Teacher Tenure Will Depend On Students' Scores: Bloomberg

nytimes.com:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Wednesday that New York City public schools would use student test scores as a factor in deciding which teachers earn tenure, a proposal that has been bitterly opposed by the teachers' union.

Read the whole story: nytimes.com

Comments

[JusdaTruth]

08:53 PM on 11/29/2009

Bloomberg/Klein masquerade as advocates for students. This is all about the money which means breaking a union that has fairly decent salariesfor its members, which increase as teachers spend more time in the system. This encourages teachers to make teaching a career. Bloomberg lies to the parents of NYC by promising to fix the school system.. What he wants is to destroy the teachers union and therefore the bottom line for expenses goes down. He won't spend money on smaller class sizes because that costs money ( to pay for more teachers , pensions, and NYC real estate). His media friends love him and so he gets a lot of support in the NYC press. He is about the money, not about educating the children of NYC. That's the truth.

[LittleMittens]

02:59 AM on 11/29/2009

because test scores trump actual learning and skills. 100m sure would pay a lot of teachers, doh!

[Manhattanite]

12:30 PM on 11/28/2009

All it means is that teachers will grade on a curve. Brilliant idea, Mr. Bloomberg! Not.

[EminemsRevenge]

09:20 AM on 11/28/2009

In Wanda Sykes' recent comedy special she did a bit about how people are like Etch-A-Sketches in school...they memorize everything to pass the test, shake their heads, and it's all gone!

My sixth grade teacher, James Podair, and my HS English teacher, Lynn Kearney, taught me how to VIEW things from all angles...and i've had bosses totally amazed at my ability to grasp the TOTAL workings of a company within a month, and able to give them troubleshooting advice on how to improve performance...stuff i wouldn't have learnt if they were forced to have all their students meet test expectations instead of LEARNING.

The real way to IMPROVE schooling is to have kids stay with the same teacher from K through 8, the smarter kids tutoring the dumber ones--giving them a sense of community and family.

[dct1999]

03:00 AM on 11/26/2009

The teacher's union, uncharacteristically didn't support the democratic candidate for mayor. They now get what they deserve.

My wife teaches special education in one of the poorest areas of NYC. I'd like to know how they will her student's test scores to evaluate her. Suppose she gets a student in June who is reading 3 - 5 grade levels behind (not an unusual occurrence) and by September that student is only 1 - 2 grade levels behind.

That student will still score a 1 on the reading test. Are they going to say that my wife hasn't done her job? There needs to be clarification on this issue.

[groosemoose]

02:28 AM on 11/26/2009

Good job, Bloomberg. No one will want to teach in low-performing, dangerous schools anymore.

[duvster]

01:58 AM on 11/26/2009

Oops that means all ese teachers are fired

[JusdaTruth]

08:54 PM on 11/29/2009

Fire teachers before they earn their pensions. A capitalist's dream eh Bloomberg?

[voltage356]

04:04 PM on 11/25/2009

I believe they supported Bloomy in slient.