A reader comments:
“I was present when Dr. Danielson spoke in depth during the formulation of the current Maryland evaluation system and at a Maryland State Education Association Convention. She stated that there was no research to measure teachers using student test scores. In fact, she stated that if a teacher was fired due to students test scores there could be possibility of litigation.
Charlotte Danielson is the real deal! Her research has been co-opted (did I spell that correctly?) by Gates and company. Please do not disparage her.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Then she should speak out loud and clear…make a pubic announcement, publish it widely. If this is so, why is it the first I’ve heard? She should reclaim her reputation immediately.
I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy theorist…but the fact is that the media is not giving very much time to anti-reform, nowadays. This might have something to do with the fact that two of the prime players in that reform just so happen to be media giants.
I would love to see Danielson go public, but I question whether her message would reach the ear of the public.
I agree that she never intended that her rubric be used as it is being used now. On the other hand, however, she is becoming quite wealthy from the use in all of the state evaluation systems. She could stand up, and not allow it. It would be powerful. At this point, she is complicit.
Exactly!
By Danielson accepting money from districts for her rubric to be used to terminate teachers is her way of stating that it’s okay. If she really cares about teachers and her rubric, then she should demand that the schools/districts used it properly and make them accountable for improper implementation of her product.
I know ! I listened to her in an interview recently and she was pretty star struck and impressed with herself. As in
“my goodness, look at all this hullabaloo! All over my little rubrics!!”
But she is selling and not speaking out. If her work is being corrupted, she owes it to all of us in the profession to make that known. If she silently takes the cah to the bank, she is part of the problem, not the solution.
In her defense, Ms. Danielson herself has stated that her rubric system was never designed or intended to be used for hiring or firing purposes. It was strictly a system to help teachers develop exellence and professionalism. Notice how test scores are not at all part of her rubrics. Ditto for the the National Board Certification Standards back when I completed the program about three years ago. I don’t know if Jim Thorpe has changed any of that.
Still, Charlotte Danielson’s system is organized and fair within its own walls and contours of thought; it is not pragmatic nor is it fair and objective when used especially in a teacher rating system for employability. In that context, it’s really not that good. Ms. Danielson has stated that you should be “living in the 3′s (effective) and visiting the 4′s (highly effective) once in a blue moon.
I don’t know about any of you, but why have a standard that is so lofty and difficult that you can only achieve it once in a blue moon? Forgive the analogy, but it ultimately boils down to, in this win or lose everything mentality (after all we are RACING to the top!!!!!) that if you end up buying a beautiful old diesel mercedes that will never die and that wil last you, your kids, and your grandchildren their whole lives, it is still not as good as owning a Lamborghini. Therefore, you don’t really own a great car.
Is this Ultimate Fighting Championship approach really appropriate for education? Do we want to excel in collaboration to achieve excellent and best practices or do we want to transform our profession into one big fast and frenzied NASCAR competition, with each teacher vying for better skills and some winning while others losing?
Here are some experiences with the Danielson rubrics. The first piece talks only about the her framework and the second incorporates it as one of seven frames. Definitely click on the image to englarge and READ the copy !!!! It speaks volumes about the truth behind how Danielson is being misused.
Yet, I don’t hear of Charlotte speaking out against the misuse and perverting of her rubrics in any real robust way. I wonder why? Does money motivate her? Certainly, the press would listen to her.
Take a look:
http://thetruthoneducationreform.blogspot.com/2012/12/blog-post_4204.html?view=snapshot
For this one, scroll down to “Step 3: Get Observed . . . ”
http://thetruthoneducationreform.blogspot.com/2013/05/getting-slammed-six-easiest-breeziest.html?view=snapshot
“In her defense, Ms. Danielson herself has stated that her rubric system was never designed or intended to be used for hiring or firing purposes. ”
Then why isn’t she forbidding the use of her “system” in evaluation schemes that do then? Can you say $$$$$$.
“It was strictly a system to help teachers develop exellence and professionalism.”
Just what I need is to develop some “excellence and professionalism”. RRRRRIIIIIIGGGGHHHHTTTTT!!!!! Well maybe the professionalism if that means kowtowing to the “authorities” and sitting down and shutting up about the educational malpractices that are being foisted upon the children, teachers, schools and districts. Nope, don’t need no stinkin professionalism, either.
Duane, I don’t like her system any more than you dom but I say this in the context in which it’s being used. I denounce her silence in all of this. It will only remove more and more credibility in her.
What formal system in place of hers, if any, do you think can be used to gauge our professionalism?
Don’t get me wrong, Duane.
I do think it’s okay for teachers to be evaluated, but such judgement should be done only be highly seasoned administrators who are not influenced by budget woes, who are open minded, and by teachers through peer review as well.
I also think there ought to be rubrics used to assess the policy makers and enforcers who impact our funding and impact the way they lobby DC for tax breaks and other arrangements that render our society inequitable and that create and sustain poverty.
I already have some ratings for them in mind. . . .
I hope you do also.
Robert,
What other profession has a “system” to gauge “professionalism”-engineers, lawyers, docs, nurses, architects????? Why is that an issue with the teaching profession? Hint: gender of majority of teachers.
I have no problem with a reciprocal relationship with my supervisor. One in which we treat each other as professional equals.
Unfortunately I do have a problem with doing so because for many years now my evaluating principals are quite younger, have only been in the class a quarter of the years I have, have no outside of education supervisory experience and very little outside work experience (not that that is a requisite) and have never taken much more than beginning Spanish classes, whether in high school or the university. Hard to have an equal professional relationship when it is I who has to educate my supervisor as to what it takes to learn a second language. But I try to do it as nicely and calmly as possible-even when they evaluate me with these rubrics from a less than an hour of observation.
Rubrics are a devil’s tool-ha ha! A rubric is a very primitive tool to use to attempt to evaluate the teaching and learning process. Akin to skinning a deer with a stone scraping tool.
When I get a new supervising principal I go in with my texts and try to explain what it takes to learn a second language, my pedagogical reasons for doing what I’m doing, what the sequence of learning is and why I do it that way etc. . . . I’ve had a few that are quite uncomfortable with me doing that-it’s like they didn’t want to hear it.
Yep, I’m totally insulted by the current methods used to “evaluate” me as the whole process is bogus and demeaning.
The same was done to Madeline Hunter’s work. (I think I got her name right.)
I echo the comments of Linda, Carol, and Debbie (as did Robert Rendo on a previous thread). At what point will Charlotte Danielson and Robert Marzano make a public, unequivocal, and unbendable statement against their work being misused to abuse and fire teachers.
When they are making huge profits by selling their programs to districts all around the country they are obligated to make sure that their programs are being used properly and fairly. Otherwise it’s all about the money, isn’t it?
Maybe we need an unofficial Educator Protection Agency (similar to the CPA, EPA, etc.) to act as watchdog and ensure compliance. What about it academics? That might be something constructive you could add to the fight to protect and preserve public schools and the teaching profession.
Diane’s doing it with great panache. We need many, many more of you to join her and be as vocal and visible as possible to counteract the reform pseudo-science and propaganda.
To answer your first question. Never, they’ve sold out. Marzano has gone so far as to “cook up” a study touting the benefits of interactive white boards (guess who paid for that one) just like meth addicts will cook up some meth in a bottle to get a fix, Marzano needed his $$$ fix.
I’m in total agreement; Charlotte is the “real deal!”
No one’s a “real deal” if they allow their work to be bastardized and don’t start filing lawsuits to prevent their work from being used thusly. Oh wait, you mean she has already given permission in the form contracts let? She must be the “real deal” then-bovine excrement.
Duane,
That’s an insult to bovine excrement. It at least fertilzes the earth and helps food and plants grow . . .
If Danielson’s ideas have been “co-opted” against her will then she needs to step up to the plate and forcefully argue that her ideas are being misused. If she does not do this it certainly appears to be acceptance of the “corporate ed reform” use of her ideas. It will be awfully hard for a lot of fired teachers to understand how she would not STEP UP LOUDLY AND FORCEFULLY unless it was okay by her.
Agreed! Two plus years ago at a meeting w/ Danielson and 20 principals she forcefully made the same comments. The frameworks were intended as a PD tool, in conjunction w/ her other book , “Talk About Teaching,” the business arm, Teachscape and ASCD, has monetized the tool and Gates and TNTP has driven the Fire to the Top initiative .. don’t blame Danielson, organize! All politics is local.
Peter, no one blames Danielson, but what we are saying is that she has the right and an obligation and responsobility for militantly speaking out against the misuse of her rubrics.
And if she has changed her mind on the way they are used, then she has the responsibility for informing her public and policy makers.
EIther way, she is not doing so, but she has become very adept at collecting her fees.
But you’re right to say that we should organize. . . . . maybe outside her headquarters in Princeton, NJ to begin with. Or maybe outside her home.
When Danielson spoke in NYCN she said, “You can’t fire your way to Finland”. She warned that the rubric is not to be used for evaluation, but rather for professional development. She also respionded to a question from the audience about its appropriateness for special ed by stating that it was not appropriate, and she didn’t have staff trained in special ed on board, but intended to hire someone and adapt the rubric. So the DOE put it in as a pilot-guess where? – D. 75 – with children who have the most severe special needs.
The Maryland State Department of Education and the RTTT office at USDOE have responded to my questions regarding the use of test scores that there is no research. To my question as to why are test scores being required, MSDE deferred to the USDOE . US DOE did not answer that question.
The USDOE? Not giving any democratic accountability?
SOO-PRIZE, SOO-PRIZE . . . . .
According to her training which I’ve taken, teachers are basically told they will NOT receive “exemplary” in their observation. With that knowledge, and knowing how low your students might be in the beginning of the year, a teacher could almost predict certain failure on their end of the year evaluation!
I know that is a true statement.
“The only teachers in NC who can receive an exemplary are the teachers that teach teachers.”
A teacher was told exactly than when during her final evaluation.
The teacher had the foresight to write it down as it was said…or stated that is…
it was obvious to the teacher that the administrator did not agree with this hideous command from the Big Boys on the Hill.
“If you are in the classroom, you will not receive an exemplary.”
And…in the teacher’s opinion and 99% I have talked to….the state of NC used the children for experiments in 2012-2013.
Litigation????..Unleash the lawyers..I know of many lawsuits pending.
If what youj’re saying is true, this is horrible and not legal, but the burden will be on teachers to prove it so.
It is the same with the Marshall system. It was created as a source for training teachers, never for evaluating. We are being evaluated with tools created to train new teachers.
She should speak more loudly, but to disparage someone who invented a tool that is being misused by others seems rather harsh. From what I understand Danielson declined a company’s offer to create and market an app for her Framework because she did not want the tool to be used for evaluation purposes. The proposed app would be used by administrators during their walk-throughs and observations. CLICK, move on to the next teacher, CLICK.
I’m not sure if this is an appropriate parallel but when did Alfred Binet begin to speak out about the misuse of his IQ tests?
Teachers are being trained and teachers are expected to train the children. Can you say “Pavlov”? Stimulus -response is the game in education today. The creativity, individuality, and imagination is all being taken away from children and educators. Work force training is what the agenda says-widgets, machines, robots -to push forth Agenda 21.
Actions speak louder than words. Let’s take a look at her actions. She cashes those checks she reaps in due to the misuse of her rubric. She doesn’t respond to questions on her bio. She makes no attempt to stop those who measure teachers with her work.
Credibility… none in my book.
“If the shoe fits…wear it”…If you are in this educational political mumbo jumbo that has been created by all of these who have never set foot in a classroom then you are the cause..and you reap the effect!
I agree. She’s making loads of money, enthusiastically participates in workshops around the country and has obviously “recorded” a number of webinars. She seems like a smart lady. She must know how her ideas and rubrics are being “misused” by public school districts. She has an obligation to, at the very least, make a statement perhaps in the form of a webinar for school administrators.
Regarding:
“Maybe we need an unofficial Educator Protection Agency (similar to the CPA, EPA, etc.) to act as watchdog and ensure compliance. What about it academics? That might be something constructive you could add to the fight to protect and preserve public schools and the teaching profession.”
It sounds like a good idea, but I don’t think people are understanding how corporate “reformers” have resorted to infiltrating education at all levels, in order to divide and conquer, including in academia. Teacher Education is now under the gun by their own accrediting body, which has been reconstituted and whose commission is now comprised of representatives from corporate sponsored school “reform,” such as the New Venture Fund and Teach for America. That will enable VAM or something similar to be applied in Ed Schools, too, so academics really have their hands full right now trying to preserve their own place in education.
Also, regarding:
“The only teachers in NC who can receive an exemplary are the teachers that teach teachers.”
This must be teacher coaches/mentors, because it’s certainly not Teacher Educators. But but how many coaches/mentors still have their own classrooms? Not very many in my district.
Will parents know that “highly effective” is only rarely attainable when they want to look at our scores as they are allowed to do? Would anyone really want to go to a doctor or surgeon who is only rarely considered “highly effective”? How about a lawyer or financial planner who is mostly effective but rarely “highly effective”…how much faith would you have in them? The rating of teachers is degrading to the profession. If Danielson doesn’t speak up about it then she is complicit.
I was always kind of shocked about Charlotte Danielson because I remember the rubric that was used in my old school district’s teacher evaluations seemed to be very fair, and it forced teachers to reflect on their own teaching.
I never saw anything wrong with that rubric. I always wondered what had happened. Now I know.
Several objective posts help frame this issue.
Good standards, good evaluation, and good testing have their place in education. The absence of any form of accountability is what got us in the mess in the first place.
In 1983 A Nation at Risk came out and for the next twenty years, more reports came out (Governors study, Goals 2000, and others) and we had no defense.
NCLB put teeth in the system with annual testing (the root of all this evil) and ranking schools. RTTT added the ranking teachers part.
Madeline Hunter was there in 1982 with the first real formal, objective look at teaching practice (“A teacher makes more decisions in one day than a corporate executive does in a year”). And, I heard her say in person (over a five day training with her) “Do NOT take my points of lesson design and elements of teaching practice and turn them into a checklist or evaluation system.”
We’ve always had standards (how many ways can we say kids should understand the three branches of government or use the Pythagorean Theorem?
We’ve always evaluated professionals using a variety of approaches.
We’ve been giving tests since the first time Socrates asked, “Why?”
Why blame the researchers? They aren’t making the decisions to use the standards and rubrics and tests as high stakes measures to fire a few bad teachers – and to make a profit or get elected.
A few researchers sold out. Maybe they didn’t anticipate their work would be abused in the manner of outrageous state and federal requirements. Maybe they did and should have held firm on the copyright and use.
THE PROBLEM is not the designers, it’s the decision makers, their misguided direction, and financial leverage.
I would agree with you if people like Danielson weren’t participating actively in workshops and webinars that districts are asking, paying for, sometimes requiring teachers to watch/attend so that they can prepare for the evaluations based upon these presenters’ ideas. Danielson knows this is happening. It’s not a case where she wrote a couple books from which school district systems of evaluation were gleaned. She is making money off of the utilization of her ideas. And districts are clearly using her ideas to rate teachers. And based upon these ratings, many very qualified teachers are being placed on shaky employment ground by inept administrators.
When you have 36 people working for you pulling in $4,000/day you have the wherewithall to do something about illegitimate use of your work if you really care and if you are not also at the same time being funded as a result of the improper use of your work. Who is she getting all this international work from? She certainly has the cash flow to do something about it if she wants to. Maybe it is in her best financial interest to do nothing as it appears to be and why is the web cleaned about anything about her? That is always questionable as to WHY??????
Charlotte Danielson has spoken out. She spoke up last year on a panel discussion that was moderated by Chelsea Clinton, and had an interview with Edweek where she discussed her discomfort with it’s misuse. Her tool was initially designed as a professional development tool for inservice teachers. For the past 15+ years, her tool is used to evaluate teachers. Many district were already using a watered down version of her tool, but if used properly, I believe is useful in improving our craft.
Here is the video where she clearly states that test scores should NOT be used when evaluating teachers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wo8EyEdubkA#at=21
Here is the interview with Edweek where she briefly states her discomfort with its misuse: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/rick_hess_straight_up/2011/06/straight_up_conversation_teacher_eval_guru_charlotte_danielson.html
Value Added Assessment was created Dr. William Sanders while working in the field of agricultural genetics at the University of Tennessee. Obviously a field closely related to public education.
Charlotte Elmer Gantry Danielson has come down from the mountain and delivered us the tablets. Just as there were 1000 Points of Light under the George Bush I, there are now 1000 points of Danielson in her reinvention of the wheel. How did we ever teach en effective lesson prior to Danielson?
I do not see one point in all of the Danielson ukase that is new and original. Yet all of the administrators are forcing the teachers to drink her Kool Aid.
I would like to see Charlotte go into an inner city school classroom and teach a class of 34 kids, incorporating every point of Dnaielson in each lesson. I bet you that Danielson could not teach an EFFECTIVE lesson according to Danielson.
In ten years, when we have moved on to the next miracle magic bullet nobody will ever have heard of Danielson.
Thirty years ago the buzz word was Madeline Hunter. Her work on effective practices in a lesson was often misused because evaluators believe that if you could not check off all of Hunter’s elements in every lesson you could be an effective classroom teacher. This sounds just like a remake of the same song.
As an educational consultant, I remember playing video clips of Danielson expressing how teaching is an art and a craft and that we need to stop being taken for granted. Teachers really felt empowered after listen to her speak. A few months ago a Teacher said “I thought Danielson was FOR teachers not against them. When and why did she switch?!” If Danielson’s message has been distorted, she should speak up because her silence is sending a clear message.
I’m not sure who can claim responsibility for distorting Charlotte Danielson’s message. Perhaps there is a connection between the distortion and her service as an advisor for the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ). See Diane’s March 19, 2013 blog entry, “Schneider: NCTQ and the Corporate Reform Agenda (https://dianeravitch.net/category/national-council-on-teacher-quality-nctq/ ).
The Danielson rubric is impossible to use on every lesson. I agree that it is a useful guide but in no way should be used for evaluations. Bob, you said it right. It is all the reinvention of the wheel. It is all common sense stuff that makes sense to use to help teach brand new teachers in training. All experienced teachers know the stuff in the rubric already.
This web address is of a presentation given by Charlotte Danielson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzDcYuSsU2E. I have no quarrel with a lot of the presentation, but I need expert input on a couple of graphics she used starting at about 4:30. The first one is a graphic describing the proportion of teachers in two large districts receiving positive recommendations as opposed to those who were rated negatively. The second graphic is a pie chart representing satisfactory vs. unsatisfactory teachers, and then it takes the unsatisfactory teacher sliver and creates another graphic showing the number of students who had unsatisfactory teachers who actually outperformed those students who had teachers rated satisfactory (and above). What you have to watch is the conclusion she draws from that graphic that I find unwarranted. Watch the whole presentation and you might catch later on where I think she actually contradicts her own previous conclusion.
You may have actually seen her use this same set of graphic representations in other presentations.
I saw her book which focuses on “instruction” There is no mention in the text or index of Cooperative Learning. This is the skill of the “21st Century” not the efforts by Gates and the UFT to create “instructional lesson plans”. We need student based learning. Common Core defies that.
Charlotte, just likes Miley, wants to be noticed and get $$$
How is this legal? Under demonstrating professionalism…. ” The teacher, considering staying late to help some of her students in after-school day care, realizes doing so would conflict with her gym class so she decides against staying”- basic.
I cannot believe the original author is sticking up and telling us not to criticize Danielson…. she’s a talking head… and talking all the way to the bank.
I seriously hope this ends up being challenged legally.
The fact that Bill Gates is used as anything other than an exploiting business man that produces a lousy product that is shoved down our throats demonstrates the author and Danielson are pawns in a game to destroy teachers. Gates is hardly anyone I would call an expert on educating humans. He is socially inept and Danielson is just one more tool to be used for money making. All the software that is used for her ridiculous framework will make Gates and his cronies richer. Remember the Greatest TEACHER said, “it is easier to get a camel into the eye of a needle than a rich man into heaven.”
Well said, Michael and kelsey. I’ve been saying this a lot, lately, too:
Is this legal?
If not, then what are our recourses? Can we initiate and sustain massive class action lawsuits (notice I used the plural)? If so, I think the time is now. I would definitely chip in.
I do not know Ms. Danielson, so I can’t speak for her true motives. Perhaps she’s tried speaking out against the misuse of her frameworks but is being silenced by the media, as has been the case with so many other people sounding the alarm. I don’t know.
It’s disillusioning to question our leaders in this way, but question we must. We were, thankfully, brought up and educated to question authority.
I just don’t understand where Randi’s coming from; lauding Gates, TFA, CCSS, etc when it seems so obvious to be against the public’s interest. And now, Danielson. We were recently told at a team teacher meeting to align our ABLLS standards with the CCSS standards and those with the rubrics from Danielson. All of which, according to the authors of ABLLS and Danielson, is developmentally incorrect for the student population we’re teaching.
There’s a post on this blog in which Coleman blatantly states that they need to write better tests so that the teacher’s can teach to them in confidence (no quote, but that’s definitely the idea he’s putting forth). What happened to the claim that these standards are just meant to be a framework from which teachers can base their own assessments and lesson plans?
I’m posting this on as many threads as possible: is there a serious lawyer in the house? Do we have recourse? If so, then we need to act, now.
It’s called teaching by the stopwatch. it the student doesn’t learn, its the teachers fault. If the student does learn, its because of the danielson method. Who the hell is Charlotte Danielson? Why has no school system claimed her? Where did she teach? Where was she an administrator? Why is there nothing specific on line? I wish the Justice department would do an investigation as to how all these taxpayer monies managed to get funneled in to the danielson group. Usually, when you turn over a rock, the bugs come scampering out.