Tag: McMullen

PJSTA’s McMullan’s Letter to Cuomo

So very proud of our own Melissa McMullan whose letter to Governor Cuomo was published on Diane Ravitch’s blog yesterday.

Via Ravitch…

Melissa McMullan, a teacher in Long Island, explains in this comment how deeply insulting Governor Cuomo’s plan for teacher evaluation is. Will he listen to reason? Will he insist on crushing the morale of every teacher in the state? Why?

McMullan writes:

“I have been a teacher for thirteen years. I graduated with highest honors from Rutgers University, earned my masters degree from Queens College, graduating with honors and begun work on my PhD to help me become a better teacher. The teacher I am today is not the teacher I was yesterday, nor is she the teacher I will be tomorrow. I learn every day from students, families, colleagues, professional development, research and my own mistakes. In thirteen years, former students of mine have become writers, teachers, philanthropists, doctors, nurses, mechanics, beauticians, small business owners, etc…

“My employment as their teacher has been carved from a relationship I have built with the district that employs me. The district I graciously serve. I am a public servant. I do not take this assignment lightly.

“Governor Cuomo is holding state aid to public schools hostage. His ransom? Using eleven hours of tests, that the state scores, and converts to teacher ratings, assigning a great many teachers, including myself, ineffective. One score. Six days of testing to remove a teacher who works 12 hours a day, gives her students her cell phone number so she can help them with homework at home and invites Spanish-speaking parents in to the classroom to explain, in Spanish, the value of reading and writing. A teacher who will stop at NOTHING to push her students forward. Passing rates on the state test vary year to year from 72% to 83 % depending upon how the state wants teachers to be perceived from year to year.

“Governor Cuomo and the New York State Board of Regents want to use test scores it assigns to my students, against me, their teacher. This is not the role of assessment. Assessment has a single purpose – to inform instruction. Its responsibility is to let students, teachers and families what students know, and what they do not know. Under the Governor’s proposed plan, these scores would warrant my removal from the classroom, violating the agreement that my school district and its community have established with me, by using children as its weapon of choice.

“We get no feedback from these scores. No view into what our students know or don’t know or what we as teachers have taught well nor what we have not. But it costs millions of dollars to implement each year.

“As a mother, I will not permit my own four children to be used as pawns against their teachers. The only way we can stop this abuse of power is to refuse to permit our children to be used as pawns.

“The cornerstone of public education in the United States is the local community school district. Allowing scores the state assigns our children after six days of testing to be used to remove teachers we have placed in their classroom is an unacceptable, egregious overstepping of power. We have power as parents to protect our children from harm, and we have an overwhelming responsibility to keep the over-reaching powers of the state from reaching into our children’s classrooms.”

PJSTA’s McMullan Responds to Newsday’s Propaganda

Those unfortunate souls who still read Newsday may have seen an editorial in today’s edition titled, “Stop the testing tug-of-war”.  Other editions seemed to have it titled “Don’t Slow Down the Common Core in New York”.  It was a real propoganda piece in which Newsday shilled for the Common Core.  The PJSTA’s Melissa McMullan penned a response.  Diane Ravitch published it on her blog today.  Here is McMullan’s reply…

In response to “Stop the testing tug-of-war”

Upset is not the word. As a teacher, as a mother and as a taxpayer, I am filled with disgust. Let’s speak of facts from people who are in the system, rather than the hypotheses of those (the media and corporations) on the outside.

1.    The “standardized tests” do not track year-to-year progress of a student. No teacher knows what students mastered, and what they did not. Last year’s assessment tested students on materials that were not available until after the assessment. It contained proprietary material that the test’s maker, Pearson, includes in curricular materials that it sells to school districts – giving purchasers an unfair advantage on the test. Next, the test’s outcome was predicted by the Commissioner weeks before the tests ever made their way to schools for administration. Finally, in the six years I have administered the assessment to my students, I have personally observed ten point swings between passing and failing – depending upon how the state wanted schools and teachers to be perceived by the public.

2.    The state teacher evaluation system (APPR) will find few teachers ineffective because the majority of the score (60-80%) is derived from local measures – observation, lesson plans, parent communication,etc…. The state gave me a 1 out of 20 for my growth score for last year. If the state’s portion were used as my only evaluative tool, I would have been considered ineffective. I could accept a 1 out of 20, if the state could tell me what I did well, what I did not and which portion of that score was for my math instruction of 60 students, and which portion was for my English Language Arts (ELA) instruction of 30 students. No one has this information.

3.    Standards-based evaluations have yet to be seen. During my years in business, I had objectives I was required to meet. Each year, I sat down with my supervisor and we discussed those I had met, those I had not, and how to improve. In this system, we give students assessments that have no standardized bar to pass. After they take the assessment, their teachers and parents never know what standards they have met, and which they have not.

4.    The curricular materials were not available last year. This is true. This fall, the state released materials. The math modules availablefor my sixth grade class required me to spend two hours per day modifying them in order to eliminate spelling and grammatical errors, replace a 10-point font with a 14-point font that young children can read and see, as well as define ways to bridge gaps between what my students were able to do, and the skills they needed to have to get through the lessons. Furthermore, the first unit was comprised entirely of lengthy word problems that my students, who are reading several years behind, were unable to read.

As a mother and a teacher I ask for:

o  Assessments that measure state standards, with consistent benchmarks for passing to track progress over time.

o  Item analysis for parents and teachers so both parties know what students have mastered and what they have not.

o  A state growth score that tells a teacher what his /her students mastered, and what they did not.

Until those three requirements are met, my own four children will not participate in the state’s fraudulent assessment system that drains valuable resources from cash-strapped school districts, promotes growth for corporations like Pearson and in its lack of transparency, erodes the teacher-student relationship.

Sincerely,

Melissa McMullan

6th Grade Teacher