NYC Parents: the Tripod survey is being given in 134 schools and you have the right to opt out
Watch out parents! Whether you know it or not, the DOE is giving a controversial survey to NYC students in 134 schools called the Tripod Survey. DOE officials say they are allowing parents to opt out of having their children take the survey, but they won't disclose to us in which schools they are being given. Some background:
Last year when the UFT and the DOE could not come to an agreement about their teacher evaluation system, Commissioner King stepped in and mandated that the Tripod Survey would have to be part of the evaluation system. The Tripod is a student survey that the Gates Foundation used in its Measures of Effective Teacher studies. With the apparent consent of the DOE, King determined that the survey would be given to students in grades 3-12, and the responses would count for 5 percent of a teacher's rating.
The survey was devised by Ron Ferguson of Harvard and is now owned by Cambridge Education LLC, a for-profit firm that the DOE has also used in the past for quality reviews. Over the summer, the DOE agreed to pay a whopping $5.9 million to use this survey for one year, slightly negotiated down to $5.5 million when the Panel for Educational Policy approved it in September. (At the same time, the PEP also approved a contract with Danielson Associates for half a million dollars, also for the teacher evaluation system, with their consultants being paid $4600 per day. Too bad that we couldn't get John King to cover the cost of both contracts.)
Apparently because of UFT resistance, King said the survey would only be piloted for the first year, and then given to all students the second year. After this announcement was made, Valerie Strauss wrote in the Washington Post: "There are several questionable elements to the new teacher evaluation system just imposed on New York City schools by state education Commissioner John King, but the one that jumps out for sheer nitwittedness is this: Students starting in third grade will now have a say in the official assessment of their teachers."
In February, I volunteered to serve on a committee formed by the Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council to work with DOE officials on how this survey would be administered. We had our first meeting March 20. During the meeting, DOE officials from their Research division promised that no personal student information would be provided via the survey, and that in fact, no personally identifiable information would be included anywhere on the survey sheet or the envelope containing each survey, provided to NYC Public School Parents: NYC Parents: the Tripod survey is being given in 134 schools and you have the right to opt out:
Last year when the UFT and the DOE could not come to an agreement about their teacher evaluation system, Commissioner King stepped in and mandated that the Tripod Survey would have to be part of the evaluation system. The Tripod is a student survey that the Gates Foundation used in its Measures of Effective Teacher studies. With the apparent consent of the DOE, King determined that the survey would be given to students in grades 3-12, and the responses would count for 5 percent of a teacher's rating.
The survey was devised by Ron Ferguson of Harvard and is now owned by Cambridge Education LLC, a for-profit firm that the DOE has also used in the past for quality reviews. Over the summer, the DOE agreed to pay a whopping $5.9 million to use this survey for one year, slightly negotiated down to $5.5 million when the Panel for Educational Policy approved it in September. (At the same time, the PEP also approved a contract with Danielson Associates for half a million dollars, also for the teacher evaluation system, with their consultants being paid $4600 per day. Too bad that we couldn't get John King to cover the cost of both contracts.)Apparently because of UFT resistance, King said the survey would only be piloted for the first year, and then given to all students the second year. After this announcement was made, Valerie Strauss wrote in the Washington Post: "There are several questionable elements to the new teacher evaluation system just imposed on New York City schools by state education Commissioner John King, but the one that jumps out for sheer nitwittedness is this: Students starting in third grade will now have a say in the official assessment of their teachers."
In February, I volunteered to serve on a committee formed by the Chancellor's Parent Advisory Council to work with DOE officials on how this survey would be administered. We had our first meeting March 20. During the meeting, DOE officials from their Research division promised that no personal student information would be provided via the survey, and that in fact, no personally identifiable information would be included anywhere on the survey sheet or the envelope containing each survey, provided to NYC Public School Parents: NYC Parents: the Tripod survey is being given in 134 schools and you have the right to opt out: