You give Carey too much credit. There's another option besides not knowing what's going on in NYC or not caring to find out. In fact Carey and his ilk know full well what's going on and hide their political anti-teacher, anti-union agenda behind a phony ed reform movement. Thus, the selective use of "facts" while ignoring the truth.
In many ways I find the Carey's of this world lower than BloomKlein.
Great article. The Kleinberg selective application of tenure is laughable. One day Klein begs Albany for a wavier for those teachers that can't pass the teachers competency test. Then the next day he wants tenure based on test scores. What a hypocrite!
Norm is also correct claiming that the Kleinberg phony education reform is simply a cover for an anti-teacher (especially older teachers) crusade.
Carey's reference to your earlier post didn't make sense to me at all - do we need value-added to identify teachers who talk to themselves and wear sunglasses while eating Cocoa Puffs? No one has thought through what will happen when a poorly designed value-added system doesn't identify those teachers as having low value-added, and these teachers can then use value-added measures to contest their tenure decisions...
Not only can teachers be evaluated without using these test scores, harm might even be done if they are used:
http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/...est-
scores.html
The attack on teacher unions is broad-based and international - Lois Weiner put together an excellent presentation at the Teachers Unite forum last week and I hope to have the video up in a few weeks.
Naturally, one aspect is money. Non-union teachers can be paid less - don't be fooled by 125K salaries - the numbers still don't compute in terms of time.
The other costs associated with contracts are health care, preps, and class size and other aspects.
But it goes beyond to the ability of organized unions (not ours, of course) to drive a progressive education agenda by mobilizing people.
Teachers are the point people all over the world in bringing information to the mass of people and are viewed as potentially dangerous to any agenda unless they can be controlled through fear and intimidation.
Thus the real reason for the attack on tenure and senior teachers who are the most capable and knowledgeable of resisting the idiot ed ideas being fostered on schools.
They want teachers to respond when they are told at 12 midnight that it is really noon to say, "Where are my sunglasses?"
NYC Educator is making an illogical criticism of Carey. Carey and NYC Educator agree that there are some very bad teachers currently in the NYC system, but disagree on the solution to this problem. There is nothing "selective" about this. Both recognize the problem (hooray, common ground!). NYC Educator says the best solution is better enforcement of current policy, Carey says the best solution is better policy.
By saying that Carey is ignoring the remedies available within current policy, NYCEducator ignores the fact that policy design is very linked to the likelihood of policy enforcement. If a policy is designed so that 1) it is hard to enforce, or 2)those in charge of enforcing the policy have no incentive to do so, that is a bad policy and will prove futile. The fact that, as NYCEducator asserts, NYC has done a bad job enforcing current policy for a long time, suggests that current policy wasn't designed to make enforcement likely. In that case it seems like policy redesign is in order. Continually complaining about people not doing their duty when they have no incentive to do so reminds me of those who complain about people not recycling instead of setting up policies that make it more likely that people will recycle.
The comments from Chaz and Eduwonkette don't make sense to me. Chaz: It's not hypocritical for Klein to be for teacher test waivers and value-added tenure at the same time. Research from Tom Kane, Eric Hanushek and others has shown that certification/type of training track has no impact on teacher effectiveness. Klein simply wants to move from an "inputs" system to an outcomes one. Thus your perceived "hypocrisy" actually makes for an entirely consistent approach.
And Eduwonkette: do you really think that "teachers who talk to themselves and wear sunglasses while eating Cocoa Puffs" will do well under any value-added system? That seems to be the gist of your argument. Not only do you think they'll do well but you also think this will give them fodder to fight recommendations against tenure. Really? How many recommendations against tenure are there right now anyway? Why not do what Carey suggest later and give it a try. It can't possibly be worse than the current system of teacher evaluation that we have, and there's a significant chance that the data from a value-added system will help us make more accurate determinations of quality at the upper and lower margins.
Hi Ethan,
NYC Educator is specifically talking about teachers' test scores/cognitive ability, not certification. A number of studies find that teachers' test scores are positively associated with student achievement.
Re my contention that under NY's system, Mr. CP could end up with acceptable value-added results: in a system that actually isolates the effects of individual teachers, I agree with you. However, because NY's system would not estimate the effects of individual teachers, teachers like Mr. CP will have decent value-added estimates if the prior or future teachers of their students are moderately effective. There is a long discussion of the measurement issues over at my blog if you're interested in jumping in.
Let me add that, while I cannot comment on that study, I have to agree that certification alone does not guarantee a quality teacher. However, the inability to pass a basic competency test seems to strongly suggest a bad one. I'd certainly be interested to know if the study suggested otherwise.
The notion that Mr. Klein had this study in mind when he chose to hire and retain teachers who'd repeatedly failed a competency test (one that Michael Bloomberg took as mayor and declared any high school grad ought to be able to pass) is rather difficult for me to accept.
This discussion ignores the nuances of many cases.
For many years, the state has been lifting licenses of people who failed the state exams - I forget what they're called now. There were a series of exams covering various areas.
These were the ultimate high stakes exams - fail and you lose your job, etc. I know people who failed numerous times by a point or 2 - going into an absolute panic every time. One person, a superb teacher of pre-k special ed, went back to being a para assisting and instructing a brand new teacher who had passed the exam. My principal arranged this to make sure she had a job but also knew having her there would make the class work. The teacher forgot all about taking the test for a few years but one day tried it again and passed. Tests are not always objective though they seem to be on the surface.
Many had taught for years, with satisfactory ratings. About 3 or 4 years ago about 1000 people were forced out of the system. A group of them connected with the UFT caucus Progressive Action Caucus filed a suit claiming the tests were discriminatory. The judge was the famous civil rights judge Contance Baker Motley, now deceased. She basically threw the case out of court. But recently it was revived after another court ruling and is still active.
I knew quite a few of these teachers and found them from whatever perspective a fellow teacher can tell, not much different from teachers who did pass the exams. Many were from neighborhoods in the area of the schools they taught. That they went to these very schools as kids is part of the problem in their failing these exams, but that is a story for another time.
The firings led to a drop in the percentage of people of color teaching in the system.
One has to balance the "testing is a determiner" culture with the benefits of having people embedded in the neighborhood as teachers and a more diversified teaching staff.
It seems that showing competency as a teacher should be a factor in addition to other non-testing factors.
Commenting by HaloScan
