In a stunning reversal of policy, Microsoft announced that it was abandoning the practice of “stack ranking,” in which every employee is ranked and rated, and those with the lowest ratings are fired.
Lisa Brummel, head of human resources, said in a statement:
No more curve. We will continue to invest in a generous rewards budget, but there will no longer be a pre-determined targeted distribution. Managers and leaders will have flexibility to allocate rewards in the manner that best reflects the performance of their teams and individuals, as long as they stay within their compensation budget.
No more ratings. This will let us focus on what matters – having a deeper understanding of the impact we’ve made and our opportunities to grow and improve.
The article says,
In the stack-ranking system, Microsoft managers had to place a set percentage of their direct reports into each of five silos, ranging from a “1″ silo for top performers to “5″ for the bottom performers. The bottom-ranked employees typically ended up seeking opportunities in other parts of the company or elsewhere.
Stack ranking has drawn continual fire from employees, many of whom felt the system rewarded internal politicking, withholding of information, and backstabbing, rather than innovation or cooperation.
A Vanity Fair article last year blamed Microsoft’s “lost decade” in large part on stack ranking.
In the stack-ranking system, Microsoft managers had to place a set percentage of their direct reports into each of five silos, ranging from a “1″ silo for top performers to “5″ for the bottom performers. The bottom-ranked employees typically ended up seeking opportunities in other parts of the company or elsewhere.
Now, if only we could get the stack ranking system out of the public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Bill Gates and Microsoft. Cruddy products and ideas. The gift that continues to give!
Continues to take, you mean.
Like a vampire…like a vampire
Big article in the WSJ this morning. Major news in the biz world.
I hope the headline was something like, “Microsoft finally figures out what any idiot could have told them”.
Microsoft Abandons Dreaded ‘Stack’
sub-head:
Software Giant Drops Forced Ranking of Employees. A System Pioneered by GE but Now Unpopular.
Reblogged this on 21st Century Theater.
During the “Automobile crisis” and when they started denigrating our public schools, there was a documentary on how the good corporations were succeeding. At that time corporate America was in a bad funk. The exact title escapes me now but the main idea was that managers praised their employees, pointed out their successes, encouraged them and listened to THEIR ideas. Some of it was almost nauseating, the fawning over employees BUT it worked then. It works now.
Our school corporation in its glory days, the administrators were like mentors who helped teachers become better teachers, democratic idealism – bottom up not the Fascism of today, top down. Teachers were regarded as individuals with each having their own strengths and weaknesses, the strengths built upon. We encouraged teachers to identity their own strengths and weaknesses by taping their classes, they themselves looking at what they had done and almost always they could themselves identify things upon which they could improve. A professional library was established and encouragement was stressed – just as good teachers do with their students.
I did it myself, video taped my classes. I never realized how fast I talked. I was trying to get a lot done in a short space of time and had no idea how fast I was talking. Small things perhaps but the small things are the difference between good artwork and great artwork and teaching is an ART, not a science. Also, I had one of my superb teachers come in and evaluate my teaching. At the time I also taught in addition to supervision. It worked. A FAR cry from what is happening in public education today.
“not the Fascism of today, top down”
precisely
I like this Gordan
I have seen your method work.
Any teacher who cares is always trying different ways to become a better teacher….and you do that by working as a team..
Teachers used to work together and share materials and ideas…That does not happen now..
Teachers who work so very hard to prepare materials will not share as the entire profession is a contest to see who can get the best scores.
Before this Corporate Testing Takeover……
Teachers worked for all of the students and the students knew they were working for them.
Now teachers are working for higher Test Scores…(not by choice)
The school systems all around the state hired consultants and coaches who knew nothing about teaching a low performer to go in and TELL the teachers (even the veterans) how to plan together…how to share…what to say during a class…how to write a lesson plan…..
How to write a lesson plan ????????????……..When Teacher “A “had been doing so for 35 years and had helped hundreds of young teachers to succeed..
.
MOSTLY..THEY TOLD….(NOT SHOWED) BUT TOLD TEACHERS HOW TO RAISE TEST SCORES..
AND YOU DO THIS BY BENCHMARKS AND MORE BENCHMARKS AND THE TESTING CONTINUES ….
The teachers are forced into weekly meetings with some random person that will show up from the admin office and take notes on what occurred in the meeting..and one person in charge of testing at the school.
These meetings are supposed to be planning..
You are sitting there with 7 teachers all teaching different courses (8)and they are supposed to be planning..????’
These used to be called department meetings…
Just another political scam to take away a teacher’s precious time to plan with the buddy teacher that teaches the same course..
Teachers are sick and tired of these useless meeting that simply evaluate test scores and are there for one purpose…to share how bad you are doing with the low-performing students that attend class 7 times in 45 days..are poor etc etc etc etc……
It is the Proper Political Bull Sh*t and has accomplished absolutely nothing…..nothing…and more nothing…
neanderthal… thanks to the “uniformity” promoted relentlessly from RTTT all public school teachers around the nation from CA to ME are enduring the exact same hideous scenario you just described. And to make matters worse are all the stress-related illnesses to go with this “wonderful utopian corporate vision for all”..
N100,
“It is the Proper Political Bull Sh*t. . . ”
It is also the “Proper Political Bullying”
Artseagal,
“. . .all public school teachers around the nation from CA to ME are enduring the exact same hideous scenario. . .”
No, not all have been subjected to such idiocies. . . . . YET! The Show Me State, except in those “low performing” (sic) districts has resisted this but are now signed on to RaTT and my assumption is that it will get worse before it gets better. It’s just that in this state a lot of districts can’t afford all these extra administrative positions although it seems that they will be forced to eventually, we even have math and english district coordinators now. Hopefully we can get it all stopped in its tracks sooner rather than later.
That Vanity Fair article was so damning of Microsoft. Shows how much of a dinosaur it is that it took them over a year to fix it. But that’s what monopoly capitalism looks like – the opposite of a “free market” (which doesn’t exist in reality anyway).
Stock price pretty much flat-lined for well over a decade.
In almost every district using some sort of VAM system, pressure is put on principals to do some equivalent of stack ranking. The principal who gives too many Exemplary ratings will in most cases be in hot water. And, at the building level, principals and APs are warning teachers that the grades they give had better line up with the high-stakes test results. Everywhere one looks in the CCSS era, one sees these distortions–of evaluation systems, of grading systems, of curricula,of pedagogy.
This is the kind of thing that happens when you let the guy who implemented stack ranking in his company make the education decisions for the entire nation.
Why don’t principals make their job easier by asking teachers which students they think will pass the test, then issue their ratings. That would also cut down on observation and evaulation data keeping. More time to kick up their feet.
Seriously, what employer ranks their employees before an exam that someone else takes and hold them accountable? Then waits 3 months to find out scores and issue pink slips. Only in the U.S.
And…if the students did so poorly on the test..why can we not see their mistakes..but no…THE TESTS ARE A SECRET…WHAT THEY MISSED IS A SECRET..
The best teaching comes from the feedback you give a student after the teacher has graded a test.
“Oh I see what I did wrong”
Everyone learns from their mistakes and that is what teaching is all about or USED TO BE all about….
Every good teacher knows that immediate feedback will help a student more than any one day yearly exam …..that is…as you say…taken in June and graded in November…..UNBELIEVABLE!!
You receive the grade…but you never know what the child missed exactly…..they just did poorly on this standard or that standard but you never know exactly what part of the GENERAL GARBLY9new word) STANDARD..the do not understand..
Correction
(GARBLY) new word….
Wonderful comment!
Goodness Robert..You have this nailed!!!
Teachers are told that they can not get an Exemplary rating unless they Teach other Teachers…….What a Pile pf Political Hogwash!!
Our district one ups that. Our devil’s rubric (developed by NEE out of Mizzou’s education school-some kind of Danielson/Marzano and who knows who else’s conglomeration) for “grading” teachers is a 1-7 scale for each category. We were told up front that no one will ever get a seven. WTF, why even have seven categories then?
“. . . unless they Teach other Teachers. . .”
That will free up the administrators’ time to do. . . . ???? Oh, I know actually take care of properly handling the discipline issue-I doubt it!
In Utah they’ve done the same thing. The scores are 1-4, but you’re supposed to “live in the 3” and only “visit 4 occasionally.” My eyes about rolled out of my head when I heard that one!
I was just told some principals take their Ipads into observations and have to input everything the teacher says. Then they press a button, and the software determines if the lesson was effective.
There are some schools where the principal hides outside of the door and evaluates a teacher..
Not only does he act like a clown…but he looks so silly as everyone is aware of exactly what he is doing..
Not all principals stoop that low..but this does happen…
schoolgal.. it is crazy to me that a principal comes into a classroom with an I-PAD and is busy typing while “observing’. Clearly in this multi-task event, something has to give.. it is just like texting while driving. In teachers’ cases, the observer is hearing bits and pieces of a lesson. Crazy system designed to help principals now drowning in admin paperwork save some time (ironically at the expense of the very people they supposed to be helping – teachers).
It’s true. Our administrators have a tool called I-observation. They input a bunch of stuff while observing. Fortunately our district has sensible policies for this. For example, if an administrator doesn’t stay for the whole period (high school) they are not to assume that something didn’t occur. We’ve tailored a system based on growth, not ranking.
Our system was created through a year-long process which included task teams on specific topics (student growth measures, quality instruction, additional contributions beyond the classroom and so on). Then each task team had two representatives who met for three months to create a cohesive document.
We created a document that followed Michigan state law while promoting growth. We were also a pilot district for the state in the usage of our evaluation system.
Is our system perfect? No because it has to meet certain state law requirements which include some decidedly strange things. But we created a process that focuses on growth more than ranking.
Steve K,
“. . .student growth measures, quality instruction, additional contributions beyond the classroom and so on. . . ”
The teachers allowed “student growth measures”? All the same problems with SGP’s-completely invalid as a way of assessing a teacher.
We have something new this year that is similar to “additional contributions beyond the classroom”. Okay so I get to be evaluated on time given, yes given, beyond my contracted time??? So they can use my off time to evaluate me. Sorry, doesn’t fly in my world. And they will hear about it if and when it comes up on my evaluation.
Speaking of Microsoft, I received this survey in my inbox today from The Gates Foundation. Do they really want to know how I feel about the CCSS? I’m about to give them a piece of my mind, as a 1st grade teacher and a mother of a 1st grader and preschooler.
http://sgiz.mobi/s3/0fdbd938ebf6
Who came up with the crazy idea to outsource US education policy to unelected CEO’s, anyway?
What I love about reform is how it lets politicians off the hook. These mayors get to fob off their entire public school duty on “foundations”. Of course they grab it.
Here’s a secret. When someone tells you to “relinquish” what is YOUR responsibility as an elected leader, and you do that, eagerly, happily, with a huge sigh of relief, you’re not “accountable” for anything.
The mayors of Columbus and Cleveland have absolutely no control over their school systems. It’s pathetic. They’re begging charter operators to return some of the authority they handed over. Fat chance they’re getting that back. So long, sucker. Thanks for the school system!
What shouldn’t be overlooked in this policy shift is the freedom and flexibility given to managers to reward employees. This represents less of a top-down influence. I have never been aware of the inner-workings of Microsoft, but their reluctance to embrace a collaborative leadership style (used by most successful organizations) clearly explains the “lost decade.”
When reading the comments, I was encouraged by most of them; they knew this system creates hostility, kills morale and stifles creativity. Some comments were by former employees who might consider returning. It made me think of all the talented teachers who have left the profession due to the “Microsofting” of education. Arne Duncan believes we can attract the “best brightest” by offering a higher salary tied to test scores. He doesn’t get it. There will always be talented people who are willing teach in a collaborate atmosphere where our opinions matter.
A dear friend, a former math professor, went to the “dark side” and worked for MS. There were a slew of utter horror stories to tell. This person was in literal fear for their livelihood all the time, affecting sleeping and infiltrating 100% throughout their life. It all sounded horrible.
There is one company that treats their employees like gold…It is SAS
Read it here
http://www.sas.com/company/great-workplace/
SAS “Again a World’s best Workplace”
Arnie and his Testing Bullies could not get through the front door of this corporation….He would not be hired in the first place after his record..
mike turner.. I think it is safe to say that Gates belongs in a world where people don’t need to interact with each other. As for the teacher world.. ours is a world that can only thrive on human interaction. Gates is destroying the lives of our nation’s youth who attend public schools and is destroying the lives of teachers who teach these youths. The ripples from this are far and wide as an entire nation so this SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED. The very checks and balances which are out of whack (in our democracy) are allowing Gates to get his way because he is so rich. This desperately needs to be rectified. Let him use his brain for technology products and if he wants to “contribute” money to good causes, lit must BE WITHOUT GATE’S STIPULATIONS in matters he knows not and must not be given to PACS. But campaign finance reform is another topic.
well stated.
Art:
Software development requires very high levels of interaction and cooperation – not to mention masses of documentation, testing and error detection. Managing the large development teams needed for MS-type of software is enormously challenging. The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder gives a good flavor of what is involved – though in this instance it is primarily hardware rather than software.
Sounds to me like the corporate world could learn quite a bit from the education world (pre Bill Gates) in how to get along and work together. Too bad they inflicted their hideous system of “management” onto an entire nation of public schools from administrators to teachers to students. Have we not had enough of the Bill Gates way already???? Is this idiotic “management system” not proof that the corporate world has no business “managing” the public education world?
DITTO
http://www.scpr.org/blogs/education/2013/11/13/15181/broad-foundation-names-bruce-reed-vice-president-j/
Broad Foundation hires Biden’s former chief of staff.
Remember, they’re agnostics! Just looking at what works! They don’t play favorites!
Which is about as believable as when Justice Roberts said he just “calls balls and strikes”.
The Obama Administration isn’t interested in public schools. They’re interested in charter schools.
The 95% of kids who attend existing public schools have no advocate in the federal government, and precious few in state government.
“In a statement, Reed praised the founders of the foundation – billionaire Eli Broad and his wife Edythe Broad – for their visionary philanthropy.
“No one is more committed to improving our public schools,” Reed said. “And their generosity is matched by their focus on making the world a better place.”
Can someone point me to an existing public school reformers have improved?
The Broads are from Michigan. How are Michigan public schools doing after a decade of “help” from reformers? Last I looked their funding had been gutted and for-profit unregulated charters were spreading like weeds.
Sorry…That is “The Road Not Taken”..
Look again at the fork in the road…..You will see SCHOOL DEFORM….They are headed that way..
Chiara. Yes. Charters have proliferated quickly and have minimal oversight. Last year a Republican-leaning member of the State Board of Education admitted that the state has no power to close a charter school. That’s up to the EMO or authorizer.
Feel better, Ms. Ravitch! We missed you today in Chicago!!!
2 realities hit me today along these lines.
1. The company handling our state’s new “scholarship options” (school choice or something) called to ask me questions. I told them I don’t like school choice and the scholarships need to go away and then they had no more questions for me.
2. I was unaware there is a national company that already hosts online “post your reviews” of schools like trip advisor.
Really?
Yucky. It is just yucky.
School is supposed to be something set apart from market whims.
This is really what Friedman dreamed of?
“This is really what Friedman dreamed of?”
Almost.
But there are a few pesky individuals still mucking up things.
And the public schools are not dead yet.
Keep asking questions, my friend.
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
Several lines in the Vanity Fair article struck me. Think how they apply to self-styled “education reform” and its obsession with worst business practices.
1) The author notes early on that stack ranking “effectively crippled Microsoft’s ability to innovate.” Who asserted this? According to the author: “Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees.”
2) A former software developer commented about MS stack ranking: “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.”
3) When the author of the article asks a former Microsoft engineer “whether a review of him was ever based on the quality of his work” the answer was: “It was always much less about how I could become a better engineer and much more about my need to improve my visibility among other managers.”
4) Innovation was not only stalled and discouraged but thwarted. Countless opportunities were lost. The last two paragraphs:
“I see Microsoft as technology’s answer to Sears,” said Kurt Massey, a former senior marketing manager. “In the 40s, 50s, and 60s, Sears had it nailed. It was top-notch, but now it’s just a barren wasteland. And that’s Microsoft. The company just isn’t cool anymore.”
“They used to point their finger at IBM and laugh,” said Bill Hill, a former Microsoft manager. “Now they’ve become the thing they despised.”
Link: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/07/microsoft-downfall-emails-steve-ballmer
But don’t expect the edupreneurs and edubullies and edufrauds to take heed. They will stand by the tortured numbers and massaged figures of their Data Driven Decision Making to the death.
But we don’t have to follow their lead.
“Statistics are no substitute for judgment.” [Henry Clay]
😎
Well said…
Number 2 is for real in the Testing-former Teaching Profession
There is one company that treats their employees like gold…It is SAS
Read it here
http://www.sas.com/company/great-workplace/
SAS “Again a World’s best Workplace”
I am afraid my school has stooped to the new low of data walls. They removed a beautiful display of state flags and presidential portraits to put up our test data wall in the auditorium, listing each class from k-12. Everyone knows who the low dots are, we are a small school, everyone knows the resource kids. I had to file a complaint against a teacher next to me as I hear her berating the resource kids in her class since our administration decided to take half of the resource time and make sure the kids are getting “grade level” core instruction. These kids leave class in tears. I can tell from my last career profiling people for the army, this is how you make gangs and increase crime. I just can’t stomach the arrogance and ignorance of the people in charge of me. I have spoken to C.P.S regarding what goes on in my school. I am sure administration will not be happy. I suspect I will be looking for a job soon. They can be grateful I don’t have a law degree.
OMG
So now we have a public display..Same thing happened in one of my state’s school districts..On the wall test scores..
The principal was later fired for fraud and embezzlement but the attempted to hide that under their Rug of Deceit…NOT
Many companies have performance review systems that fail to reflect differences in actual performance. High performers feel under-rewarded and leave or are easily recruited away because head hunters know when a firm is not fully recognizing its top performers.
Stack ranking is one mechanism for improving the allocation of rewards and forcing managers to identify their top performers. It only works if you first ensure that the managers doing the evaluations are in fact top performers themselves – this is seldom done. Typically such an approach will be beneficial for one or two cycles then it becomes counter-productive as good performers leave for the types of reasons captured in the VF article.
The fundamental issue of the equitable allocation of rewards remains. MS’s new solution appears to be to do such allocations behind closed doors.
FOR ARNIE AND ALL OF HIS TESTING CLOWNS…
BREAKING NEWS ABOUT THE WORLD’S BEST COMPANY..
There is one company that treats their employees like gold…It is SAS
Read it here
http://www.sas.com/company/great-workplace/
SAS “Again a World’s best Workplace”
This kind of management does not work.
Common Sense will tell you that…but who listens to Common Sense when the Big Bad Greedy Boys are in town trying to get more of the Green in their Fat Pockets?????
Hey Bill
Can you help these teachers out again? The right way this time…….????/
No..they do not want your money…been doing without that for years…
How about this new evaluation model…..think you can get the DOE’s or BOE’s to take a look and rethink the Race to Nowhere….
“BOUT time ya’ll figur’d this one out”
Common Sense always prevails…
Just ask Thomas Paine..
“Use it or Lose it”
Your “Stampede to the Top ” has injured our children’s future….
For that..I can not forgive…….
Out children’s futures…
One of the most demoralizing situations I ever was in was when teaching in a charter school and the teachers were ranked. We were told our ranking in our evaluation meeting. Of course, the teachers were angry… and many quite hurt when they were ranked poorly. One was a 2nd grade teacher who rated near the bottom (or bottom, don’t remember). She was hurt, demoralized, and felt completely unappreciated. She’d worked diligently to analyze her data and lesson plans… and this was the thanks she got. She’d also had a few medical issues requiring several absences. That may have played a part in it too. Mind you, the school is in a low ses community, and unlike the “top notch” charter schools, we served many, many struggling students & kids w/ behavior problems. The teacher stuck it out another year, but left after having a lack of support from admin – she’d had violent kids in her class, and the kids kept being sent back to the classroom with no consequences. The PARENTS bullied the teacher too… blaming the kids’ problems on her.
I was ranked #4. I was supposed to be pleased with this ranking as being near the top. I was disgusted. It was the ultimate slap in the face to be ranked. I don’t like to be on a pedestal, and I don’t like to feel “less than” either. I appreciate the talents that God has given me; but I also appreciate the talents that God has given others that I don’t have. It’s wrong to rank people. It causes jealously, lack of appreciation for what we have, envy for what we don’t have. I’m not a complainer, but I did complain to the principal about this. She seemed angry that the teachers had all compared notes and was wanting to place blame on them for talking about it. REALLY??!!!
For the following school year, because of this demoralizing ranking, the inevitable happened. Teachers shut their doors and did NOT share with one another. There was silent competition to make sure your students did better than others… no one wanted to be ranked last for fear of being fired. Needless to say, the admin learned from this and did NOT continue the ridiculous ranking the following year. They started to encourage collaboration, and slowly things improved in THAT area. It’s STILL a reform-y school though… I left after hearing “rigor” one too many times. I took a massive pay cut… but am happier being away from that environment. I still live in a reform-y state that is considered “right to work” (for less)… the unions have no power. I now work in a Catholic school… we are not allowed to organize; however, there’s much more emphasis put on appreciating kids (and teachers) for who they are as opposed to what they can do for the image of the school.
Hannah: thank you keeping it real.
Not Rheeal.
😎
“I now work in a Catholic school”
If the plan is to make teaching in public schools so unpalatable that no one with a brain and a heart would continue do it, then the reformers are succeeding.
Alfie Kohn has done such great work on this. If anyone hasn’t already availed themselves of his books No Contest and Punished by Rewards, here is a good article to start with:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/managing/cbdmamam.htm
Great article, Miron!
Most of life’s lessons can be learned by reading Dr. Suess. Teacher stacking sounds like “Yertle the Turtle” to me but fortunately, there are a lot of “turtles” out there named Mack. The business of education has become so pointlessly complicated.