NYC Educator: UFT Charter Opts Out of Evaluation System

NYC Educator: UFT Charter Opts Out of Evaluation System:

UFT Charter Opts Out of Evaluation System

It's kind of funny when the NY Post and Mayor Bloomberg ridicule the UFT because their charter is not subject to the shiny new junk science evaluation system we're all suffering through. Bloomberg contends the kids will never catch up, and calls it tragic. And yet, when Reformy John King's Uncommon Schools take the same option, he doesn't have one word to say about it.

It really ought to be people like me criticizing the UFT charter. But I won't, because they made the right call. The evaluation system is cumbersome, time-consuming and ultimately unproductive. No one even understands it, and while the fanatics over at DOE promise us a "soup to nuts" explanation, I expect more of a soup from nuts, riddled with inaccuracies.

UFT ought to stick to their guns and find a more reasonable way to assess their teachers. And yet, UFT regularly tells me that we needed this system because the old one allowed administrators to do whatever they wished. So, if they love the new system so much, if it represents such a stellar improvement, why on earth don't they use it in their school? It's pretty clear they understand how convoluted and insane it is, and have made the utterly sound decision not to go with it.

So I don't ask UFT why they chose not to use such an awful system in their charter. I ask only why they ever supported using one on the rest of us, the overwhelming majority of city teachers.While I'm glad they're filing formal grievances over