NYC Educator: Is Reformy John King's Decree Worse Than NY Times Thinks?

NYC Educator: Is Reformy John King's Decree Worse Than NY Times Thinks?:

Is Reformy John King's Decree Worse Than NY Times Thinks?

There's a piece in the NY Times all about the issues with the new evaluation system. They're the paper of record, so it must be accurate. I've no idea how large the school is, but I'm sure the Times reporter carefully considered its application to large schools, and understands completely what it means in a large school where APs are in charge of maybe 40 teachers a piece. After all, reporters get paid for that sort of thing.

On the other hand, the reporter estimates under the assumption that observers will not spend more than 15 minutes a piece on informal observations. In this astral plane, it's unlikely many observations by responsible admin are 15 minutes. Teachers tell me admin usually stays at least 25 minutes, and often wait until whatever activity they're engaged in is completed, so as to get a real picture of what's happening. Of course, I'm just someone who talks to working teachers every single day, and not a NY Times reporter, so I guess you can't go by me.


And it's not just the observations. They have to be low-inference and aligned to the Danielson rubric. Responsible administrators have to take copious notes, supposedly reserving any and all value judgments. They then have to align these supposedly non-judgmental notes to the rubric. That's pretty time-consuming and taxing, particularly for people who aren't used to doing such things. I write very fast, but not everyone does. This is going to be very tough for some administrators, particularly if teachers are sharp enough to catch them when they offer judgments with