Thursday, December 22, 2016

Business as Usual at 52 Broadway


Yesterday, we were informed about the new teaching evaluations.  Not much has really changed, though somehow more was added to it.  So apparently, now instead of using junk science tests to rate us, schools will have the option of using junk science testing OR portfolio work.  While I am not against portfolios and think they can be useful if used properly, the fact of the matter is that at the end of the day, none of this matters if you have abusive and incompetent people rating you.

I've worked at quite a few schools for various abusive and incompetent administrations.  They may not have been directly abusive towards me, but they have been abusive towards others and intentionally low rated people out of spite and anger.  The UFT very well could have said, look, we need to come up with something that is going to make sure that teachers are evaluated fairly.  Did they do this?  It doesn't seem that they did.

So it comes to that, if you are in a good school, you're fine, most likely.  Places where the kids are prepared, parents are involved, kids are respectful.  They will do the work and you can show all their progress for the year and get your highly effective rating.  But those places where the parents are not involved, the kids are unprepared and allowed to be disrespectful because the administration lets them get away with murder, will continue to suffer, despite all the supplies they purchase and hours they spend implementing all the "best practice strategies" some hare brained supervisor forces down their throats.

One good thing about being an ATR is that I get rated S or U, which is the old system.  Which really when you look at what it entails was basically fine before the City went and started messing with everything.  Not that I am saying it was perfect, it wasn't, but it wasn't this vindictive.



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