I guess it bears mentioning that the Buffalo Public Schools website has a big banner warning of the Millions that will be "lost" if the BTF doesn't agree to a weaponized APPR designed to find teachers "ineffective" and get rid of them. We are expected to agree to Value Added Measures which essentially are meant to calibrate the smile and guile factor of kids after they've been exposed to our pedagoguery in the classroom. This would be what Obama's old friend Bill Ayers refers to as yet another "faith based initiative" called that because we have nothing but the words of the Bill Gates think tankers who forwarded this quackery as any kind of measure that the thing is reliable and/or valid. Estimates of its margin for error range from the mid 50's% to the high 80's% of it being dead arsed wrong. Yet the governor and all of the rock star "reformers" love it because they think it makes them look data-ey and they think they can argue it. Sadly, they can't. One of my students is now eating with classmates and even participated in a field trip. That won't show up on standardized test scores but ask anyone in the mental health fields if this kid is getting better. The idea that you can give a kids a test that will measure much value a teacher added to their life, experience and education is just stupid. Ahhh but when has that ever slowed the strident and glassy eyed drumbeat of "the reformers?"
Isn't it strange that ALL students take the same ( grade level) exams? Why kids who can't read English take the exams in English, and their marks count!Why kids with IQ's below 75 take the same exams as kids way above that level take the same exams... and they count.
ReplyDeleteWhen I gave the Science Manipulative Tests, those kids had a good time playing with the water ( trying to weigh it in a basket balance...), ping pong balls really sailing off the table to the other side of the room... making shapes out of the wires. It was probably the most fun test they ever had to take....and their marks counted.
Only ignorant fools would mandate that thousands of kids in these situations would have to take these tests at all. In one school, we had one fifth of the students in those two categories. I'm sure their scores had a huge effect on our "rankings". So much for the validity of the rankings.
Parents should be informed. Everyone should" OPT OUT".
What did we "learn"? ...that those who made the rules in Albany or D.C. must have also had very low IQ's to ever come up with something so stupid. We already kne that those children would not do well on the tests.
BUT...not so dumb if they made money on the testing, correcting, evaluation, data interpretation etc. from the fees charged for each student who took the invalid tests. What are the per-pupil costs of these useless activities, in money, in time wasted, in frustration and stress ?
What a steep price the kids pay !
Based on today's BTF announcement, we have COMPLIED and we will DIE. So will Hamburg and NYC. There is no "GOOD" APPR. The farce of simply tweaking some language in an APPR means nothing to teachers who will be demeaned by this plan.
ReplyDeleteSo true.....pineapple hare.....thank you for telling the way it really is...ugh!
ReplyDeleteI was in serviced last Friday and told that we as teachers need to be "more rigorous" so we can keep up with the common corpse. I am not where this data driven sweeping generalization came from nor nor did I appreciate being told to let my below grade level readers sit there like turnips until I finish presenting the lessons even if the lessons stretch over several days. Once I have completed the lesson I am then free to "differentiate" for all of the kids with learning problems. The brainy theory here is that they need to be "exposed" to material they can't read and comprehend since their standardized tests will be unreadable and incomprehensible. Great logic from the think tankers who never spent an hour in a classroom. Do they want these kids not to get frustrated, bored, feel stupid and act out? Cause the way they told me to teach will guarantee all of the above.
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