New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo delivers his State of the State address and executive budget proposal at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center on Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2015, in Albany, N.Y. (AP Photo/Mike Groll*)
I opened the newspaper today when I got home from work- I don’t have time to read it beforehand- and the Governor of New York’s State of the State address was dissected on the front page. The headline read, “Teachers, taxes, wages targeted: Governor calls teacher evaluations ‘baloney’.”
Now I understand that this headline is an editorial decision, but it doesn’t make you feel too good to come home from a day of nurturing, guiding and mentoring young people to feel like your back is in the cross-hairs of the most powerful man in the state. But unfortunately, I’m getting used to it. The photo that accompanied the article is a ‘classic’, in every sense of the word. Our Governor strikes a pose not unlike a Roman orator of old. There is a certain irony in that, I think to myself.
*Then I realize that I know the photographer- that he has in fact come up to my upstate school and into my own classroom to photo-shoot a lesson which would go on to change the world. He came to see me.
Me. A lowly public school teacher, one of 600,000 in this state.
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From the State of the State: “While Washington fights and gridlocks, we find compromise and move forward…their politics divide, and our politics unite.”
Sorry, but when it comes to the state overseeing the education our youth, that is just not the case. Respectfully, it’s more like divide and conquer. Accept and funnel the dollars from Washington, siphon off the sustenance of the upstate youth to parts elsewhere, and sub-out contracts to multi-national corporations. Hold the money high in the air. Pit one district, one region against the other.
“Last year we said if a school didn’t complete a teacher evaluation system, they wouldn’t get state funding – the excess funding. Low [sic] and behold, 100% of the teachers now have a teacher evaluation system. 100% of the schools adopted a teacher evaluation system. That’s the good news – we have teacher evaluation systems for every school in the system. The bad news is they are baloney.”
Excess funding? Upstate schools have been stripped by Albany for more years than I can count. I teach in a high-needs community, the same community that raised me. I’ve been here, in this school, on one side of the desk or the other for 46 years of my life. In that time I have seen many changes, but few for the better in the economic and social sense, in the decades that we have been held hostage to Albany politics. Just listen any local superintendent. Please. ‘Lo and behold’? And how many local administrators don’t feel like their hands are tied behind their backs?
“To reduce the over-testing of students we will eliminate local exams and base 50% of the evaluation on state exams.”
The Governor is upset because too many teachers are rated ‘effective’ or even ‘highly effective’ under the system that has been in place for only a year, a system that tries to be one-solution-fits-all, and is frankly fairly irrelevant. It doesn’t work, but tossing in a rating that includes a 50% mandate for high stakes exams is literally tossing the baby out with the bathwater. Many young teachers are overstressed as it is, and if enacted, will be “washing out” or heading to the door of their own volition. Eliminating local exams is also irrelevant– the state does not count them anyway-and practice test after practice test, written by an educational conglomerate, are headed your kid’s way. “Over-testing” is just getting warmed up.
Under the “baloney” system our Governor originally called for, I’m rated on the kids who may not find it important to come to school, who despite the best of our efforts just don’t buy into the value of the test “for their own good”- in other words, many, many kids. I’m rated on the performance of the kids who spent all last night gaming or texting, or who come to school not having eaten since the last time they were here. I am rated on the performance of kids who have stolen my personal possessions, or worse. So I guess I’m not surprised- we get used to directives and unfunded mandates- but I’m having a problem with the whole 50% thing.
So I can imagine the response: Well, there’s the door, Mr. Rozell. But now imagine your child’s youthful teacher, once excited and energized, skulking out of meeting after meeting where draconian admonitions are relayed over and over from on high. She’s feeling stomped on, deflated, crushed.
And she doesn’t know, but I can hear her trying to console herself on the way back to her classroom, quietly lamenting the twenty-five years she has to go to until retirement.
Imagining again: There’s the door, Ms. So and So.
This is what I see, in the New York State of mind.
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So back to the photograph taken of the Governor this week, and why it matters to me. You see, the very same Associated Press photographer Mike Groll came to my classroom on September 13, 2007, to do a photo-shoot for an article that featured me and my students and the impact that we were making not only on our community but on the world. AP writer Chris Carola did a powerful article that hit the wires and went not only across our great state, but to every state in the Union and all over the planet.
This history class made history. And Mike was there to record it, seven and a half years ago. Thanks, Mike, and Chris.
Later, we would go on to be named ABC World News Persons of the Week. For achievements in the classroom, I would be awarded many top state and national awards for teaching (I even had a national medal pinned on my chest!), and would be recognized by my own SUNY GENESEO alma mater as their 2013 Educator of the Year. NBC Learn even came up from New York last spring to record a lesson with me and my students, in which my seniors really blew me away in demonstrating their knowledge.
So how did the Educator of the Year rate in his own 2013-14 Cuomo Administration teacher evaluation? I scored an 89/100. Not even honor roll. None of the above achievements with students were counted or ‘measured’- and maybe rightfully so, I don’t know. But ‘Mr. History Teacher of the Year Multiple Times Over’ IS NOT highly effective in New York State.
Sour grapes? No thanks. I know where I make a difference every day. It’s just going to get real interesting should this 29 year classroom veteran be rated ‘ineffective’ or ‘developing’ with the new proposals. Maybe even comical.
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Maybe I don’t have the answers, but I know what I see. My parents were teachers. My wife is a teacher, and her dad and his twin were both teachers, everyone of us right here in New York State. Today my wife and I are nearing the close of our careers, with our own high school age children, and now we are also primary witnesses to the sapping of the energy and strength of the very individuals who spend the most time in our young people’s lives- our fellow teachers. Apprehension and fear is not the climate you want for those who teach your kids.
“We would pay any teacher who gets highly effective, a $20,000 bonus on top of the salary that that teacher is getting paid because we want to incentivize high performance….they have achieved the highest scores on tests.”
Sure, at the end of every other week there is a check in our box. But we don’t need the extra $20,000 to want to make a difference everyday, to take the time to listen, to smile and guide when it matters most. Think about the persons who made you feel like you mattered, who took an interest, who influenced you and maybe even changed or turned your life. Maybe there is a value to that that can never be quantified or measured, nor ever compensated. But in the Governor’s proposal, in New York State, that is not the point. In his world, that is what is irrelevant.
If our teachers are to become testing technicians for our children, then we must accept the consequences. Lesson planning and sound instructional time has already given way to more beta testing, data analysis, spread sheets, clinical trials, and so on. Now we want to jack it up on steroids? And no amount of testing is going to make up for the real ills that plague us as a society, the lack of pride and civility, of responsibility and respect, that at one time was a given.
Our teachers were at one time our role models. As a young teacher, I got into this game years ago to teach-to create– to nurture– my fellow human beings.
Despite the rhetoric, I’m joyful that I still feel this way-and respectfully, Governor Cuomo, no door is going to hit me on the way out.
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Over the course of the past 20 years, Matthew Rozell and his students conducted hundreds of interviews with the World War II generation. One such interview led to the reuniting of a train transport of Holocaust survivors with their American liberators, over 60 years later. He is currently working on a trilogy of narrative histories based on these interviews.
His first book, a narrative of World War II in the Pacific as told through the previously unpublished recollections of over 30 veterans, was released in August 2015. It is available here. His second book, in progress, is on the power of teaching, remembering the Holocaust, and the real story behind the iconic photo of the “Train Near Magdeburg’. He can be reached at his Facebook page at Author Matthew Rozell or by commenting below.
And even though this original narrative history began as a collaboration between the instructor and his students, he can pretty much guarantee that it will count for little in his state evaluation.
Teaching History Matters 
This well-written, thoughtful, heart-felt piece made me teary. I am sad for my son who is a high school science teacher in NYS. I am sad for my fellow teachers who are still fighting the good fight in the small K – 12 school from which I retired four years ago. I am sad for all the idealistic young teachers who will be driven out of the classroom, but mostly I am sad for the students of NYS (including my grandson who is in kindergarten) who are being over-tested and turned off to learning. The whole education agenda of Gov. Cuomo reminds me of Orwell’s ANIMAL FARM where those in charge change the rules constantly, nothing makes sense, and some are “more equal” than others.
I am saddened that NY is going to lose some of the best teachers who have had enough of the disrespect and unfair treatment of their profession. How much learning takes place in a classroom that can’t be measured on a piece of paper? I have a son who learned self-confidence and to do his best from a teacher in his past. What better lesson could he have learned that year? How do you measure that? It was how he was treated that brought out these qualities and I’ll forever honor and respect his teachers for caring about him, making him realize he is awesome and teaching him to shine! When I saw his awesome teacher the other day, she said she was leaving as soon as she could. No other students will be touched by her loving inspirational lessons. Teaching students respect, honesty, integrity and thoughtfulness are lessons that are just as important or more so than the fill in the bubble tests! Come and visit the schools to see what happens daily in classrooms. A student once said during her speech as valedictorian that she learned kindness from one of her teachers. How was that lesson measured? Is it important to our society? What does the Governor think happens in a classroom? Perhaps you should visit and see? We can’t have a tangible measurement for all the life lessons given by the teachers who touch our children’s lives. We can stop and thank the teachers so that they know there are many who still respect and appreciate them for all that they do.
I am sad that I have to teach my 3rd grade students how to use a 2 pt rubric and a 4 pt rubric to answer a short response or extended response for the state test, because that is not real writing. I’m sad that I go to school each day excited to start a new day with my students and then see texts from my own daughters who teach feeling dragged down by a system that has no logic. I only have a couple of more years left but they have an entire career ahead of them. I think the governor needs to spend a week in my special needs classroom, in my title 1 school and in the neighborhood that my students live in. I have low tolerance for people who speak about topics they have little knowledge about.
Thank you for sharing your story! You have echoed my exact thoughts and words as a fellow teacher! My own children are ages 19-6, and I see the different educational experience the younger ones are getting. It is not for the better! No room for the love of learning.
Matthew, you have just wonderfully demonstrated what so many of my colleagues here in Florida feel. Your activity in reuniting survivors and liberators changed those people’s lives and impacted your students forever. I did something similar a few years ago when I had an authentic Holocaust era boxcar brought to my high school and put on a program honoring local survivors. Yet those extra efforts, which so many of us work endless hours at putting into place (getting the funding, arranging every detail, doing intensive lessons and activities to prepare students for these special events) are often not even acknowledged by our administrators and evaluators.
That a teacher as dedicated, innovative, and gifted as yourself is not even rated highly effective perfectly highlights the travesty that constitute most current teacher evaluation systems.
I am sure your students treasure the hours they spent with you — no matter what the official “evaluation” concludes.
The best teacher I know, who makes high school economics lively, interesting, engaging and FUN for students of every learning level, is now rated as just barely “effective” — and not just because of his students’ scores on high-stakes tests for subjects he doesn’t even teach. At my Florida high school teachers are also evaluated on what we post on our classroom walls — as if what signs we have up are more important that what comes out of our mouths! Is your weekly ESSENTIAL QUESTION posted? Check. What about your 3 daily TOPICAL QUESTIONS? Check. Your school’s MISSION STATEMENT? Check. What about the CLASSROOM PROCEDURES? How about an actual sign indicating you hold students to high standards (I am NOT making this up!). The bell schedule? The school’s own 10 behavioral expectations? And on, and on, and on.
The best five teachers I know (2 in their 40s, 3 in their early 30s) are actively seeking other jobs — outside the field of education. And it is not because we have poor or unreasonable administrators — their hands are often as tightly tied as ours. It is just that teaching has become a veritable minefield, and it seems that every year another high stakes mandate (unfunded, usually) is added to our teaching load. What a tragedy!
I’ll end this too-lengthy post with a personal anecdote. A few years ago our local (and highly popular) state representative was brought to visit my classroom (b/c my principal was thrilled at some of the exciting things I was doing with my students). The legislator began spouting off about how awful US student scores were compared with those in other countries. I made the mistake of asking this politician what he thought was behind those low scores. He said it was obvious — bad teachers. I brought up the following facts — that Florida has one of the shortest high school instructional days in the industrialized world, and a very short academic year. Nope, he insisted, it wasn’t any of those that affected students’ educational achievement — just rotten, lazy, incompetent teachers. Students who come into high school classrooms reading at a 2nd or 3rd grade level, who cannot add, subtract, multiply or divide without using a calculator — these factors have nothing to do with it.
The problem, most people seem to think, is us, my friends — their children’s teachers — and we had best figure out how to convince them otherwise.
Great post. I appreciate your perspective. Especially your last line. Many teachers are just too scared or don’t know what to do. And from what I am observing, Florida seems to be one or two steps ahead in the ‘destroy the classroom teachers’ will to teach our young’ movement.
It’s funny that one of the most amazing teachers I’ve ever had was not rated highly effective. Thousands of former students would beg to differ. This sort if thing is making it impossible for the new youth to want to teach as well. How sad.
It matters not how “effective” teachers are. What is important is if the material taught is of benefit to the student. Since every student is different, learns differently and will likely take a path to the future different from every other student, how in the h e double hockey sticks can any “educator” determine benefit from a standardized test?
As the parent of a child who did not learn the same way as most of the other kids in his school, I know that even the best teachers would have been rated poorly based on my son’s ability to score well on some corporate developed “test”. He could not do it. And the school hd no way of teaching him and probably many others like him. Sorry teachers, you get screwed by all those low test scores.
My son was subsequently home schooled with a very effective testing procedure to determine if he was indeed benefitting from the material. Personal attention. Not teaching to a test, teaching real English, math, science and history. Oh, and we had music, physical education, language, computer science and even video production.
I understand why teachers are frustrated. Some of the kids will just not get with the program and will not do well on the tests. They will be lost and forgotten in the system. Some teachers will not have the skills or patience to deal with them. I’m glad I did with my son. Oh, and he graduated college and is working his way up in his field. Best thing we ever did for him.
I think it’s obvious that many states, major corporations, millionaire backers, and teacher-attacking politicians, take New York and New Jersey, for instance, appear to be seeking ways to do away with public education. They are pushing for more charter schools that, by the way, do not have to follow the same rigorous rules and unfunded mandates as public schools and do not have student achievement and graduation rates as high as public schools. Charter schools have waiting lists–they can pick and choose the students they will accept, public schools can’t. Charter schools require parents to sign contracts for what is and is not acceptable by students or they can be removed, public schools can’t. Money that is collected from everyone who pays school taxes is taken away from the public schools it is intended to support and given to Charter schools. Teachers are blamed for all the woes in public education and they are not respected for their profession, even though so many have masters’ or higher degrees. Do teachers have the power to make students attend school, attend classes, pay attention in class instead of texting or listening to music, or do their homework? No. Do teachers have the power to make their students get enough sleep, eat nutritious meals (outside of school), have proper adult supervision, and learn respect for others during their hours away from school? No. These behaviors must be fostered at home. Are parents held accountable? No. Are businesses and politicians held accountable? No. It’s easier for them to blame teachers. What a sad state of affairs for the meaningful education of our children.
The classroom is the only place I feel I belong! I graduated in 2012 with my Masters in education in elementary education and still do not have a job. I hope my son doesn’t want to be a teacher due to the state of the system at the moment. In fact I plan on homeschooling him instead of sending him to this testing only system.
Excellent read but you lost me at the end when you said that “…no amount of testing is going to make up for the real ills that plague us as a society, the lack of pride and civility, of responsibility and respect, that at one time was a given.” This is akin to the “back in my day…” argument which really is pointless.
The real plagues are socioeconomic in nature. Especially poverty and income segregation.
Always sorry to lose a reader. The poverty aspect is certainly a major factor in my school district and of course all struggling systems. I certainly discussed this-I’m 46 years in on watching the results, in one place, no less. But if you think I’m hopping on the ol’ “well, sonny, back in my day” bandwagon, then maybe the whole article is pointless. We are at a critical mass, not only in NYS, and the scale has already begun to tip. It’s just that the school is where society can see itself (and therefore the future) in the mirror for the first time. But we blame the educators first because that is the simplistic thing to do, and we can wash our hands and walk away. Thanks for stopping by, I appreciate your comments.
Invite cuomo and his moron buds to follow a few good teachers around and see what you folks deal with on a day to day basis and how different(disrespectful, lazy and poor) the student body is today. I am witness to the workload that a caring teacher brings home Maybe Andrew should start testing parents to see if they can qualify to send their children in to have the privilege of learning from you folks.
I would be interested to know in what way you think teachers should be evaluated? What can we do (I taught public school for 22 years and was raised in a small town in upstate NY) to try and balance all of the many things that teachers are expected to do every day? How do we put in a just and fair evaluation model? I think that many of my former colleagues and the unions have gotten very good at saying what won’t work but not so much at offering alternatives.
Doug, like I said, I don’t have the answers, but I know what I see. No one likes a whiner with no solutions, so let’s start with tweaking what we are working with, rather than passively watching the Gov. pointing fingers at terrified teachers and threatening draconian measures which will only serve to bully and intimidate the ones charged with the welfare of our youth.
Let’s start with acknowledging that we don’t judge people on things out of their control. Let’s acknowledge that the product of our work is sometime not revealed for years, and that sometimes we will never even know. Will I get a retroactive bonus in the mail? But can you think of an educator who changed your life? Sure, there are jerk teachers and I agree they should be dealt with, just like there are inconsiderate human beings, jerk bosses, arrogant college professors,etc. in everyday life. You deal with it. In my experience it is not an epidemic, sorry.
What exactly do we want to measure, and is it the same for every subject every grade level, every teacher? That is what we use now. I am actually rated on an elementary model, one whose creator is horrified that her model is being used to rate teachers in classroom observations. Why? Because when the dictates came down from on high, this is what folks scrambled to come up with. Maybe now it feels comfortable even though it has been acknowledged as flawed. Well, that is number one on the hit list. One size does not fit all. Just and fair evaluation model? If it is one size fits all, then it is neither.
But if we are to REALLY demand JUST and FAIR accountability, it starts way before that kid steps into the classroom, and continues every school night for the rest of that kid’s education. I’m a partner, not a parent. (Though I have had my own kids in class). My final product is ultimately a human being, not a quantifiable widget. But I work in tandem with the home the child comes from. I’m not a solo act.
Finally- Do I test, do I monitor and adjust, retest, tweaking my lessons accordingly? Of course. Do I measure what growth I can? Of course. Do I spend half of my day as a bookkeeper, proving myself over and over with paper trails and cover-my-ass mindlessness? I respectfully refuse. I have meaningful lessons to plan and execute. Four different ones, to four different grade levels, five times a day, every single day of the school year. The juggler with FOUR BALLS IN THE AIR AT ONCE. Plus other pupil contact supervision duties during the day which draw from my time and energy as an educator. I wish Gov. Cuomo would come see that act, sometime. I have a hard time thinking that he would last a month.
Whew. Thanks for writing, I really appreciate your comment, and as a former veteran educator, I am sure you know what I am talking about. Like I said, no one likes a complainer with no solutions, but I hope I made sense here.