Teachers Who Work With High Needs Students Are Screwed Under The Flawed Teacher Evaluation System.

We all suspected that teachers who work with disadvantaged students, minorities, English Language Learners, and Special Education will have much lower test grades under the badly flawed and unfair Teacher Evaluation System (TES).  Now combining the flawed TES with the untested Common Core has resulted in teachers who instruct "high needs" students with very disappointing results.  One of the most important and respected educators in our State, 2013 "Principal of the year", Carol Burns has published the results of the 8th grade New York State tests for 2013 and the numbers for all the groups are bad, real bad.  The table below shows the percentage of New York State students who passed the 2013 Common Core based test.

Group.....................................................% Passing

All............................................................34
Poverty Level.............................................20
Hispanics...................................................16
Black........................................................12
English Language Learners.............................7
Special Education........................................5

When you look at the highly complicated "value added method" (VAM) in the State "junk Science" equation.   I guarantee you that the adjustments for the five groups are not adjusted for the actual ratios found in the 2013 test scores but at a much lower percentage difference.  The result is that teachers who are instructing the five groups will get much lower VAM scores and in danger of being labeled ineffective". Worse, for New York City teachers, if their VAM numbers are deemed "ineffective" they will be rated "ineffective" no matter how well they do on the other parts of the TES.


The use of Common Core in the 2013 State test has dramatically widened the income/racial academic achievement gap to grossly unacceptable levels.  Below, the table compares the percentage difference between the academic achievement gap for the 2012 State test with the 2013 Common Core based test.

Group................% Difference 2012................ % Difference 2013
               
Disadvantaged....ELA 6....Math.7.....................ELA.22......Math.19
Black/White........ELA.7....Math.10...................ELA.27......Math.30
Hispanic/White....ELA.8....Math 7.....................ELA.24......Math.22
Special Ed..........ELA.34..Math.33....................ELA.49......Math.47

Its obvious that the State Department of Education has failed the students by bringing out the Common Core without setting up and testing a curriculum to properly implement it.  Furthermore, the State failed to provide or fund "professional development" for teachers to understand how Common Core will be taught.  The result are poor student scores, low teacher morale, and most importantly "ineffective" teacher ratings that will lead to unfair teacher terminations. The most "at risk" are those teachers who teach "high needs" students, the very teachers the students need the most and that's a shame.

NYC Educator has also wrote about the State's flawed roll out and how it affects his students and himself.