Grant Wiggins, the "Understanding By Design" guy, agrees with Cuomo that the current local system of teacher ratings in NY is a "sham", but writes (from New Jersey) in An Open Letter to Governor Cuomo: Re-think the Regs of APPR | Granted, and...
Here is a simple analogy to make the point. You were a ballplayer and are a Yankees fan. But suppose only once per year, we “tested” the Yankees on their skills, on tests developed by experts. Now, imagine, the players do not know how they did, either during or after the test. Now imagine, the NYSED gives them a value-added score – with test security, so they cannot double-check or question the test results (or test validity). Worse, imagine in addition that the impartial evaluators and internal supervisors (coaches) went to one game where the Yankees were terrible – like the game last week in which they made 4 errors, left runners stranded, and pitched poorly. By the logic of your plan, we would be obligated to find Manager Girardi “ineffective.” But that’s both bad measurement and not common sense. Two weeks later it looks different, doesn’t it? Indeed, the charm of baseball is that a long season of 162 “tests” enables the truth of quality to out. If this is true for highly-skilled and trained professional athletes, what about novice young students?
In short, I fear you are making matters worse, not better, by this new round of reductionist rules. And by insisting that they be put into operation next year, with no time to really think them through, test them, and refine them ensures that this effort will backfire.
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