State of Our Union/State of Our Schools October 24th Meeting

Full Schedule for State of Our Union / State of Our Schools by morecaucusnyc

It's not too late to REGISTER @ tinyurl.com/MORE-SOU!

Take a look at the completed final schedule for the conference below.

Distribute the single sided or double sided flyers to your coworkers and forward the updated conference announcement below.

There is no substitute for one-to-one conversations encouraging people to register

State of our Union

State of our Schools

How can the UFT become a force for change in our schools?

Register here → more.nationbuilder.com/state_of_the_union_conference

Saturday, Oct. 24

10 am - 6pm

at PS 58 The Carroll School

330 Smith St, Brooklyn - F/G to Carroll St. - Everyone Welcome - Suggested Donation $10

Childcare available (email MORE@morecaucusnyc.org TODAY to reserve a spot)

Featured Speakers:

Liza Campbell, Seattle teacher with an participant's report on recent strike

Jia Lee, Chapter Leader of the Earth School, high stakes testing conscientious objector

Lauren Cohen, Chapter Leader at PS321K

Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters

Ismael Jimenez, WE Caucus, Philadelphia Teachers Union

Joe Burns, Author of Strike Back: Using the Militant Tactics of Labor's Past to Reignite Public Sector Unionism Today

Alan Singer, Hofstra University, Social Studies Educator

Charmaine Dixon, Parent, Change the Stakes

Benita Rivera, The Many

Akinlabi McCall, Coalition for Public Education

Endorsing Organizations:

NYCORE, Change the Stakes, NYCOPTOUT, The Teacher Diversity Committee of New York, NYS Stronger Together Caucus, Bad Ass Teachers Association, Coalition for Public Education.

Our schools are under assault by corporate reform efforts, standardized testing, and a governor who is eager to fire teachers and close schools. As working and learning conditions deteriorate, our union leadership has neither put up an effective resistance nor been a force for change for better schools.

The Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) invites all UFT members, parents, students, and friends to help develop a strategy to create a more democratic and more proactive UFT that can be a force for change in education in New York City.

Let’s use this year's upcoming union elections to transform the UFT by bringing together our voices, finding common ground, and increasing our participation from the chapter level up.

Unlike the UFT leadership, MORE is asking your input for shaping our union's program! The workshops at this conference will help define the language of our election platform.

Read more of this po

Anthony Cody:Teacher Evaluation Survey

 

What Has Happened to Teacher Evaluations? We Need Your Help

 



  By Anthony Cody.

Under President Obama, the federal Department of Education offered several billion dollars in Race to the Top money and waivers from NCLB to states and school districts across the country in exchange for redesigning teacher evaluation processes. The feds required that a significant portion of teacher evaluations be based on student test scores, which was interpreted to mean anything from a low of 20% to a high of 50% of the weight of an evaluation. Some states used complex formulas to calculate “value added,” while others adopted frameworks from Charlotte Danielson or Robert Marzano.

These evaluations were designed to strengthen teaching – to provide teachers with feedback, to identify those in need of support, or those who should be dismissed. But it is unclear what the real impact has been. It is unclear what the impact of these policies (link) has been. Furthermore, there seems to be very little data being collected regarding the impact of these processes on working teachers – and the administrators who must evaluate them. We hear that more teachers are leaving the profession, and that morale has dropped. Are the new evaluations part of the reason?

The Network for Public Education has launched a research project to investigate. We want to hear from educators – teachers and administrators who have been involved directly in the evaluation process over the past decade. How have evaluations changed? What are the impacts that are being felt in your classrooms and schools? How are students being affected?

As part of our investigation we have developed a survey. It asks detailed questions that will help us understand and communicate to others how changes in evaluation processes are affecting our colleagues and students. We would like to collect as many responses from around the country as possible. Please take the survey. Your answers will help us create understanding and critical awareness.

Here is the link to the survey. Please feel free to share it with colleagues — teachers and/or administrators. The more responses we get, the better picture we will have of what is happening in our schools.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TeacherEvals2015

Anthony Cody

Anthony Cody worked in the high poverty schools of Oakland, California, for 24 years, 18 of them as a middle school science teacher. He was one of the organizers of the Save Our Schools March in Washington, DC in 2011 and he is a founding member of The Network for Public Education. A graduate of UC Berkeley and San Jose State University, he now lives in Mendocino County, California.

  Sandy    October 4, 2015 at 6:27 am  

 Awesome Survey!!! Where are you taking this survey?? What are you doing with it? Is Randy Weingarten from AFT seeing this survey? I hope some of these politicos seeand hear our voices!!! Great job.

2.       Timothy Garrity    October 4, 2015 at 6:56 pm  

I received an accomplished grade at my Ohio high school (best rating,)Through no fault of my own,a year later, the State informed me that I had been downgraded to skilled.I have taught for 38 -years in the inner city.These teacher ratings are arbitrary and based on invalid and unreliable test data.

3.      Anita Hoge    October 5, 2015 at 12:34 pm  

Anthony, Teacher evaluations according to VAM has been in the process for some time. I have prepared a 2 part article to show teachers that Lamar Alexander has had his fingerprints on this system a long time. Hope this helps teachers understand the real data collection issues.
Anita
URGENT: WHAT EVERY TEACHER NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT VAM
http://tinyurl.com/nrdkbbw
http://tinyurl.com/osy5ay4
@HogeAnita