Should be a well attended meeting tomorrow--
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From: lrn1212 via NYCoRE Updates <nycoreupdates@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, Dec 1, 2015 at 5:11 AM
Subject: [NycoreUpdates] Check out New York Regents Challenge Governor's
Educational Deform Agenda | A
To: nycoreupdates@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
New York Regents Challenge Governor's Educational Deform Agenda | Alan
Singer
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/new-york-regents-challeng_b_8680680.html>
Social studies educator, Hofstra University, my opinions, of course, are my
own
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New York Regents Challenge Governor's Educational Deform Agenda
Posted: 11/30/2015 7:22 am EST Updated: 11/30/2015 1:59 pm EST
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Under pressure from parents and teachers it looks like New York State
GovernorAndrew Cuomo
<http://nypost.com/2015/11/26/cuomo-looks-to-take-standardized-tests-out-of-teacher-evaluations/>
is backing off on his demand that fifty percent of a teachers annual
evaluation be based on student performance on high-stakes tests. Parents
are furious because the focus on Common Core aligned testing turns schools
into test prep academies. But the Cuomo deform package has other prongs and
it is too early to celebrate.
Members of the New York State Board of Regents
<http://www.regents.nysed.gov/about>, the nominal governing body for
education in the state, are challenging other parts of the deform agenda
championed by Cuomo and outgoing Regent Chancellor Merryl Tisch. Regents
are appointed by the state legislature and represent different regions of
the state. Two members, Regents Charles Bendit and Kathleen Cashin,
co-chairs of the Regents Higher Education Committee, are leading the push
against Cuomo and Tisch. Bendit represents Manhattan on the Board of
Regents. Cashin is the Regent representative from Brooklyn.
Bendit and Cashin called a town hall meeting in Brooklyn for 6 p.m. Monday
December 7, 2015 to exam the impact of teacher certification exams on the
"preparation of future teachers, on the racial and ethnic composition of
the teaching force, and on the professional autonomy of teacher educators."
The meeting will be held at St Francis College 180 Remsen Street in
downtown Brooklyn. Bendit and Cashin have invited New York City teacher
education faculty, public school teachers, and teacher candidates to
participate.
Kathleen Cashin <http://www.regents.nysed.gov/members/cashin-kathleen-m>, a
former teacher and school principal, is an outspoken critic of the use of
high-stakes student testing to evaluate teachers, administrators and
schools. According to Cashin
<http://dianeravitch.net/2015/04/02/regent-cashin-of-new-york-speaks-out-against-high-stakes-testing/>,
these tests were "designed to measure student performance, not teacher
effectiveness" and are misused when they are applied to teacher
evaluations. She has demanded that the Board of Regents "commission an
independent evaluation of these tests to verify their reliability and
validity before they are used for high-stakes purposes for students,
teachers, principals and schools."
These are my recommendations to the Board of Regents.
*Stop Cuomo's Backdoor Plan that Will Block Many Black and Latino College
Graduates from Teaching*
New York has already been cited twice by a federal court for racial bias
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/06/nyregion/judge-rules-second-version-of-new-york-teachers-exam-is-also-racially-biased.html>
in its teacher certification requirements because of the "unlawful
disparate impact" of its teacher certification exams. The same federal
judge found other requirements, at leasttemporarily
<http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/08/nyregion/judge-rules-new-york-teacher-exam-did-not-discriminate-against-minorities.html?_r=0>,
met the threshold for legitimacy, but they will be subject to further
review.
The latest teacher certification requirements
<http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2015/03/8565264/outline-education-reform-proposals-budget>
demanded by Governor Cuomo and imposed through the backdoor as part of a
budget bill last April are the most racist yet. Plans for implementing
these requirements are on this month's Regents action calendar. Under
the proposed
new guidelines,
<https://www.regents.nysed.gov/report/sep-2015/higher-education> which are
supposed to impose "rigorous selection criteria," applicants for Master's
degree programs leading to teacher certification must have a cumulative
undergraduate grade point average of 3.0 or higher and a "minimum score on
the Graduate Record Examination and/or a substantially equivalent." The
Regents is also threatening to deregister and suspend any university
teacher education program where 50% of its graduates failed to pass state
certification exams for three consecutive academic years.
These new guidelines will have a disastrous effect on aspiring minority
group members who want to be teachers, which should be enough to trigger
the disparate impact clause cited in earlier cases. Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964 <http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/vii.html> prohibits both
intentional discrimination in hiring and evaluation practices that
disproportionately exclude minority group members, women, immigrants, or
members of different religious groups, if the policies cannot be
demonstrated to be directed job related. Poor performance by racial and
ethnic minorities on teacher certification tests can be the result of many
factors. The tests may be discriminatory or we may be seeing the impact of
unequal education from pre-k through college. In either case, under federal
law states are obligated to show that its teacher certification tests
measure the ability to be a teacher and are not just being used to keep
people out of the profession.
I do not make the accusation of racism lightly. But to implement policies
that you know will have disparate impact is racist. To change admission
standards knowing that they will limit the pool of qualified Black and
Latino candidates without providing evidence that the new standards will
improve teaching is racist. To sneak requirements into law through the
budget process rather than air them in open public hearings is racist. I
think the three-strikes and you are a racist rule holds here.
The new guidelines for teacher certification do not take into account unequal
educational opportunity
<http://nypost.com/2015/07/05/most-nyc-high-school-graduates-at-cuny-need-remedial-classes/>in
New York State schools. Almost eighty percent of New York City high school
graduates who enroll at City University of New York were required to take
remedial math and reading classes this year because they are not prepared
to do college-level work. These students, who are overwhelming Black and
Latino, have a deep academic hole to climb out of. Even those who succeed
in college may never be able to achieve a cumulative 3.0 grade point
average by the time that they graduate.
But they may not even be the most affected of urban minority high school
graduates who aspire to become teachers. Many of the best-prepared New York
City high school graduates attend elite colleges in the State University
system. They suddenly find themselves in classrooms with students who have
spent four years attending high schools with much higher academic standards
<http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/hsts_2009/race_gpa.asp?tab_id=tab2&subtab_id=Tab_1>
and it can take them two years to catch up. They may earn A's and B's in
their junior and senior years, but it is unlikely they can achieve a
cumulative 3.0 grade point average by the time that they graduate.
The U.S. Department of Education reported in a study conducted by its
National Center for Education Statistics that in the 2009
<http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013314.pdf> academic years 75% of White
bachelor degree recipients had a grade point average of 3.0 or higher. But
for Hispanics the figure was 63% and for Blacks it was only 55%. The report
attributed the grade disparity to a number of different factors. Black and
Hispanic college graduates <http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2013/2013150.pdf> tended
to be older than Whites, less likely to have parents with college degrees,
more likely to be poor as measured by financial aid eligibility, and much
more likely to be working either part of full time. The performance gap
<http://www.act.org/research/researchers/reports/pdf/ACT_RR2013-8.pdf> between
Black and Latino students and White students is especially large during the
freshman year of college, reflecting disparities in secondary school
education.
If undergraduate GPA is a valid indicator
<http://aer.sagepub.com/content/46/1/146.short> of ability to teach, and I
am not convinced that it is, GPA in the last two years of college when
Black and Hispanic students have had a fairer opportunity to acclimate to
college-level work would certainly be a better measure.
The Graduate Record Exam (GRE) or equivalent requirement is also
problematical
<http://www.epi.org/publication/books_teacher_quality_execsum_intro/>. It
is designed to predict success in graduate school, not in teaching.
Research studies dispute whether high scores on tests like the GRE
<http://aer.sagepub.com/content/46/1/146.abstract?patientinform-links=yes&legid=spaer;46/1/146>
will "safeguard the public from incompetent teaching." Other studies show
that if a "relationship does exist between GPA and job success it is
tenuous at best," including in fields like medicine
<http://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/Abstract/1973/04000/Grades_as_Predictors_of_Physicians__Career.1.aspx>
.
Instead of approving Governor Cuomo's racist agenda for teacher education
programs at its December meeting, the New York State Board of Regents
should apply to the federal courts for an injunction to block
implementation on the grounds of disparate impact
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact>.
MORE:New York <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/new-york/>Andrew Cuomo
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/andrew-cuomo/>Teachers
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/teachers/>Teacher Certification
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/teacher-certification/>Racism
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/racism/>High Stakes Testing
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/high-stakes-testing/>
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