Friday, March 16, 2018

Rewriting History: Mulgrew Obfuscates on Testing

Mulgew not only supported NY RTTT but he was critical in getting it.... A source
See:

Dear Norm,
I am former UFT delegate during the time that the current APPR law was being voted on. I was shocked that there was no mention at delegate assemblies to oppose testing. I was so upset, I called my State Representative to ask that he vote against the current teacher evaluation that includes testing as part of a teacher's rating. He was surprised that teachers were against this measure, and kept repeating how our Union "shook hands on it". Other states have already repealed that part of teacher evaluations. Why is NY dragging its feet?

The moral: Mulgrew is piece of $#&*!!!
---- Retired teacher
On Thursday morning the UFT held an event with Daniel Koretz who wrote "The Testing Charade." I intended to go but something came up. Lisa North went and reported that Mulgrew was trying to line himself up with the testing critics. What a crock. Lisa reports"
I attended a UFT event with Daniel Koretz who wrote "The Testing Charade"....It was mostly made up of UFT employees since it was during the school day. Mulgrew spoke as if he was always against the tests. I asked him when the UFT would send emails to members like NYSUT did concerning testing...His response? We are NYSUT! He said the UFT's main objective now is to make sure the teacher evaluations do not include tests....

Mulgrew's wording was mostly something like this....When "No Child Left behind" was passed, I know there was going to be big problems with testing.....He did not come out saying he was always against testing.... Lisa North
Jia Lee replied:

Oh really? I quoted him in a piece a few years ago for the MoRE blog. “Will Michael Mulgrew admit to the truth and take back what he said just a year ago at a delegate assembly?- That the growth model (VAM) they were creating for the local measures of student learning component was a fair and excellent way to evaluate teachers because “In any class…you ought to be able to move kids from point A, wherever they began, to point B, someplace that showed some progress.” He agreed with VAM and said at several DAs that it is what saved some teachers who received poor observations from their admins. I argued with him after a DA that clearly there is a problem with the administrator and using junk science to save teachers is wrong.
My response: The UFT supported NCLB -- Sandy Feldman was on the committee - and the UFT/AFT supported its predecessor under Clinton - Goals 2000. And they didn't oppose Race to the Top. I received this email from a source:
Mulgew not only supported NY RTTT but he was critical in getting it.  The first version was said to have been rejected because the union did not sign on, the second  time around he personally went to DC with Tisch, Steiner, King and Klein to pitch it - even though it meant Common Core, test based teacher evaluation and raising the cap on charter schools - the latter irreversible.  It also included a massive data tracking system on kids that later morphed into inBloom.

Nov. 2012 from MORE written by Julie Cavanagh and posted on ed notes.

MORE PRESS RELEASE: UFT RTTT Agreement A Terrible Mistake

For Immediate Release

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Contact: Julie Cavanagh-

UFT RTTT Agreement A Terrible Mistake

The UFT has agreed to sign onto NYC's RTTT application, adding as many as 100 schools to the city’s three-year-old "Innovation Zone" and expanding online learning and instruction among other technology-based techniques.

This agreement is a terrible mistake, selling out teachers and kids. This agreement was made despite the fact that there is no research to show that the millions of dollars currently being spent on online learning in the 250 schools already in NYC's Izone have worked to improve schools, or help students learn. According to Gotham Schools, the UFT leadership’s Mendel said, "the union wanted to facilitate efforts to boost student achievement, even if it’s not clear whether the efforts will ultimately pay off," and, "that we should be experimenting with different things. If they don't work, shut it down. If they do work, then expand them." MORE caucus does not believe in this time of devastating cuts to our schools allocating millions of dollars to experiment on other people's children is what is best for our schools or the students we serve.

According to Julie Cavanagh, MORE caucus UFT presidential candidate, "There is no evidence to support online learning anywhere else in the country. Putting kids on computers does no "personalize" learning; it does the opposite. This RTTT application, which the UFT has agreed to, would allocate funding to support the creation of as many of a dozen new schools built on the basis of online learning; which would ultimately likely help the DOE in closing down existing schools rather than improving them, in the process causing more chaos, disruption and "churn" and excessing more teachers."

This agreement also obligates the UFT to adopt a teacher evaluation system tied to test scores by 2014-2015, which many experts have stated and highly flawed TDRs revealed, is highly volatile, unreliable and unfair.

"Before the UFT negotiates any new teacher evaluation system with the city, they should require that the teacher growth scores already completed by the state, that do not take class size or demographic background of students into account, be revealed to individual teachers and are proven to be valid. MORE caucus is also calling for a democratic membership vote to adopt any potential evaluation system before an agreement is made," said Peter Lamphere, MORE member.

MORE caucus believes the UFT leadership should insist on progress for reducing class size, the top priority of parents and the ONLY way to truly personalize learning or differentiate instruction instead of agreeing to misguided and destructive policies poorly disguised as potentially beneficial experiments on our children. Class sizes have risen five years in a row, with the union leadership doing little or nothing to stop it.
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My last post before going back to the cave in Rockaway. Good work by MORE in this response.
In case you didn't notice: Joel Klein agrees w/@rweingarten: We Need a Bar Exam for teachers http://bit.ly/XGNVAh.

How do you spell Vichy?  

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

OK. I might get bashed for this, but I am going to write it anyway. I actually like the OPTION of having test scores used in my evaluation. As a teacher who does not teach a tested subject, having test scores linked to my evaluation can be a good thing. How? I will tell you. If I get a "developing" in the area of teacher observations but an "effective" in the area of test scores, my overall score will be "effective". Thus, the use of test scores can prevent a vindictive principal from writing you up as developing. However, as I mentioned, the use of test scores should be an OPTION. The use of test scores should not be forced on anyone. What I think Mulgrew really needs to be fighting for is to abolish the Danielson Framework and get NYC teachers the state minimum of 2 observations. This is such a no brainer. Every single teacher in NYC hates Danielson and tenured teachers do not need to have 4 observations per year.