Delegate Assembly Resolution and Leaflet: For an End to the New Evaluation System

[Chapter Leaders, Delegates, and Rank and Filers - Please support this resolution by helping to distribute it before the Delegate Assembly on Wednesday - 4:15, 52 Broadway - and raising it during the motions period.  If you can help making copies of it let us know by emailing [email protected]]

Please check out the talking points in support of the resolution in the leaflet at left.

WHEREAS, the new evaluation system based on NYS Education Law 3012c disproportionately weights the use of high stakes test scores over qualitative assessments as “Measures of Student Learning (MOSL)”  in determining teacher performance, leading to a proliferation of Common Core-aligned tests with devastating consequences for teaching and learning conditions in our schools, and

WHEREAS the new system was imposed by State Education Commissioner John King without any vote or approval by the union’s Delegate Assembly or rank and file, and,

WHEREAS, the Danielson rubric mandated by the King plan subjects teachers to a cookie-cutter observation system that limits professional autonomy and reduces teaching to a series of numbered scores,

WHEREAS, hundreds of New York city teachers and community members, and dozens of UFT chapters, given the choice, have signed a petition rejecting the New York City evaluation system and calling for a moratorium on it, and

WHEREAS, the 2007 UFT Task Force on Testing concluded by issuing the following recommendation: ”Do not use student test scores to evaluate teachers … The use of data from student test scores on standardized tests to evaluate teachers may appear simple, be intuitively appealing, but it is wrong,” and

WHEREAS, the over-emphasis on standardized testing has caused considerable collateral damage in too many schools, including narrowing the curriculum, teaching to the test, reducing love of learning, pushing students out of school, driving excellent teachers out of the profession, closing community schools, excessing of experienced educators, wasting time on test administration and grading, and undermining school climate; and

WHEREAS the evaluation system is a weakening of tenure that undermines the job security of teachers and administrators serving communities most in need, therefore

BE IT RESOLVED that the UFT should mobilize teachers, parents and students towards a repeal of the Education Law 3012c and the new evaluation scheme.