NYC Educator: All Aboard the Junk Science Express

NYC Educator: All Aboard the Junk Science Express:

All Aboard the Junk Science Express

by NYC Educator

It's mind boggling. Everywhere you read, oh no, it's an emergency! NYC can lose 300 million bucks if we don't agree on an evaluation system! The astroturf shills at E4E are rallying! How will the educators for excellent know whether or not they really are excellent if they haven't got a value-added system on which to base their self-styled opinions? Fellow astroturfers Students First NY are putting up wads of corporate cash to push it through. Bloomberg, predictably, blames the union (though it's likely his monumental ego and intransigence preventing the deal).

Here’s the thing, though—if you read, say, Gary Rubinstein, Aaron Pallas, Tim Clifford, Carol Burris, Diane Ravitch, or the hundreds of NY principals who oppose it, you begin to suspect that there may be some fundamental flaws to this “value-added” system. With further examination, you see it has no validity whatsoever. You begin to notice that, despite eloquent pleas for it by very powerful people, it is nothing but junk science.

Now my union is contemplating an agreement with the city, so that we can get 300 million dollars. That’s a lot of