The Rochester Teachers Association is suing the state over its teacher evaluation system, alleging that it does not take into account the impact of poverty on classroom performance.
RTA says the evaluations are “junk science.”
“ALBANY, N.Y. March 10, 2014 – The Rochester Teachers Association today filed a lawsuit alleging that the Regents and State Education Department failed to adequately account for the effects of severe poverty and, as a result, unfairly penalized Rochester teachers on their APPR (Annual Professional Performance Review) evaluations.
“The suit, filed in state Supreme Court in Albany by New York State United Teachers on behalf of the RTA and more than 100 Rochester teachers, argues the State Education Department did not adequately account for student poverty in setting student growth scores on state tests in grades 4-8 math and English language arts. In addition, SED imposed rules for Student Learning Objectives and implemented evaluations in a way that made it more difficult for teachers of economically disadvantaged students to achieve a score of “effective” or better. As a result, the lawsuit alleges the Regents and SED violated teachers’ rights to fair evaluations and equal protection under the law.
“SED computes a growth score based on student performance on state standardized tests, which is then used in teacher evaluations.
“Nearly 90 percent of Rochester students live in poverty. The lawsuit says SED’s failure to appropriately compensate for student poverty when calculating student growth scores resulted in about one-third of Rochester’s teachers receiving overall ratings of “developing” or “ineffective” in 2012-13, even though 98 percent were rated “highly effective” or “effective” by their principals on the 60 points tied to their instructional classroom practices. Statewide, just 5 percent of teachers received “developing” or “ineffective” ratings.
“The State Education Department’s failure to properly factor in the devastating impact of Rochester’s poverty in setting growth scores and providing guidance for developing SLOs resulted in city teachers being unfairly rated in their evaluations,” Iannuzzi said. “Rochester teachers work with some of the most disadvantaged students in the state. They should not face stigmatizing labels based on discredited tests and the state’s inability to adequately account for the impact of extreme poverty when measuring growth.”
“RTA President Adam Urbanski said an analysis of Rochester teachers’ evaluations for 2012-13 demonstrated clearly the effects of poverty and student attendance, for example, were not properly factored in for teachers’ evaluations. As a result, “dedicated and effective teachers received unfair ratings based on student outcomes that were beyond their control. The way the State Education Department implemented the state testing portion of APPR adds up to nothing more than junk science.”
Yes, from a scientific perspective, for an evaluation system to not be junk science, they would have to take hundreds of teachers in a blind survey, have them teach poor students for a year, and then rich students for a year, and get results within very close tolerances. All they are measuring with their current systems are the students, hence when they claim to measure teachers, the conclusion of junk science is accurate.
TC: quite so.
And an important step in debunking “junk science” is making the whole VAManiacal process transparent and public. For example, no secret copyrighted or protected formulae that only a select few are privy to. Put it out where everyone can see it, comment on it, and weigh its strengths and weaknesses both theoretical and practical.
Openness to public scrutiny has proven to be an achilles heel of the self-styled “education reformers.” As soon as one takes even a cursory look at their major initiatives and ideas, e.g., $1 billion for iPads, anyone?—
They fall apart.
I look forward to this moving ahead in the courts.
😎
1) Which acronym will soon be used to identify the current education reform movement
driven by CCSS, aligned testing, and VAM evaluations?
a) NCLB
b) RTTT
c) PARCC
d) NALU
2) Which phrase does the acronym NALU represent?
a) No Child Left Behind
b) Race To The Top
c) Partnership for Assessment of of Readiness of
College and Careers
d) No Attorney Left Unemployed
No, it’s e) FUBAR
Touche
Yeah!! NYSUT… this should turn into a bigger class action law suit. The 5% of teachers across the rest of the state who recieved a score of developing or ineffective from the state are probably teachers who work with children whose lives are heavily impacted by poverty, disability or a language barrier. My guess would be that perhaps .002% of experienced teachers in the state might be considered developing or ineffective.
NYSED also has a very serious ANONYMITY problem here.
In every small school district in NYS, teachers can be personally identified by their test sores. If you are the only 7th grade math teacher in your district, everyone knows your student’s passing/failing %. Now that a 2 is “not failing” maybe less of an issue, but still unfair none the less.
Way to go, RTT
got my letters wrong….LOL RTA
VAM: The Scarlet Letter. A talk given to the School Board of Palm Beach County, FL.
Many more teacher’s associations should do the same.
Of course, most discussions of VAM do not address the use of “student learning objectives” (SLOs) and the variant “student growth objectives (SGOs) for the estimated 70 % of teachers who have job assignments for which there are no VAM measures.
Writing up a SLO/SGO is exactly like setting a sales target for a year or course, only teachers are required to set targets for increasing student test scores from the start of the year/course to the end of the year/course. Teachers must use approved pre-and post-tests (usually at the district or state level). Teachers are first evaluated on: a) the completeness and accuracy of the SLO as a written assignment. A typical SLO/SGO requires the teacher to meet about 25 criteria, including citations of research in support of any instructional strategies they will use, the standards they will address, and so on. Typically, this SLO/SGO cannot be modified after an “evaluator” has approved it. Principals are not supposed to be the “evaluator” if they are being judged by the quality of SLO/SGOs their teachers prepare.
Then there is another step. At the end of the year/course the teacher is evaluated on whether their students’ test scores are within the range the teacher has set as a target. There is usually a minimum score for a target, such as 70% of all students will score above 80 on a test X, but this threshold is set higher if students’ pre-test scores are high. Teacher who fail to meet their targets are branded ineffective.
There is no solid peer-reviewed research that supports this evaluation system that ends with a stack ranking of all teachers in a district or state who have job alike teaching assignments (e.g., by grade and subject). See more about SLOs/SGOs in this just-published report:
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/edlabs/projects/project.asp?projectID=380
Adam Urbanski, head of the RTA, has had an accommodationist attitude toward the so-called reformers. Hopefully, he now recognizes what snakes they are, and that they lie and renege on everything.
Seems like Mr. Urbanski has decided to lead on this instead of remaining an accommodationist. It is a riskier role to play. I hope that he is up to the task.
Glad it happened, surprised it took this long.
They needed to actually implement it before they could really sue against it. Anything prior to that is theoretical which is not something the law deals with well and having a particular form of evaluation isn’t in and of itself against the law….until it’s implemented and shown to be unfair.
RTA
You should consider showing the campaign ad in court where NYs chief engineer for APPR calls the Pearson/CCSS tests, “premature, the cause of anxiety [in children], and unfair. I will not allow test scores to be held against them.”
This campaign quote should effectively end the use of Pearson tests for APPR evaluations. Cuomo has essentially told all of the students and parents of NY that this years tests DO NOT COUNT. Our governor has thrown ice water on any student motivated to try their best.
But I will allow their test scores to be used against their teachers, despite the fact that I believe they are premature, promote student anxiety, and are unfair [invalid].
It’s about time somebody stands up to those who demonize teachers by using illegitimate measures of effectiveness. I hope the RTA bashes them flat in the courtroom.