Teachers Union Fighting Against Controversial Evaluation
NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew is trying to stop education Chancellor Joel Klein from releasing a controversial teacher evaluation.
LISTEN: WCBS 880's Peter Haskell reports
Mulgrew called the teacher rating reports unreliable, incorrect and so subjective and imprecise that the reports are useless, 1010 WINS' Stan Brooks reports.
Mulgrew said the information is unfair to teachers, students and parents.
"And that is the information that Chancellor Klein wants to release to the parents. Bad information based on bad data and he is trying to mislead the parents—the thousands of parents of New York City," Mulgrew said.
It's a recurring problem, Mulgrew said, and the report does nothing to help students.
"To once again mislead them just as he did with the test scores for years when he knew there was a problem with the test, he still went public and told the parents, 'Everything is great. What a wonderful job we're doing.' He misled everyone then, and this is what he's trying to do again now," Mulgrew said.
Mulgrew said the report is based on methodology that national experts consider to be unproven.
"When there is a reliable value add system, which this is not—this has been absolutely categorically called invalid by educational experts," Mulgrew said. "When there is a reliable value add system, we have put a place in the law to plug that in. That is responsible. And that's what children need. And that's what parents need."
So, asks WCBS 880's Peter Haskell, what does Mulgrew say to parent who want to know if their kids' teachers are any good?
"Go and talk to the teachers. They want, you know, teachers love the children, they want to make a difference, that's why they get into this profession," said Mulgrew.
LISTEN: WCBS 880's Peter Haskell with comments from the teacher's union
