Testimony on H3883

Good morning.

My name is Tracy O'Connell Novick and I am Vice-Chair of the Worcester School Committee.

I am a former Massachusetts public school teacher, a parent of three daughters in the Worcester Public Schools, and a former member of Stand for Children.

I served on the Stand for Children local leadership team in Worcester until the group disintegrated in the fall of 2009—spring of 2010.

I raise this as I think it crucial that we as elected officials know to whom we are speaking and know of the authenticity of their claims to speak for others. Stand is using, we know, unpurged membership lists when it claims membership numbers in Massachusetts and elsewhere.

It was in this building two years ago that I was told by a Stand for Children staff member that I could not testify before this committee as a member of Stand for Children if I did not testify as the organizational leadership wished.

It is, in short, no longer a grassroots organization, 'though Stand is ably representing its funders.


I think it important today that we all recognize what it is that we are discussing. THIS (at which point I put our 2 inch binder on the table) is the new Massachusetts Teacher Evaluation system. Every member of the Worcester School Committee has this binder. In Worcester, as in all Race to the Top districts across the state, we are currently discussing this with our teachers and with our teachers' union. It is already being phased in, as required, at our Level 4 schools.

In short, in Worcester, as in every community across the Commonwealth, THIS IS HAPPENING.



As it happens, I have differences with this evaluation system. Most notably, it requires use of the student growth percentile, a model which is fatally flawed and was never intended---as its designers note—to be used as part of an evaluation system.

However, throughout this evaluation system, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education notes that this is system is a new one, a model one, one that requires adaptation and updating.. It requires a variety of new procedures, training, forms, conversations, and methods—many of them quite extensive—none of which have been tried before.
We do not, in short, know what this is going to look like once it is put into place on the ground.
It isn't even finished yet.
To codify it at this point is madness.



I would further point out that to require our school administrators to make all of their hiring, firing, and moving decisions based on so-called “effectiveness” ties our principals' hands.

This is something this committee has repeatedly—as recently as last week---said it WOULD NOT DO to our local districts.

Our principals and our superintendents need more ability and better information than a “student growth percentile” to make the best decisions around staffing for our schools, to best serve the students they have.
I am horrified at the idea that our Worcester administrators, including those who staff my children's schools, would be forced to making their decisions based on this flawed model.
This would be an enormous error.
I urge you to reject this bill and reject the ballot measure it was taken from.