NYC Educator: Fool Me 200 Times

NYC Educator: Fool Me 200 Times:

Fool Me 200 Times

by NYC Educator

When I read articles like this one about Race to the Top, I see red. What's communicated here is the urgent need for money. After all, I'm broke, you're broke, the state is broke, education funds are cut, and we desperately need every break we can get. But New York may not get the funds, because the awful selfish unions insist on following the deal they brokered with the state. Why can't they just shut the hell up, do what they're told, and take the goshdarn money, for goodness sake?

That's what you might take away from this article and many like it. What you might not know is that the RttT funds cannot be used to, say, reduce class size. They can't be used to provide better materials for your kid. They can't be used to bump up teacher salaries and attract more candidates. In fact, they can only be used to promote more untested, unsubstantiated "reforms" like the very teacher evaluation system that's discussed in the article.

The agreement hammered out between the state and the union was that 20% will be based on statewide value-added measures, which are total crap.