NY school accountability officer flees from accountability.
There’s no accounting for Jim Liebman, NY school’s Chief Accountability Officer.
Jim Liebman is NY school’s Chief Accountability Officer and creator of the system that grades NY schools. He fled a meeting last night as parents tried to present him with 7,000 signatures on a petition opposing the grading program.
The NY Times reported:
For three hours, council members sharply questioned the official who designed the system, James Liebman. His testimony was repeatedly interrupted by boos and hisses from dozens of parents in the packed room. Many of them held up fliers with the letter F printed in thick black ink, a sign of their displeasure that they aimed at the television cameras.
And more:
Councilman John C. Liu pressed Mr. Liebman about whether the grades were based primarily on a one-time test. Mr. Liebman emphasized that for elementary school students, there were two tests: one in math and one in reading. And he said that each test was drawn out over three days. But the lengthy explanation left Mr. Liu exasperated: “Is it or is it not one test?”
Without missing a beat, Mr. Liebman responded, “Life is one test!”
The room exploded with boos and hisses, while several council members tried to suppress their laughter.
And then he fled:
After Mr. Liebman finished speaking, several parents gathered outside of the council chambers with boxes filled with protest petitions containing nearly 7,000 signatures, hoping to present them to Mr. Liebman in front of the television cameras. But Mr. Liebman, whose title is chief accountability officer of the Education Department, ducked out a side door, leaving parents to chase him out the back of City Hall to behind the Education Department’s headquarters at Tweed Courthouse.
There, several education officials ran in circles for several minutes to avoid Jane Hirschmann, the director of Time Out From Testing, an advocacy group, as well as parents and reporters.
Job actions.
Nobody likes to walk a picket line in December.
The Elgin Teachers Association could take a strike vote next week if no agreement is reached between the teachers’ union and Elgin School District U46 at the next scheduled bargaining session, according to union leadership. Sun-Times
Teachers and educational support personnel with the Washington Education Association in Washington District 52 have been working without a contract since July 1st. With negotiations now in the hands of a federal mediator, members have gone public with their concerns.
Wearing black clothing and badges that read “Strength of the School - WEA,” about 100 union members attended the monthly meeting of the District 52 School Board on Monday night in the Lincoln Grade School gym. PJStar
YORKVILLE — The School Board Monday approved a 19 percent increase in teacher salaries over three years, ending months of negotiations that nearly led to a strike.
“We’re happy that we were able to continue the educational process without interruption,” said School Board President Dr. Robert Brenart. “That was to everyone’s benefit, especially the children.”
The district’s 309 teachers supported the contract almost unanimously, said Michele Michele Breyne. Sun-Times
Andy knows pathology.
Rotherham goes off on NYC Educator for raising questions about KIPP charter school junkets to the Bahamas and the Dominican Republic.
There’s so much you could say about KIPP schools (and we have) that have nothing to do with these beach parties management throws for selected staff. But it’s still worth pointing out, as several bloggers did, that the practice is questionable since the source money for these beach parties is not altogether clear given the lack of an audit (even their defenders are no longer claiming they were staff development opportunities as they originally did), that these schools are not private but run with public funds, that the founders claim to have some higher moral purpose than typical public schools, blah, blah, blah.
Andy is calling NYC Educator destructively pathological for raising questions.
I thought teachers wanted to be treated like professionals, says Andy.
This is the definition of what Rotherham considers professional. Certainly not professional compensation. Not professional voice in goals, process and expected outcomes. Not professional time for thinking, planning and collaboration.
But corporate style professional perks like swimming, golfing, boozing and Bahamian vacations. As if public schools were some before-the-dot-com-crash corporate start-ups.
If teachers want to work for KIPP, that’s their choice. But characters like Rotherham raise KIPP as a model to be replicated and to become what schools ought to look like.
That’s the pathology
UPDATE: NYC Educator responds to Andy’s “low-rent swift-boating” here.
