The DOE's ill-advised Regents grading policy by outsourcing the scoring to a private consultant for a three year contract worth $9.6 million dollars has been a colossal failure and waste of money to the school system. Unlike the rest of the State, where they trust their teachers, the schools marked their own Regents. The City, on the other hand, didn't trust their teachers and went one step beyond and required all schools to outsource the Regents scoring. Of course the charter schools were exempt since there is no cheating going on at the charter schools, lol.
The result of DOE's Regents grading fiasco was that the final grading of the Global and U.S. History Regents were not finished until school had finished. The Living Environment grading didn't end until the last day of school and many physics exams were incorrectly labeled "invalid". James Eterno in the ICEblog documented what he experienced as he was sent from Jamaica High School to Cardozo for grading only to do virtually nothing for days on end. Furthermore, teachers were offered "per session pay" ($41.98/hr) to work on Saturday and Sunday as well as into the evening.
One of my favorite stories was the case of one Brooklyn Living Environment teacher who received a "discontinuance" of employment and the DOE threatened to take her teaching license when she was given her letter of termination the previous day. However, the very same teacher was asked by the DOE to come back the next week to continue marking and given "per session pay" to work into the night. Unbelievable, but true. You just can't make this thing up.
This fiasco by the DOE, orchestrated by those non-educators by Tweed has caused uncertainty,
Will heads roll at Tweed because of the Regents grading fiasco? Remember, they are not held accountable. Therefore, look for the DOE to remain unscathed by their incompetence. If I had to give them a grade it's "INEFFECTIVE"!