After Kafkateach stated that his/her VAM scores were poor because he/she is a teacher of gifted students and have no way to go higher, this response came from Chris in Florida:
We’re in this together here in Florida, kafkateach. I am National Board certified, have 2 masters degrees (only 1 is in education), 20+ years of experience, and was named a Teacher of the Year by three different programs in my district.
Now my Title I school is graded “F” after they hiked the cut scores yet again last year and I will be following you to the unemployment office in another year or two. Should be interesting to see how they plan to staff the school after they have fired the roughly 85% of us who work in “failing” schools around the state.
My VAM came from 4th and 5th graders’ scores — students I have never taught because I moved to this school a couple of years ago, and I teach 1st grade.
Here is my advice to teachers who are unfairly rated by the spurious method called “value-added assessment”: Sue them.
VAM was first developed by an agricultural statistician, not an educator. It has been imposed by the U.S. Department of Education as a condition of applying for Race to the Top funding.
It has no basis in science, unless you are a vegetable or a grain.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So why isn’t the AFT or NEA filing a class action lawsuit? If I HAD to belong to a union, I would probably sue the union for not suing the US DOE.
Good question. I completely agree. Unfortunately the unions were an active part of getting teachers to sign on to this crap because it was an Obama baby. If Bush had tried to push VAM on the schools they would of fought against it.
They “would have” not “would of”…
A Newark teacher points out she can’t file an individual lawsuit, so asks Diane, Why isn’t Randi doing that?
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/2014/03/newark-teacher-gives-thanks-and-advice.html
Diane, Randi sold Newark out in this contract. If she’s really on our side, she has to step up and make it right by really fighting for Newark.
So far, she’s used it as a photo op to burnish her union image, while delivering it to the privatizers with a shameful contract.
VAM: The Scarlet Letter. A talk given to the School Board of Palm Beach County, FL.
Andy………..I loved your video. I wish you could make it to all school board meetings in Fl.
We could make tee shirts that say VAM is a SHAM
Duane has commented on the blog that we need to read carefully through Neil Wilson’s “psychometric fudge” explanations. It is not enough to be reactionary in this debate… as teachers, professional educators, etc we need to be informed and have facts and understanding of the issues. Opinions are helpful in gathering the words we need to keep close but it is the precision of the professional writers and researchers that we need to gather as well (like many of the good people who comment here in dialogue with Diane).
Who is the ag statistician mentioned in this post? Thanks!
Emmy: I am sure to a 98% “satisfactory” [thank you, Bill Gates!] chance of certainty that this reference should give a good start to a google search:
[start quote]
Dr. William L. Sanders, an adjunct professor at the University of Tennessee College of Business Administration and station statistician at the UT Agricultural Institute, devised such a “value-added” statistical model for assessing student achievement with standardized tests in the early 1980s, in hopes of being able to parse out and quantify school and teacher effects on student achievement as measure by standardized tests. … With an uncanny knack for honing in on what policymakers were looking for, a talent that would serve him in the years to come, Dr. Sanders presented an assessment plan for accountability purposes that assured the General Assembly, as well as the general public, that they could reasonably expect significant levels of gains on test scores regardless of socioeconomic or ability differences. Rather than concentrating on the wide gap in raw testy scores between students from underfunded communities and those in richer communities with adequate education resources, Sanders urged the General Assembly to focus their efforts on rate of student progress on tests, which he argued could be measured independent of structural inadequacies responsible for vast disparities in achievement levels. Equally important to state officials, politicians, and to the business community, was Dr. Sanders’ claim that his assessment model could reliably identify and quantify the effects of teachers on student test scores, thus providing a method for applying accountability that could be directed toward educators for whatever results ensued. In short, Sanders’ claims offered policy makes a surefire rationale for turning attention further from financial inputs for education and toward student test score outputs. In short, the Sanders Model offered the missing link to a coherent legislative package for education reform based on on accountability and measurable results that minimized political and economic risk for policymakers and the business community, while offering the media and the public an easily readable measuring stick that could be used against schools, teachers, and students, as situations might merit. As a result, the attention that may have accrued in earlier years to the continued shrinkage in education funding in Tennessee was effectively shifted toward outcomes that allowed disparities in learning opportunities to continue largely unchallenged by a public bedazzled by charts, graphs, and numbers that plotted winners and losers in an undeclared race with increasingly high stakes and no finish line in sight.
[end quote]
Jim Horn and Denise Wilburn, THE MISMEASURE OF EDUCATION (2013, pp. 64-65]
Hope this helps.
😎
I like the advice of “sue them” but this is a long drawn out process, and it is one at a time (I have a friend whose daughter is considering her second suit and her dad said “you will never work in public schools again” if you do)… Also, I believe the lawyers at Pearson et al have already protected their firms from any lawsuits that would come from teachers… so do you sue your local school committee? aren’t the school committee members also victims? … unless you would
like to try to sue Bill gates? It is emotionally helpful I guess to have people tell you that there is enough evidence for a lawsuit but the process can take forever and you are still only one individual… does the lawsuit even if you win have any practical implications beyond the individual’s case (I guess if you have 20 years to wait)? The social pressures and advocacy groups have worked perhaps in terms of Randi W not agreeing to take Gates money; we need to keep the pressures on the groups that are co-opted by these funds from the plutocrat Gates…. CCSO sold out the public schools when they signed on with the governor’s strong arms to buy into the Pearson/PARCC etc. etc. One lawsuit at a time won’t help with this power that we are faced with.
I did have a general point within the above text; Ed Markey writes to Arne Duncan about the take over of corporate firms in data gathering from student records and homes …
And Duncan writes a cavalier, shallow response back that the federal government is “flexible” and after all it is the responsibility of the school committee to see that the vendors are doing their job and not violating standards etc or using the data in inappropriate ways. So it is the same thing as the “junk” in North Carolina that gets dumped into the river and the governor and the regulators are in “cahoots” with the corporate. The Duncan – to Governor – CCSSO link is firmly established with corporate and policy; this is a much bigger nut to crack. And, Duncan places the responsibility on the local school committee after putting the gun to the governor/commissioners heads? If you see it any differently please tell me.
Another cherished belief yields to reality on the ground:
“Six years after Minneapolis schools broke the iron grip of seniority in filling teaching positions, the disparity in teacher experience remains as wide as ever, with the least-experienced teachers still concentrated at the city’s high-poverty schools.
At Bethune Elementary on the North Side, nearly two-thirds of the teaching staff is in its first five years of teaching. The average experience among teachers there has dropped from 18 years to nine, making it one of four high-poverty elementary or K-8 schools where the staff averages fewer than 10 years of experience. The 44-teacher school has absorbed 28-plus new teachers in the last six years.
A Star Tribune analysis of teacher experience data by school found that, if anything, the experience gap between high- and low-poverty schools has widened since the change in how teachers are hired or assigned to schools.
Lucy Laney now averages seven years of classroom experience per teacher, the least among district schools with elementary grades, down from 12 years before the change in how teachers were assigned to schools.
In contrast, the higher-income Dowling Elementary in southeast averages 22 years of teacher experience.
Melander said that the change in the teacher contract that freed up principals from having to hire the most-senior applicants may actually have hurt schools like hers. Under the previous decades-old system, more senior teachers were given priority in school assignments.”
http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/251729311.html
Would median years of teaching experience be better indicator? For a 44-teacher school to have 28 new faculty over six years could mean two retirements, one move because of spouse’s job, one decision to be full-time parent each year; not disastrous if university teacher ed programs are effective. If student teaching placements are with high-quality teachers, the new hires will attempt to replicate best practices. For the school with “average” of seven years– if a teacher hasn’t figured out what s/he doing with students’ time by third year, kids aren’t going to benefit from having that individual as a teacher.
FL VAM and AIR have quite a history… more needs to be written about the ties…
1. AIR representative was selected by THE DOE as a “reviewer of applications” for the ESEA waivers.
http://www.air.org/news/press-release/air-vice-president-sabrina-laine-selected-us-education-department-review-state
2. Fl has already paid AIR early $4 million from its Race to the Top dollars, “Florida contracted with the American Institutes for Research in Washington, D.C., to develop the complex [VAM] formula.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/07/florida-teacher-evaluatio_n_1079758.html
Is this a way for Fl to reward AIR financially using different revenue streams and at the same time making it look like we had cost savings from FCAT?
3. AIR has ties to Bush’s FEE.
“For the last two years, AIR partnered with the Foundation to develop a statistically-sound growth model to measure annual academic growth of Florida students in reading and math using four years of data provided by the Florida Department of Education. ”
http://www.air.org/news/press-release/american-institutes-research-supports-foundation-excellence-education’s-selection
Seems to me that AIR has had a very cozy relationship with Florida… and kids and teachers are suffering the consequences of that cozy relationship.
It will take lawsuits to eliminate the root unfairness of VAM. I’m not sure you have standing yet, but when you are fired you will be able so show injury. But how will you live during the 5 years needed for it to get to the Supreme Court? Maybe you should sue now.
As you mentioned, you have to have standing to sue, and no one will have standing until someone is fired. It’s a catch-22.
Louisiana Purchase, teachers have been fired because of inaccurate measures in VAM. Let the lawsuits commence.
What?!
Assuming there’s some diagnostic value in a comparison of schools or/and teachers, they’re meaningless comparisons unless you look at the student composition first.
I believe most US Public Schools are trying to have integrated classes that mix in some Hi-IQ with very slow students. You can argue back and forth whether this is a good idea ( I think it is) but it’s reality. There’s also the issue of what the student wants and their personal pace of development, not to mention some schools in low-income areas have very special needs. In the best of circumstances it’s ‘luck of the draw’ if you’re trying to evaluate teachers without looking at the student they’re trying to help.
It seems to me the effect of this VAM is to penalize the most competent or experienced teachers!
One possible answer: The nonentities making up these tests are the “vegetables”.
On Friday, March 14, The Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents hosted a panel of education attorneys to address the following topic:
LEGAL IMPLICATIONS OF NEW YORK STATE’S NEW TEACHER AND PRINCIPAL EVALUATION SYSTEMS
Supervision, Evaluation & Tenure Decisions
• What is the effect of Education Law §3012-c on a school district’s ability to terminate probationary teachers and principals?
• How might overly prescriptive, rigid statutory and regulatory policy frameworks, such as §3012-c, regarding teacher evaluation, tenure, and employment decisions withstand teacher and principal appeals?
Statistical Reliability and Validity of Data in Supervision, Evaluation & Tenure Decisions
• How might the statistical reliability and validity of measures of teaching effectiveness – state assessments, VAM, SLO’s, school-wide assessment scores – affect teacher evaluation, tenure, and employment decisions?
• How will the metric of ‘confidence intervals’ be considered in a legal decision about a teacher’s effectiveness?
• How will the number of years of value-added assessment data to determine teacher quality be a factor in a teacher or principal appeal?
• In what ways will the use of locally-developed assessments, such Student Learning Objectives (SLOs), be challenged in an appeal?
• How will the individual evaluation of a teacher based on school-wide data, such as the 4th grade math assessment, withstand an appeal?
Implementation, Professional Development, and Resources
• How will such factors as consistency, training, and quality be considered in observations and evaluations developed by supervisors?
• How will equity issues, such as the access to materials (e.g., Common Core units) or technology, be a factor in an appeal?
• Experts in child and adolescent development have asked for a review of the Common Core to ensure that all of the standards are developmentally appropriate.
Since assessments are being developed on the basis of Common Core and teachers and principals being assessed accordingly, how will the aforementioned concerns be considered?
Other References
“Evaluation Law Could Limit Ability to Terminate Probationary Teachers”; Warren Richmond III (Harris Beach), New York Law Journal, (May 2013)
“Legal Issues in the Use of Student Test Scores and VAM to Determine Educational Quality”; Diana Pullin, Education Policy Analysis (2010 Manuscript)
In addition to these references, we have posted other related legal articles on the main page of our website: http://www.lhcss.org. We have also raised other concerns about the model that we have shared with state legislators, members of the Board of Regents, officials at the State Education Department and with representatives of the governor’s office. There are many other questions that will need to be answered once this enters the legal arena.
We shared that many in our organization have concerns that a) the design of reform model is flawed on multiple levels; b) the expedited and unsupported implementation will further contribute to inevitable legal challenges; c)the weak technical basis and very limited or no research behind elements of the model will not withstand legal challenges. These are just a few of our concerns. As a result, school districts will be wasting even more time and money on legal costs. Unless significant changes are made on the basis of substantive evidence, New York’s reform model is headed for trouble that will move beyond the anxiety and frustration of over-tested students, angry parents, weary teachers, and harried administrators.