More than 600 Rochester school teachers have formally appealed their Annual Professional Performance Review, says Adam Urbanski, president of the Rochester Teachers Association. The appeals will be looked at by a joint district and union team beginning as early as next week.
Teachers could only appeal their evaluation if they received either an “ineffective” or “needs development” score. And the appeal has to show that there was an alleged “departure from the process,” Urbanski says. Teachers can’t appeal just because they don’t like or accept the evaluation, he says.
For example, a teacher would have a case if his or her score included teaching English Language Learners, but no interpreter was provided for the student. An evaluation based on scores on tests that students didn’t take is another example.The appeals can be denied, upheld, or the teacher’s score may be altered.
Urbanski says that the high number of appeals is a serious problem, and raises a lot of concerns about the APPR.
While nearly 900 city school teachers received evaluations of ineffective or needs development, Urbanski says, no Webster teachers, for example, received those scores. And other suburban districts had only a few teachers with low evaluations, he says.
“City teachers are so much worse than suburban teachers?” Urbanski says. “I could prove that isn’t true by just swapping our teachers with theirs for one year and we’ll see if we get better results.”
Urbanski says that APPR was intentionally positioned to dismantle urban public schools — possibly to diminish union power — and allow for the growth of charter schools.
“If anything, APPR will make unions stronger,” he says. “There’s never been a time in recent history when they [teachers] need unions more.”
This article appears in Oct 2-8, 2013.
As a Webster teacher, I completely agree with Adam Urbanski’s comment.
City teachers are not worse than suburban teachers.
I worked hard last year. I earned my H.
If I taught in the city, I might have a D or an I on my HEDI rating instead.
Unfortunately, Cuomo’s APPR system makes it rational for urban educators to flee to the suburbs. Despite the State Education Department’s attempt to make statistical adjustments for high-needs student populations (my score was quite reasonably reduced for serving a less-needy group of students last year), there is no formula powerful enough to account for the negative effects of poverty on academic achivement.
So I get to walk away with my H while equally-qualified teachers in the city get slammed.
How does this benefit city students?
My only question to Dr. Urbanski would be — as it relates to significantly improving educational conditions, and outcomes within predominantly black, and brown “urban public schools” — if ideas such as so-called “APPR” are not effective, (and I don’t believe they are) — then what types of strategies would be effective? One thing is for certain — we cannot just continue down the path of very old, entrenched status quo.
When Dr. Urbanski compared RCSD teachers to Webster teachers, he forgot to mention 2 very important differences in the teacher pipeline of these two districts, both of which are a result of the local collective bargaining agreements he negotiated, not state statute or regs:
(1) Like large urban districts across the country, RCSD has a complex and cumbersome seniority transfer process. While suburban districts are posting jobs and interviewing for new teachers in the spring, the RCSD is waist-high in paperwork about senior teachers bumping junior ones. By the time the RCSD finalizes the transfers and posts their new jobs, the suburban districts have had first pick at the strongest applicants in the new teacher pool.
(2) Once hired, tenure is generally a higher bar in high-performing districts. Before the new APPR, an independent audit found that 65% of first year teachers in RCSD were never observed and that the tenure panel granted tenure for time-served, without any substantive review. In contrast, high-performing districts will often coach ineffective teachers to leave or refuse tenure.
Carrie –
I don’t buy your argument. There are plenty of very well qualified candidates for ANY teaching position in New York. The few opportunities at suburban districts are far outnumbered by the well qualified teaching candidates that are currently looking for jobs. There is no way that the selection process used at the suburban districts only identifies the cream of the crop and those that are left over are not up to par.
When are we going to address the real issue? POVERTY! Having taught in both the RCSD and the suburbs it’s not the teachers who are different. Both are dedicated and hard working and qualified. It is the level of poverty of the children they are working with. Until we as a state and a country decide to deal with that nothing will change.
Maureen–The poverty argument cuts both ways. As a mom in both the RCSD and a high-performing district, I would add that systems behave differently depending on the social capital of the families they serve. Parent calls are more likely to be returned in a district where parents have economic and political power, etc..
Economic status is not the only difference between the student populations of urban and suburban school districts…duh. Maybe the problem IS that teachers in the RCSD ARE teaching exactly the same way as the teachers in Webster. If teachers believe that they truly are “swappable” for other districts; it clearly explains why they’re so “ineffective” and “need improvement”. While Urbanski seems to be so surprised, this most certainly comes as no surprise to me. I am equally concerned about the high number of appeals but not as it relates to the APPR evaluation. My serious concern is that so may “ineffective” teachers that obviously “need improvement” manage to keep their jobs and continue to fail the students. Contrary to popular believe, working HARD does not equate to working RIGHT. For once, I would love to see Urbanski and the teachers of the RCSD do the one thing they’re always demanding of the students and parents/guardians/caretakers: TAKE RESPONSIBILITY!!!