In addition, when you really think about BloomKlein's "merit pay", $tudent reward$, and principal bonu$e$, a lot of their statistical success is bogusly-driven, hocus-pocus. This administration has done nothing more for education than try tricks and shortuts and fear tactics to get what they want as opposed to really attempting to make school better for the children of New York City.
Credit recovery? Credit recovery?!? Am. So. Angry. Head. May. Explode.
A 55 could be indicative of anything from a 1 to literally a 55 average, he said. Its not a mere nudge ahead; it could be an astronomical leap.
This is the reason I don't like the whole "55 is the lowest grade" thing. It sends the wrong message to parents. I fail some students because they are close (say, average in the 50s) but I cannot justify even a slight nudge up. Some students fail because they cannot get out of the 20s. In addition, the "55" is averaged in with all the other grades, thereby vastly inflating the averages of such students. 55 indeed!
Mark this date, Math Guy, because I absolutely agree with you.
We're either both very right or very wrong, and I suspect the former. Maybe it's old school, but I give grades as low as 40.
A computer guy once told me grades as low as 15 are calculated into averages. I once gave a particularly reprehensible drug dealer a 15, but I'm not sure whether the computer guy was correct.
I wonder whether the drug dealer wrote or plagiarized a paper to make up my class. I wonder how many of my grades have been reversed.
I guess we'll never find out.
I get how this could be a way of passing kids onto the next grade, but don't you have to actually pass Regents exams in order to graduate? "Credit recovery" isn't going to help you in that regard.
That's a good question.
I don't know about other subjects, but if you fail the English Regents exam within a certain range, they offer you a dumbed-down version that's preposterously simple. Some math teachers complain of how easy some of their Regents exams are.
Also, not all subjects carry a Regents exam and kids need actual class credits to graduate, Regents or not.
Boy, when I think of all that time I wasted actually studying in high school...
No one cares whether the kids learn anything. They get passed along and then end up in classes that they have no ability to pass.
You don't need to know anything to pass Math A and yet kids fail. So now, after a few hours in school, they will be passed and moved ahead. The poor math B teacher will be held accountable for the failures and the kids will be devasted because they cannot do the work.
The system SUCKS big time.
Isn't it all about making sure the principal gets merit pay? Why don't you write about that sometime?
I view the tenure for test scores controversy in the same light - to get the scores up and improve grad rates. As NYC pointed out, principals have the ability to deny tenure and if all these "empowered" principals, so many who came in under BloomKlein are not doing it, then questions as to why must be asked. They can do so on even the flimsiest grounds and if they saw low test scores, they can still come in and give unsatisfactory observations if there's a smudge on the chalkboard. And there are few unions rules, if any they can use to defend themselves - we see how the UFT "protects" evern tenured teachers. So the entire tenure/testing thing is to put pressure on non-tenured teachers to make sure that don't stray too far and not go all speed ahead in teaching to the tests.
"...don't stray too far and not go all speed ahead in teaching to the tests."
Your wrong Norm. It is about teaching to the tests. That is why Acuity is now part of the new "tenure" deal the UFT made with the state. It will always be "about the test".
This credit recovery program is a joke. It not only won't teach anything, it sets kids up for failure. My AP doesn't think it will work for anyone. This program is just a smoke screen around the real issues.
This credit recovery program is a joke. It not only won't teach anything, it sets kids up for failure. My AP doesn't think it will work for anyone. This program is just a smoke screen around the real issues.
I just figure out why my posts were anonymous. I feel so dumb.
I agree Schoolgal. But some teachers enter with stars in their eyes and by threatening their tenure from day 1, it will keep them motivated to be on task. In reality, it will mean nothing in terms of whether someone gets or does not get tenure.
Yes, Norm. But let's define the task for all teachers (including non-tenured) since NCLB and Klein. It's the test scores. It's the report card. It's the admin's bonus. And, in order to rate high, you must test prep, test prep, test prep!!! And you must jump through higher hoops--even if it goes against the contract.
Randi agreed to make the use of Acuity part of a teacher's tenure evaluation. That is really test prep in disguise.
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