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Wednesday, February 20, 2013

NYC Educator: Standing Up for Our Right to No Voice and No Choice

NYC Educator: Standing Up for Our Right to No Voice and No Choice:


Standing Up for Our Right to No Voice and No Choice

That's what the so-called Educators for Excellence are doing. Though their most visible proponents, their leaders, are not even teachers, they're regularly cited as a teacher group. And though they're funded by Gates and his ilk, they're accepted by a sleepy press corps as representative of teachers.

Now they've put out a video demanding that NY State impose an evaluation system on teachers. Perhaps it's mere coincidence that this is precisely what the reformy agenda demands, and perhaps it's coincidence that they demand everything the reformy types demand at all times. I'd say, though, that any group claiming to support excellence ought to at least have one foot anchored in reality.

Reality dictates that VAM is unworkable and unreliable. There have been no instances where it's been proven to be effective, and last year's 50-80% margins of error in NYC were so humiliating that even reformy Bill Gates had to publicly oppose their release. Of course, that's not because Bill believes in science. It's