Interesting "DATA" about the evaluation results of the teachers and administrators on the front page of the Free Press on Thursday. "Needs Improvement". The MPS has needed improvement for a long time, although the school committee has continued to describe the "leaders" as "exemplary" and given them many fat raises. Ever see "Brigadoon"?
Here is a contradiction - our Superintendent always gets a superlative evaluation each year that gets her excellent pay raise each year! I guess you have deduce from this that "she is the smartest one in the room"!
Ever attempt to find out the evaluations of her senior staff? Good luck - they are secret - you know - privacy requirements - The saying - "see no evil speak no evil , hear no evil" applies to our school committee and senior school staff!
Strange - they work for us, the residents of Melrose - we pay their salaries and good benefits - but we have no right to know what kind of job they are doing for us and our children. Something is very sick here and very undemocratic - ever try to find out the salary of a teacher or admin person - good luck - you will get the run-around until you run out of patience and give up - it's all suppose to be part of the public record - but as we know in Massachusetts - public records are not so public - you need to take public officials to court to get records or pay exorbitant fees - as Ms. Taymore has required of CKK - This is corruption of the highest order - yet our city and state reps and senators allow this to continue - because they all have vested interests NOT to change the system - the system has been corrupted - the politicians allow it to continue - and the voters allow it by voting the same politicians in office which eliminates accountability.
Please do not ask why we are in this situation - since the question must be rhetorical.
Another job for the PR firm on retainer. God knows CT and the SC can't account for or communicate about the disasterous state of the schools. Hiring unqualified and inexperienced people is coming home to roost. Needs Improvement indeed!
The only purpose of the PR spin doctors is to hide facts and information in violation of public records laws. It has nothing whatsoever to do with to present factual information in the most efficient timely manner. The information and facts stands on it's own. There is no reason to spin it unless you are trying to hide something...which they are...
from A. Leibowitz Melrose Free Press last Thursday:
"According to data released Friday by the Mass. Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 20 percent of teachers in the Melrose Public Schools received marks of “Needs Improvement” on their evaluations for the 2014-15 school year.
Overall, 19 percent of educators in the district, including 16.7 percent of administrators, fell in the Needs Improvement category.
The numbers, released as part of DESE’s Educator Evaluation report required in school districts across the Commonwealth, point to a general improvement from the previous school year, when 23.5 percent of teachers and 31.6 percent of administrators in the Melrose Public Schools were marked Needs Improvement.
Compared with nearby districts, Melrose was an outlier — the 11 other districts in the Middlesex League each had between 0.7 and 6.0 percent of educators in the Needs Improvement category.
Superintendent of Schools Cyndy Taymore, as well as a DESE spokesperson, told the Free Press that comparing data between districts is misleading."
and of course Taymore's first words are to deflect!
"“In the case of new teachers, a better term [than Needs Improvement] would have been ‘Developing,’” Taymore said. "
and how exactly would she characterize incompetent and law-breaking administrators? How about this one: Fired! And to the school committee members who supported these failures and are working still to cover up their deliberate "mistakes," how about: Resign!
"District leadership meets several times over the course of the school year to work on inter-rater reliability, Taymore said. Therefore, while inter-district comparisons do not carry much weight, comparisons within the district may be more constructive."
Laughable if this weren't our children being affected. So we should all be grateful not to be a Level 3 school, is that the gist? Or to have cooked MCAS results like everyone (within and with half a brain) knows happened at Lincoln?
If it weren't bad enough that our school system has been found guilty on many counts of violating laws, this latest release of "data-driven evidence" should sink the pretentions of those still trying to defend what is absolutely indefensible about those running our school district (and city, sadly). Shame, shame, shame.