A while back I posted about the new teacher evaluation system in New York. I originally wrote about the system here and a little more here. Well, the results are in and I got my evaluation. What type of teacher am I? According to New York City I'm "Effective," which is basically run of the mill. Let's look a little deeper. At the end of the day, each teachers receive a numeric score from 0 to 100.

Test results are in: The other week, the NY State third through eight grade high stakes test results were released. This was immediately followed by the usual spin an posturing. The reformers privatizers would claim things like "These charter schools did better than those public schools" while people like me would say "Those charter schools have different populations" and so on. As you know, I've never bought into the "

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose The more things change, the more they stay the same. Last week we heard all about the new SAT. Going back to 1600 points, writing optional, and reworking the verbal section. Immediate responses ranged from the usual fact that SAT doesn't correlate with college success to the idea that the motive was not to improve the test but rather to recapture market share from the ACT.

Last time, I shared my thoughts on the recent coverage of AP CS statistics. Compiled and presented by Barbara Ericson and later reported on all over the place. To summarize my point of view - yes there is a problem but some of the highlighted data points can easily be shown to be irrelevant and therefore can hurt the greater goal of access to great CS education for all.

Some buzz seems to have circulated on the data compiled by Barbara Ericson on AP Computer Science test takers in 2013. In addition to going to the source there was a piece in The Atlantic and in Education Week. Some exciting results: In two states just as many girls passed the AP CS exam as guys!!!!! In two other states, just 6 more guys passed than girls!!!!! In yet another state, 100% of the girls passed, doing far better than the approximately 75% of the boys that passed!

The other week I was invited by Brandon Diamond and Ilana Sufrin to participate in HuffPost Labs podcast - Floating Points. I've known Brandon for a while and he's a really awesome guy. He's a techie for sure but he also understands the importance of community building. Brandon and Ilana (also awesome but I haven't known her as long) are at HuffPost labs and also are working on important initiatives like Hacker Union.

Earlier I wrote about the new teacher evaluation system and why a teacher such as myself might now be considered ineffective and two ineffectives in a row can cost you your job. Well, the New York City and New York State Departments of Education are the departments that just keep on giving. Here’s the latest. This coming Wednesday, I won’t be teaching during my usual 8:00 to 10:15 block of three AP classes.

Each month, The Stuyvesant school paper - the Spectator invites a teacher to write a piece on, well, basically, whatever they want to. I did it this past month. Here’s a reposting of the piece. The original can be found on the Spectator site. Enjoy “I’ve got 10 periods of class and no lunch.” “I’ve got four APs.” “Can I also take Great Books, Multivariate, Physics C, and Software Development?” The goal of a Stuyvesant student: take as many electives and AP classes as possible.

So here we are starting the new year and NY City is rolling out its new teacher evaluation system. It was all over the news last year. Ultimately, the state imposed the plan. The city hailed the new plan as a way to fire under-performing teachers. The UFT president hailed the plan as something that “is designed to help teachers improve their skills….” My take? All three parties have thrown the students and teachers under the bus.

Over the last few years, I’ve heard a lot of people talk about curriculum. “We need a curriculum that works for everyone.” “If we had a good curriculum, we could get CS in the schools.” “Can’t you just take someone else’s curriculum and scale things out?” People miss the point. In my twenty some odd years as an educator and my forty five as a human (including 18 as a parent), I’ve never heard someone talk about that one inspirational curriculum that made all the difference in their lives.