NYC Educator: God Bless You, Ms. Weingarten

NYC Educator: God Bless You, Ms. Weingarten:

God Bless You, Ms. Weingarten

by NYC Educator

This page has had a harsh word or two for AFT President Randi Weingarten, particularly back when she was UFT President. But we come here today to praise her? Why? Well, yesterday, she said something that startled me. I like being startled sometimes.

 Randi Weingarten, president of the 1.5 million-member American Federation of Teachers, praised L.A. Supt. John Deasy and union President Warren Fletcher for agreeing to use a rich mix of data to evaluate teacher effectiveness rather than what she called the "junk science" of value-added methods.

Now I won't pretend to understand the LA evaluation system, what it does, how it does it, or how effective it is. Who knows? It will take much smarter people than I'll ever be to figure that out. But it's very significant that our President referred to value-added as "junk science." Who wants to be judged by junk science? Not me.

So when junk science comes to town, we can all call it what it is. When anyone tells you that we're bringing value-added to your evaluation, you can confidently call it junk science. On whose authority? On the authority of