the school report cards entirely, as well as the Quality Review. The state ratings are more accurate anyway, and not weighed against schools with high ELL and Special Education populations. While we’re at it, scrap the Leadership Academy and the “Gotcha” squad.
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