Our regular reader and commenter Laura Chapman offers us another nugget of informed analysis and wisdom:
She writes:
A press release dated NEW YORK, Oct. 28, 2013 /PRNewswire/ announced that The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust was investing $3 million “to establish a rigorous research project to modify and align the Framework for Teaching with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).
This project will happen in four districts. One of these (unnamed) is in NY state.
You can find the application to market the 2013 Danielson Framework in NY state at http://usny.nysed.gov/rttt/teachers-leaders/practicerubrics/Docs/danielson-application.pdf
There you will see that the application required empirical evidence in support of “each rubric.” Whatever that “each rubric” meant, the application was approved with very brief references to eight “empirical” studies, three with more elaborate descriptions of the methodology.
In addition to the questions I asked about the full spectrum applicability of the Danielson protocol, I should have asked about studies that paid attention to the “demographics” in the classrooms observed—the proportional composition of students who qualify for lunch programs, those in gifted programs, special education, students still learning English, recent transfers, and so on.
Every teacher knows how these distributions shift from class to class and make a huge daily difference in what is taught, how, and so on.
For a recent summary of the many problems with this and related high stakes evaluation schemes see Leading via Teacher Evaluation: The Case of the Missing Clothes?
(July, 2013) Joseph Murphy, Philip Hallinger and Ronald H. Heck
Click to access Teacher%20Eval%20-%20Case%20of%20Missing%20Clothes%20-%20Murphy.pdf
See also a 2014 VIP article by David C. Berliner in Teachers College Record. His online summary of the craze to evaluate teachers by flawed methods closes with this great sentence:
“In fact, the belief that there are thousands of consistently inadequate teachers may be like the search for welfare queens and disability scam artists—more sensationalism than it is reality.” http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=17293
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So now we have the Helmsleys in on funding the witch hunt? Funding the push for Common Core? They would do better going into an impoverished neighborhood, pulling a “habitat for humanity” move and fixing up some of the homes, funding a meals on wheels program, and opening up some accounts at Kmart and the like where these families could buy necessaries. Maybe fund a day care center, free to patrons, so they can work and not worry about the price of daycare. But, no…go fund another push down our throats teacher witch hunt…that sounds about right.
Despite the evidence that high stakes teacher evaluations are based on faulty methodology, the State Board of Education in Idaho has proposed to tie high stakes evaluation to licensure. Is there any other profession where license to practice depends on employer evaluations and student test scores? It seems the end game is to destroy the profession.
Diane, I am in one of the Missouri Work Groups who are rewriting Missouri s state standards.. Our state passed a statute which we are following, in hopes of gaining back our local control over education. I need to know if you can help me locate information. Some of the teachers and administrators in our group think we can simply revise the current Missouri Learning Standards.. Missouri purchased a licensure, these standards are the exact same as CCSS in the other states which have adopted them. Aren’t they copyrighted? If a state purchases licensure, does that give them the freedom to go in and change the CCSS? Is there a reference anywhere which has the rules and requirements for states which have adopted the CCSS? We need to see a list of the do ‘ s and don’ts before we go in and simply tweek those CCSS. Thanks for your help, Caroline Perigo Carolineperigo@rocketmail.com cell: 417-592-1563
Sent via the Samsung GALAXY S® 5, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone
Robert Marzano has not taught a single class – zero classroom minutes. He has zero credibilty regarding effective teaching and how it can be accurately evaluated.
The identical broad brush MArzano rubrics are applied to the kindergarten art teacher in an impoverished neighborhood in Rochester and the AP physics teacher in super-affluent Scarsdale High School. Seriously?
Turning qualittaive observations into numbers is just more voodoo math.
Inter-rater-reliability is another serious problem that needs to be addressed.
Placing careers and reputations on the line using these invalid and unreliable teacher evaluation models is simply wrong. And some will say,”just play the game”. Sorry, not this veteran teacher.
Yeah, it’s gotten past goofy, hasn’t it?
Waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
past GOOFY.
They demand evidence from us and have none to back up their snake oil solutions.
Thats not goofy. Thats unacceptable.
We all have a choice to make:
Compliance?
Defiance?
Goodriddance?
Alert everyone you know that when they hear or read “rigorous and grit” linked to CCSS, it is part of the propaganda paid for by the fake corporate driven education reform movement as they brand their product.
Any other key target words being repeated often by this oligarch funded war on public education?
But, Lloyd, I have this at the federal level:
December 15, 2008, 11:31am
As Mike Petrilli at Fordham’s Flypaper explains:
Get ready for another golden era for charter schools. In many ways, the Bill Clinton years were better for charters than the George Bush years. Largely that’s because the press and the public expects Republicans to support choice and charters; it’s much more powerful when Democrats do so. And by all accounts, Arne Duncan loves charter schools. One person told me that Duncan would make every school a charter school if he could. But at the least, he will be an effective advocate for the view that urban districts can use chartering to promote their larger reform agendas. Which means charters are going mainstream.
I have the people in the Obama Administration who would make every school a charter school “if they could” and then I have Ohio state lawmakers ‘n lobbyists, one of whom is on the education committee and goes to work every day with the goal of turning my schools over to White Hat because he says public schools are “socialism”. I pay him for this, by the way. I pay him to undermine public schools.
So what do I get instead of the Common Core, given my two options?
http://reason.org/news/printer/two-reasons-to-like-chicagos-a
Not an expert. This is a legal issue. You can gain some insight by looking at the statute and finding the Missouri Memo of Understanding (MOU) signed by the state superintendent of education or the board of education or other official that deals with the CCSS. It is possible that the statute was passed by people who were clueless about legal obligations that came with the CCSS license.
The other thing to look at is the copyright language and license -to-use policies within the CCSS or the website. Missouri can add standards, but these adds are not to exceed the 15% rule…meaning the quantity you add may not exceed 15% of the total for ELA and 15% of the math standards. Suggest you also look at the frequently asked questions on the website.
I have no idea how the word “standard” is actually defined, because the CCSS are written with a structure approximating an outline with the most detail in parts (a,b,c,d). The number of standards is not constant grade to grade. I have spreadsheets that map the quantity of standards including parts a-e, 1,620 standards.
A lawyer is your best bet, compliance officer, someone who knows the legal obligations in the license.
In the meantime I think you should proceed with doing most thoughtful job of writing that you and your colleagues can, and operate on the theory that you are, in fact, following a mandate to regain local control.
I wonder if one of you would address this question:
http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/school-standards-meetings-have-contentious-start
I’m not an edu-expert, obviously, but I do know how state law works, and my concern or complaint is the same one I have with national charter school promoters: they ignore the reality of state law. Promoting charter schools based on Massachusetts or NY is irresponsible, because MI, OH, FL and PA have vastly different state law regarding regulation, and our “charter sector” is a chaotic, corrupt mess. I don’t care how fabulous KIPP is in Boston. That has nothing whatever to do with the reality in this state.
So what happens if we get rid of Common Core and we don’t live in NY or Massachusetts, the “good ed” states? The leader of the subcommittee on education in my state is a lunatic. His goal is to privatize every public school in the state. He said this, and made national news. My state believes StudentsFirst is a “neutral party” and they just handed 20 public schools over to lobbyists.
if I were to get rid of Common Core would I then be left to what’s happening in Missouri? Where 15 warring political factions are writing “standards” and the state actors are terrified of the Tea Party, so seem to be apologizing for regulating this at all?
I suspect I would. I can’t even imagine what lobbyists in Ohio would do with “standards”.
Horror show. Trust me.
Let’s put a whole host of people the likes of Diane Ravitch, Robert Reich, Peter Gray (look him up if you don’t know about his philosophy), Deborah Meier, Leonie Haimison, Susan O’Hanian, Richard Rothstein, Carol Burris, Rita Solnet (along with parent activists she has met in her organizing), any of the academics from the Economic Policy Institute, Louis CK (great to have a parent’s reaction to common core WHO HAPPENS To BE FAMOUS), Karen Lewis (thank you for all you do), and many of the veteran teachers around the country who engage in education issues whether via blogs like this or groups like MORE or the newly formed Network for Public Education, Monty Neil, Stephen Krashen, Rhode Island high school student activists, and any other students fed up with testing and so many I know I missed (like a LONG and GROWING number of teachers and administrators around this nation)…
Place microphones and video in this large room and do a live broadcast on national tv during prime time! There is a rumble on top of this “snow capped mountain” we call public education and the “ed reform” myth can only be PR’d for so long before the truth is JUST OBVIOUS – an avalanche is coming.
Let us not let our nations’ students be buried. Sorry if none of this commentary fits “squarely” into the Danielson Rubric! Well perhaps I can place it under component 4E, element – service to the profession….
Don’t worry if you don’t know what FFT “4E” and all of its elements are as IT TOO SHALL PASS someday (hopefully sooner rather than later)! Who among us is capable of thinking without this infamous rubric? My hand is raised!
artseagal: what you said.
And you are right that you can’t name everybody, so I will just add three of my favorites: Helen Gym, John Kuhn and Hannah Nguyen.
And for good measure, let’s put honorable numbers/stats people up against the accountabully underlings of the self-styled “education reform” movement.
Let’s see, deutsch29 and Jersey Jazzman and Bruce Baker and GF Brandenburg and Gary Rubinstein and Audrey Amrein-Beardsley speaking about the state of affairs on Planet Reality.
For an exposition of what might or could or should exist on RheeWorld we will see such luminaries as William Sanders and Raj Chetty and Eric Hanushek and Jonah Rockoff and John Friedman, led by “Dr.” Steve Perry whose immortal [if borrowed] phrase “Men lie and women lie but numbers don’t” places him at the head of the rheephorm establishment’s list of numerical luminaries.
Unfortunately for the education status quo, Rheeality Distortion Fields are inoperative on those intent on securing a “better education for all.”
Not surprisingly, the defenders of charters & vouchers & privatization will “pull a Coleman” [also known as a Rhee Flee] and refuse to appear on stage with people who know the difference between large data sets and Michael Jordan, and genuinely understand what Campbell’s Law actually says and means. Lending added weight to what Sojourner Truth said:
“Truth is powerful and it prevails.”
Or as Bill Gates might say, there is a 98% “satisfactory” chance of certainty that VAMania will suffer a grievous, and perhaps fatal, public defeat.
But then again, outliars aren’t outliers among those enabling the mad dog pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$.
Go figure…
😎
Great additions (I heard Kuhn speak and he was amazing). I will look up Hannah Nyugen as I do not know her but am sure I should!
I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it here: Charlotte Danielson is fraud of world-class caliber. She has damaged the lives and careers of tens of thousands of public school teachers and blithely dismisses any kind of responsibility. She will sell her soul for the right price and her ridiculously stupid ‘framework’ is bought and, she claims, misused daily without the slightest guilt or attempt on her part to ensure it be used as she claims she intends.
She is a very dangerous grifter — and she will be remembered for all of the damage she did to the profession of teaching at the bidding and under the payment of Bill Gates. May she be driven out of the profession sooner rather than later.
Refuse to sign-off on your Danielson evaluation.
Chris in Florida… Danielson gave a “read verbatim” powerpoint at of all places “The Teaching and Learning Conference” and did not make time for audience participation… thus defying everything her supposed book and revised and updated editions stand for. She later sat in a large lecture hall to hear the big kahoona – Gates speak and texted while he was talking and left early. Cannot get more telling than this.. “one hideous ed reformer” cannot even follow her own dictates at an “ed reformer” propaganda event!
Hi Diane,
I moderate a forum on teacher evaluation and wanted to post this article, but I wasn’t sure if you are ok with a posting of your article or if you wanted me to link it? This is the forum http://www.gpsnetwork.org/xwiki/bin/view/Group_TeacherEvaluation/Discussions
Just wanted to make sure I handled it correctly. Thanks!