Why you should not believe a word in the teacher data reports, due to be released today

The DOE is due to release the inaccurate and unreliable teacher data reports today, based solely on standardized test scores from 2010 state exams known to be invalid; with the names of 3-8^th grade individual teachers attached.  All the major newspapers are likely to post these false and defamatory reports as soon as tomorrow .  I suggest you refrain from looking up your child’s teacher, but if you do, you should NOT believe ANYTHING the report says.

Check out my interview on  WPIX - TV news yesterday where I explain the huge margin of error in these reports and more.   There is not another profession, whether in the public or the private sector, where the media has ever publicized this confidential stuff, whether accurate or not – and the reporters are all very aware of how inaccurate these reports are. This is just one more attempt by the Mayor to scapegoat teachers & blame all his own failures on them. 

 For more back up, see this great and succinct piece on InsideSchools about why no parent should believe the TDR’s, by Meredith Kolodner, formerly of the Daily News: GothamSchools has a longer piece about this here.

Neither InsideSchools nor GothamSchools will post the ratings because they are so unreliable, and clearly not NEWS from any point of view.  I think we should all thank them by  sending a donation; here are the links.  I just did! 

·         Support Insideschools Now 

 Donate to GothamSchools

 Finally Karen Fine, teacher and Class Size Matters supporter, has a good quote in today’s NY Times:

Karen Fine, a third-grade teacher at Public School 134 in Manhattan who previously taught fifth grade, said she and her colleagues believed that the ratings were an unfair and inaccurate measure of a teacher’s performance because they used an unreliable methodology that had been criticized by many respected researchers and statisticians, and because they did not account for factors that could affect students on the day of testing, like being tired, nervous, or scared. 

“For many of us who teach in N.Y.C., this has been our life’s calling,” she said. “We are constantly attacked on so many levels for what ails education in our country when we know that it takes a community to help children learn: principals, administrators, parents, lawmakers, and yes, teachers. The responsibility cannot lie solely on us.”

I am posting the quote but NOT the link, as I think we should all boycott the NYTimes for as long as possible. 

We got the story that Tweed tried to kill!

We got a copy of the Daily News story that got axed late last night. according to Gotham Schools. The original article, by Meredith Kolodner, about the personal wealth of some top Tweed officials, disappeared after a brief appearance on the web, after an angry call from DOE.

After a slew of negative revelations about the way Tweed botched the Gifted and talented admissions process so that it became much less diverse, schools have remained hugely overcrowded, they are paying through the nose for personal couriers and consultants, and the $80 million supercomputer ARIS that is a massive failure and waste of money, one wonders why the extreme sensitivity on this particular issue?

In any case, a very enterprising techie got the whole story somehow off the web and delivered into our inbox.

The funniest part of the article is this: "[David] Cantor also noted that other top DOE officials were not multimillionaires and that two of the chancellor's roughly 20 senior advisers were life-long educators." Wow! that's impressive indeed. Two out of twenty; wonder how they survive.

Parents slam fat cat lives of Joel Klein, other Education Department officials

BY MEREDITH KOLODNER
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Smith for News

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's building on Manhattan's upper East Side.

Rosier/News

Klein with Garth Harries, who oversees creation of new schools and boasts investments of up to $6 million. Also pictured with Klein is former aide Kristen Kane.

City schoolkids and their families may be feeling the pinch of hard times, but some top Education Department officials are rolling in dough.

While family income for most kids attending public school is well under six figures, at least five senior DOE advisers had salaries and investments that totaled between $1.7 and $6 million each last year, financial disclosure records show.

That's in addition to multimillion-dollar homes and the odd BMW and boat.

Some parents are concerned.

"It exposes a degree of insularity in this administration," said David Bloomfield, a parent member of the Chancellor's Citywide Council on High Schools. "It lends credence to the charge that the most powerful people in the school system are out of touch with average parents."

"You can't really run a school system if you don't understand how the people are living and if your kids don't have to go to the schools," said Theresa Diamond, whose son Tony is in the 10th grade at Benjamin Banneker Academy in Fort Greene.

Sascha Alper, whose son Jack is in first grade at Public School 107 in Brooklyn, agreed.

"Having that kind of money, it's hard not to be out of touch, because you don't have to deal with the same kinds of things as everyone else," she said.

The department's chief operating officer, Photeine Anagnostopoulos, was sitting on stocks and bonds worth anywhere from $2.2million to $4.8 million. Her home in leafy Bedford Hills in Westchester County was assessed at about $2.6 million.

Deputy Chancellor Christopher Cerf, who once ran the controversial for-profit education company Edison Schools, had between $1.8 million and $3.3 million in mutual funds and bonds, including a private retirement package worth more than $500,000.

Klein lives in a snazzy rental on Park Ave. and listed between $1.7 million and 3.2 million in investments.

Garth Harries, who oversees the creation of new schools, has investments that total between $3.9 million and $6 million.

The head of the agency's technology unit, Theodore Brodheim, reported stocks and partnership investments totaling between about $2 million and $4 million.

Supporters point out that Klein, who makes $250,000 a year, took a big pay cut to work for the city.

"We're proud that people who can and did make more money in the private sector would choose instead to devote their talents and energies to improving the education of the students of New York City," DOE press secretary David Cantor said in an e-mail.

Cantor also noted that other top DOE officials were not multimillionaires and that two of the chancellor's roughly 20 senior advisers were life-long educators.