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Showing Original Post only (View all)The worst eighth-grade math teacher in New York City [View all]
It's difficult to simply pull four paragraphs to really understand what is going on here so the article is well worth reading in full.
The title of the piece accurately reports that Ms Abbott is rated the worst teacher in NYC based on the ludicrously inaccurate teacher rating system. The article is explains how she ended up with that humiliating and public title.
She is leaving teaching.
http://eyeoned.org/content/the-worst-eighth-grade-math-teacher-in-new-york-city_326/
Using a statistical technique called value-added modeling, the Teacher Data Reports compare how students are predicted to perform on the state ELA and math tests, based on their prior years performance, with their actual performance. Teachers whose students do better than predicted are said to have added value; those whose students do worse than predicted are subtracting value. By definition, about half of all teachers will add value, and the other half will not.
Carolyn Abbott was, in one respect, a victim of her own success. After a year in her classroom, her seventh-grade students scored at the 98th percentile of New York City students on the 2009 state test. As eighth-graders, they were predicted to score at the 97th percentile on the 2010 state test. However, their actual performance was at the 89th percentile of students across the city. That shortfallthe difference between the 97th percentile and the 89th percentileplaced Abbott near the very bottom of the 1,300 eighth-grade mathematics teachers in New York City.
How could this happen? Anderson is an unusual school, as the students are often several years ahead of their nominal grade level. The material covered on the state eighth-grade math exam is taught in the fifth or sixth grade at Anderson. I dont teach the curriculum theyre being tested on, Abbott explained. It feels like Im being graded on somebody elses work.
The math that she teaches is more advanced, culminating in high-school level algebra and a different and more challenging test, New York States Regents exam in Integrated Algebra. To receive a high school diploma in the state of New York, students must demonstrate mastery of the New York State learning standards in mathematics by receiving a score of 65 or higher on the Regents exam. In 2010-11, nearly 300,000 students across the state of New York took the Integrated Algebra Regents exam; most of the 73 percent who passed the exam with a score of 65 or higher were tenth-graders.
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It's time to start calling this what it is: The purposeful destruction of public schools
Doremus
May 2012
#2
I'm curious, what are your qualifications to evaluate her lesson plans or her classroom style?
11 Bravo
May 2012
#4
Did you read the story? She's anything but a bad teacher. Her score is *totally* the result
HiPointDem
May 2012
#15