We need to educate the New York School Boards. ? @ the chalk face

After returning from the Save Our Schools convention and then meeting my family for a short trip, I came home with a ton of ideas to write about and I get this dropped into my lap via twitter:? ?5 STEPS TO HIGHER STUDENT PERFORMANCE ? produced by the New York State School Boards Association to assist its members.

(Click here to directly download the PDF of the Report-5-Steps-to-High-Performance-8-6-12)

I understand that many school board members need to be brought up to speed on education issues as most boards are made up of volunteers from various backgrounds.? This report prominently uses information from the Gates Foundation, hardly a group we would want to ?inform? our local school leaders.

Some prominent education philanthropists? most notably Bill Gates? have gone so far as to think that measuring and supporting teacher effectiveness will enable the U.S. to ?flip the curve? that now exists between higher per-pupil expenditures and flat student performance

The several references to Bill Gates shows that the Gates Foundation has its tentacles firmly around the education policy of the Empire State.? Scary, as we true education advocates fear, the power and money of the Gates Foundation will destroy public schools. Once again, the education policy makers ignore the true stakeholders in education and defer to the corporate reformers.

Preliminary findings suggest that a teacher?s value-added ? i.e., a teacher?s influence on learning when taking into account a student?s academic history as compared to comparable students ? is a strong predictor of that teacher?s capability to perform in the future. Teachers with high value-added scores on
state assessments do not just teach to the test, they help advance students? cognitive skills so the students understand conceptual relationships
better.

The statement above is one of several examples in which this report contradicts itself.? Current New York State Education policy is going full-speed ahead with teacher evaluations using VAM. This document agrees with that evaluation message, yet the phrase ?Preliminary findings??is used.? So we are moving ahead with a full-scale teacher evaluation system in New York using VAM when the research is incomplete and VAM already has failed schools using the system?

One option is to implement a pay-for-performance system. Such high-profile public policy leaders as New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and former Washington, D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee all promote merit pay. A key point ? especially in times of limited financial resources ? is that school leaders seeking to implement
a pay for performance compensation system should gut their old compensation system and start anew, rather than just tack a new system onto an already established foundation. One suggestion would be to use APPR negotiations to begin this process.

Seriously, using Bloomberg, Duncan and Rhee to advocate your premise?? Have any of these individuals improved educational outcomes for our students?? The report uses the phrases ?mixed results? and ?lackluster? to describe current pay-for-performance models, yet still advocates use of the use of merit pay.

On the definitions page, Differentiated learning environment and Common Core are placed adjacent to each other? oh the irony!? How can we differentiate instruction with a Common Core that standardizes curriculum and assessment?

As school districts face greater pressure to raise student achievement and survive under new state laws that limit their state and local revenue, they are
looking for cost-effective approaches to achieve these two goals.
The suggestions in this report are intended as a guide to get school leaders thinking about new ways to deliver programs and services ? especially as state
lawmakers target financial resources toward districts that have demonstrated proven academic results.

Yes, school budgets have been strangled to the point of insolvency in many locations, but will adopting teacher evaluation and student data tracking systems along with the massive expense of adopting the Common Core save school districts money? NO.? And most importantly will any of this madness improve the education of our children?? NO.

Source: http://atthechalkface.com/2012/08/08/we-need-to-educate-the-new-york-school-boards/

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