ALBANY, N.Y. – New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is taking heat over his education policy after several past teacher of the year winners authored a letter airing their grievances about the state’s education reforms.
The letter takes the governor to task for a wide variety of issues, from his relentless drive to improve academics to the use of student test scores to evaluate teacher performance.
Seven New York years of the year signed the letter, including Ashli Dreher (2014, Buffalo); Katie Ferguson (2012, Schenectady); Jeff Peneston (2011, Liverpool); Rich Ognibene (2008, Rochester); Marguerite Izzo (2007, Malverne); Steve Bongiovi (2006, Seaford); and Liz Day (2005, Mechanicville), according to Syracuse.com.
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The missive begins with the teachers professing their “hearts and souls” to the profession – “Education is our life,” they wrote – before declaring the governor their enemy.
“This is personal,” the teachers wrote.
“Under your leadership, schools have endured the Gap Elimination Adjustment and the tax cap, which have caused layoffs and draconian budget cuts across the state. Classes are larger and support services are fewer, particularly for our neediest students,” according to the letter.
Then they get into Common Core.
“We have also endured a difficult rollout of the Common Core Standards. A reasonable implementation would have started the new standards in kindergarten and advanced those standards one grade at a time. Instead, the new standards were rushed into all grades at once, without any time to see if they were developmentally appropriate or useful,” the teachers wrote.
“Then our students were given new tests — of questionable validity — before they had a chance to develop the skills necessary to be successful. These flawed tests reinforced the false narrative that all public schools — and therefore all teachers — are in drastic need of reform.”
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But it’s not teachers who deserve the blame for students who aren’t learning, the educators assert, it’s the governor’s focus on tests and other reforms like merit pay and charter schools – all of which are opposed by the state teachers union – “fundamentally misdiagnose the problem,” Syracuse.com reports.
“It’s not that teachers or schools are horrible,” they wrote. “Rather, the problem is that students with an achievement gap also have an income gap, a health-care gap, a housing gap, a family gap and a safety gap, just to name a few.
“If we truly want to improve educational outcomes, these are the real issues that must be addressed.”
The teachers contend that Cuomo’s desire to gauge student performance and hold teachers accountable for their learning is counterproductive, and will convince teachers to avoid low-income, low-performing schools.
“ … (I)f the state places this much emphasis on test scores who will want to teach our neediest students?” the teachers questioned. “Will you assume that the teachers in wealthier districts are highly effective and teachers in poorer districts are ineffective, simply based on test scores?”
It’s the same line of questioning teachers union officials often use to dismiss test scores, and to fight against measuring student learning. The educators closed by touting the “quality work” conducted by teachers, administrators and school boards across the state.
“Let’s stop the narrative of systemic failure,” the teachers wrote.
“Instead, let’s talk about ways to help the kids who are struggling. Let’s talk about addressing the concentration of poverty in our cities. Let’s talk about creating a culture of family so that our weakest students feel emotionally connected to their schools. Let’s talk about fostering collaboration between teachers, administrators and elected officials,” the letter read, according to Syracuse.com.
“It is by working together, not competing for test scores, that we will advance our cause.”
In other words, the teachers want to talk about anything but evaluating their performance, especially if that performance is measured by how well their students learn the material they’re assigned to teach.
The letter’s focus on how test scores impact teachers, as opposed to driving students to strive to improve, is likely exactly what Cuomo was getting at during a recent interview with the New York Daily News in which he criticized the state’s teachers unions for their self-centered agenda.
“Somewhere along the way, I believe we flipped the purpose of” New York’s public education system, Cuomo said. “This was never a teacher employment program and this was never an industry to hire superintendents and teachers.
“This was a program to educate kids.”
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