Weather Alert  

FLOOD WARNING NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL 130 PM EDT THIS AFTERNOON * WHAT...Flooding caused by excessive rainfall continues. * WHERE...A portion of southeast New York, including the following county, Suffolk. * WHEN...Until 130 PM EDT. * IMPACTS...Flooding of creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations is occurring. Some roads remain closed due to flooding. Expect many areas of slow moving or standing water. It will take several hours for all the water from these storms to work through local drainage systems in urban areas. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS... - At 1016 AM EDT, Flooding is ongoing within the warned area. Between 6 and 10 inches of rain have fallen. Some specific flooded locations include Stony Brook which had Harbor Road collapse earlier due to a nearby pond overflowing and County Road 83 north of Route of 25. - Flooding impacts will continue, but no additional rainfall is expected through early this afternoon. - Some locations that will experience flooding include... Brentwood, Commack, Huntington Station, Centereach, Deer Park, Hauppauge, Ronkonkoma, Huntington, Stony Brook, Middle Island, Port Jefferson, Wading River, Northport, Coram, Dix Hills, Smithtown, Melville, Farmingville, Rocky Point and Mount Sinai. - http://www.weather.gov/safety/flood

New York State Teachers Express Their Frustrations

Press Releases

By Published: January 27 2015

LongIsland.com

Public school teachers and allies voice concerns with Governor Cuomo’s education proposals.

Print Email

January 27, 2015 - Long Island, NY - Public school teachers and allies voice concerns with Governor Cuomo’s education proposals. Following the recent “State of the State” address, an independent group of concerned teachers of New York State have written an open letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo, expressing their dissatisfaction with his proposals to increase the exam-score-derived portion of a teacher’s Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) to 50% and implement merit-pay style bonuses.  

Since being released yesterday, almost 1,500 teachers and community members have signed the letter, which can be read at http://nyteacherletter.org.  The letter details several reasons why the proposals will be damaging to the long-term interests of the New York State public education system, including:

  • The lack of any research-based rationale for the proposed scoring system.
  • The diminishment of the importance of classroom observations under the proposed evaluation system.
  • The documented concerns that professional statistical associations have expressed with the overuse of exam-score-derived teacher ratings.
  • The documented issues that merit-pay systems and high-stakes testing have had on the professional climates of school systems where they have been implemented, including their contribution to the cheating scandals seen in Atlanta, GA, and Washington, D.C.
  • The concern that increasing exam-score-derived ratings in annual evaluations will have the effect of decreasing the quality of instruction for the most traditionally underserved student populations in New York State.

The letter also proposes several options to deal with the expressed concerns, including:

  • Reallocation of any merit-pay style bonus money to statewide grant programs for public school teachers or to cover the increasing costs of unfunded mandates for school districts.
  • The expansion of the NYS Master Teacher Program to all K-12 educators from its current pool of 6-12 STEM teachers.
  • Legislating statewide salary increases for teachers who engage in rigorous professional development programs (e.g. National Board Certification).

http://nyteacherletter.org           

nyteacherletter@gmail.com

@NYTeacherLetter

  • Removing any structural issues with the APPR system that lead to teacher-resistance in working with high-needs student populations.  

For more information about the New York Teacher’s Letter, please visit http://nyteacherletter.org.