This is a great story about the stupidity of the New York state teacher evaluation model (a value-added model), which is inaccurate and causes untold grief to teachers who are wrongly labeled. It arrived as a comment on the blog. This teacher is fighting back!
Sheri G. Lederman, Ed.D., a top performing fourth-grade teacher in Great Neck, today filed a lawsuit against the New York State Education Department, to invalidate a rating of “ineffective.” Judge Richard Platkin of the New York State Supreme Court, Albany County, directed the Education Department to show cause on January 16, 2015, why the rating of Dr. Lederman, whose student’s generally outperform state assessments by over 200%, should not be declared arbitrary and capricious and why the Education Department should not be enjoined from using its so-called growth model for evaluating teachers unless the model is modified to rationally evaluate teacher performance.
The lawsuit which was filed today in Albany explains that Dr. Lederman has been teaching 4th grade in Great Neck for 17 years. In those 17 years, students in her classes have consistently substantially outperformed state averages in English Language Arts exams and 4th grade math exams. For the past two years, when the percentage of students across the state of students meeting or exceeding standards is only about 31%, approximately 68% of Dr. Lederman’s students have historically met or exceeded state standards.
Dr. Lederman’s lawsuit challenges the rationality of the statistical model presently being implemented by the Education Department which purports to predict what scores theoretically similar students should achieve and then rates teachers on whether they can show that they have caused growth in their students compared to so-called similar students predicted by a computer model.
The lawsuit alleges that the New York State Growth Measures (or Student Growth Model or State Provided Growth Model or Value Added Model), as presently being implemented by Respondents, actually punishes excellence in education through a statistical black box which no rational educator or fact finder could see as fair, accurate or reliable.
For More information please contact Bruce H. Lederman, Esq, 516 551 0446
I am so glad that the junk science of VAM is finally being challenged in the courts. Maybe it’s the beginning of the end of the Gates funded self-fulfilling reign of error.
Let’s hope the NY teacher has better success than the one who sued in Florida. There, a judge ruled that it didn’t matter if the ratings were inaccurate.
For anyone interested, below is a link to a site where you can read the actual lawsuit papers.
https://copy.com/gINOBAtg3zIEAJjA
Nice Blog Post about this lawsuit appeared today in Valerie Strauss’s Washington Post blog.
http://wapo.st/1tmJg62
Finally. Dr. Sheri Lederman, you have all the nation’s teachers lifting you up. Now bring VAM crashing down.
Can you, your attorney, or anyone reading this recommend an attorney willing to challenge the validity of Tennessee’s TEM 4.0 process. 1. The observations are biased and conducted the same across the state or the district. 2. The grievance process is unclear and hidden. 3. The TVAAS scores cannot be explained, for example my 4th graders last year were .1% chance of making proficient, many scored within 5 points of being proficient, but I was still rated a level 1 in spite of their performance. 4. The Tripod survey is worded to confuse an educated adult? And contains questions that are not related to the teacher or classroom practices.
Thank you in advance. Best of luck to all the teachers standing up to the system that they serve. Our kids deserve strong respected teachers.
Michelle Hollis
chelmfd@yahoo.com
“The lawsuit which was filed today in Albany explains that Dr. Lederman has been teaching 4th grade in Great Neck for 17 years. In those 17 years, students in her classes have consistently substantially outperformed state averages in English Language Arts exams and 4th grade math exams.”
Sigh. None of that makes her a good teacher. It just means she lives in an affluent area where kids typically outperform state averages. If test scores are not a valid measure of teacher performance, then they’re still not a valid measure of teacher performance even when the scores are high. Can’t have it both ways.
Besides, who cares what percentage of her students meet or exceed state standards? How many of them love learning? My daughter’s school had a day off for conferences this past Friday, so Sunday felt like a Monday. My daughters were actually disappointed not to be going to school yesterday. Now that’s a top-performing school.
Fair points. However VAM (and SLOs) cannot be debunked by polling kids to see if they love learning. Disparities in test data certainly point to serious reliability problems. Without reliability there can be no validity. Frankly most of us in NY could care less about her legal strategy. We know that if this can be presented to reasonably objective judge, that the APPR has no chance in a court of law.
I know you are not speaking for me, NY Teacher, and I respectfully disagree with you. A law suite that challenges VAM in any aspect is a step forward for all educators.
Not every judge is reasonable, and if she can question the legality of how theoretical these lofty statistical models are and how esoteric they are to people whoa re even well versed in statistics (as far as their application to the context of APPR), then, this can be a pivotal case, as pivotal as Vergara.
We need every subatomic particle of ammunition we can get in fighting a war that has been launched against us.
Please let’s not minimize this teacher’s law suit.
Excellence in pedagogy is not a guarantee for a test score. It increases the chances of a better score, but it is not, nor should it be, an if-then statement . . . . . .
Not to mention that Ms. Lederman’s lawsuit can showcase how VAM is wrongfully crowding out the notion of oral language development and the horrific effects of poverty.
I for one support this teacher. I grew up in the neighboring town of Great Neck, where this teacher is based, and Great Neck residents have a well deserved reputation and local community culture for speaking their minds and using the process of law as a tool to achieve justice.
More power to Ms. Lederman . . . . .
Remember, NY Teacher, that her victory is ours as well. She senses that too, I can guarantee . . . . .
Maybe I didn’t make my point clear RR. I am 100% in favor of this law suit. The reliability/validity/really bad science behind APPR will go down in flames in a court of law. There is a good reason that not one single teacher in NYS has lost their job because of APPR – Cuomo, King, and the rest of the clown car brigade knows that it will not withstand a legal challenge. Especially with 700 different APPR agreements across the state. Cuomo first move after being re=elected will be to push a statewide APPR plan – one ring to rule us all. I will not be surprised if he also tries tie every teacher in the state to CC math and ELA tests – under the guise of reducing testing by eliminating all local pre and post tests. Then he can bring the hammer down. Or so he thinks.
I see, NY Teacher.
Cuomo is generally a vile beast, more hideous than Medusa and more deadly than the Hydra. Despite his many heads, he has very little grey matter.
But one cannot assume a court will be fair. Look what happened in Florida, where I guess in the sunshine state, Goofy or Dopey can become a judge.
Let’s hope she wins this case and all appeals on it.
NOT everyone up in NYSED is evil or the enemy, but it seems that the higher you go, the more disconnect there is, and therein lies much of the problem.
I am keeping my fingers crossed for Ms. Lederman.
If teachers were being rated on the love of learning, there would not be a problem. Most kids I have taught like school even in the middle years. I wonder if they could make a standardized rubric to measure the love of learning and kill that too. I am very happy to see that Dr. Lerderman is challenging some of the chaos in the halls. I think the more teachers that step up is for the better. Dienne, then your daughter can continue to love school along with all the others.
But she’s not really challenging anything. She’s just saying that she is a “top performer” because of her kids’ test scores. So long as we buy into the deformers rhetoric that test scores have anything to do with being a good student or a good teacher, then only kids who can go to the few progressive schools left will love learning. If we want all students to love learning, we have to throw out all standardized measures.
In response to Dianne’s comment, the lawsuit does indeed challenge the growth model. We are saying much more than that Sheri is just top performing teacher. With virtually similar student results in 2012/2013 and 2013/2014, Sheri Scored 14 points in 2012/2013 but only 1 point in 2013/2014. we believe this shows that there is no reliability to the growth model as implemtned in NY. We also question, fundamentally, the fact that there is no transparency to the rating system and no possible appeal if you think there is an error in the state’s calculation of your growth scores.
The Ed Department’s attitude is “you get what you get and don’t get upset,” and this is simply wrong.
We are due back in Court for a hearing on Jan 16, and welcome suggestions from anyone who has info that might help or just wants to be in Court to show support. Thanks
Sheri’s Lawyer
” If test scores are not a valid measure of teacher performance, then they’re still not a valid measure of teacher performance even when the scores are high. Can’t have it both ways.”
Quite correct Dienne!
Let’s hope that the plaintiffs highlight the big gun, intellectually speaking, when it comes to validity, or make that the invalidity of the whole educational standards and standardized testing regime on which VAM is based, Noel Wilson and his never rebuked nor rebutted 1997 “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error”.
Not only that but also his Wilson, Noel. (2007, April 26). “A :Little Less Than Valid: An Essay Review.” Education Review, 10(5) of American Educational Research Association; American
Psychological Association; National Council on Measurement in
Education. (2002). “Standards for Educational and Psychological
Testing.”
From:
http://edrev.asu.edu/essays/v10n5index.html
“As a test maker I worked for the Australian Council for Educational Research for six years. As a result I had always regarded this book in its previous incarnations as a sort of bible, a reference of last resort. So not until I wrote my Ph D thesis on Educational Standards and the Problem of Error did I subject the 1985 version of Standards to a more critical analysis (Wilson, 1997). As that analysis was not overly complimentary, I thought it only fair to look at the 2002 version with similar critical gaze. As before, I focus on validity. Why? Because, as the good book says, ‘Validity is, therefore, the most fundamental consideration in developing tests’ (p. 9).
I concur. If the test event is not valid, if indeed the test is invalid, then all else is vain and illusory.”
Speaking of that never refuted nor rebutted dissertation: “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at:
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A description of a quality can only be partially quantified. Quantity is almost always a very small aspect of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category only by a part of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as unidimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing the descriptive information about said interactions is inadequate, insufficient and inferior to the point of invalidity and unacceptability.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the logical errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. And a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms crap in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it attempts to measure “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
By Duane E. Swacker
Yep, you are 100% right! (College and Career Ready!). The way to end this nonsense is to go after the validity of high stakes testing, period… not to hide behind “high scores” in the past.
FYI — We are, indeed, challenging the validity of the tests itself. In this case, with similar students and similar scores in 2012/2013, Sheri was awarded 14 out of 20 points, but a year later, with no explanation and no material change in student scores, she was only awarded 1 out of 20 points. This shows a serious problem with validity. We are also challenging the lack of transparency which makes it impossible to know what the Ed Department is even considering in issuing a rating of “ineffective.”
Sheri’s lawyer, please read comments of other teachers who received low ratings even though their subject is not tested. Crazy.
Bruce — Are you able to post the complaint? It’s not on the electronic docket.
I’ve been following all the various comments and am amazed at the number of ways the NY state scoring system is irrational.
As Diane mentioned above, in an early post, there was an unsuccessful lawsuit in Florida challenging rating teachers based on results that were from students the rated teachers did not even teach. That case is on appeal and I hope the appellate courts step in and reverse. I’ve spoken with some counsel for that case and wish them well. The Florida case appears to me to be grounded in a constitutional challenge. Our case is based on a standard in Article 78 of NY’s laws that allows anyone to challenge government action that are arbitrary and capricious. That means that government actions cannot be irrational and made without regard to facts. The Florida teachers made the same arguments, but I I am hoping for better results in ny by focusing on the arbtitrary and capricious standard rather than arguing about the constitution.
As someone who has been litigating for over 30 years, it’s hard for me think of more irrational state action than I am seeing here. I will try have my office set up a link where anyone can look at the papers we filed. Once I have the papers posted, I’ll post the link.
Dienne: your points are well taken.
And I agree generally with what Duane Swacker writes below.
But the way I see it, challenging VAM and SGM and the like on their own merits, using their own criteria, is effective, because it forces those using them as bludgeons against public schools and those teaching and learning in them, to explain just what they are and how they are used and prove that they actually measure anything important and are reliable and trustworthy.
Is the discussion somewhat distorted and narrowed by being part of a legal suit and because it fits within a numerical straightjacket fashioned by edubullies and edufrauds and accountabully underlings? Sure. But those are the conditions under which we are operating now. And just consider—
Getting VAM and the other creatures of the night out into the sunshine of public disclosure is fatal to their continued existence.
Remember: there isn’t a point in the self-styled “education reform” playbook that can’t be refuted in open and honest debate. That’s why such folks as Michelle Rhee and David Coleman, for example, waffle and wiggle and then flee screaming in fear from getting up on a public platform with Diane Ravitch.
The legal system isn’t exactly the best forum, but if handled right, Dr. Lederman should land some telling blows.
Just my dos centavitos worth…
😎
” If test scores are not a valid measure of teacher performance, then they’re still not a valid measure of teacher performance even when the scores are high. ”
Agreed.
I also agree with you Krazy TA that it’s a good tactic to force the VAMpyres to appear in court in broad daylight — so you can drive a stake through their heart (if they have one).
“VAM pyres”
VAM pyres raging all around
Chetty papers on the ground
Politicians everywhere
Fleeing from the fiery err
TAGO!
Or as some of the students I worked with would have said:
SomeDAM POET, you da bomb!
😎
Dienne,
Your daughters school is one where teachers have no due process rights and are not required to be certified, is that correct?
The evaluation system is inaccurate, flawed, can’t be explained as far as formula to determine teacher effectiveness. The evaluators have to much power in that they are removed from the classroom and don’t know what kids need. Nor, do the evaluators know what they are looking for.
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé.
I hope that Dr. Sheri Lederman has followed Dr. Bruce Baker who has been researching the VAMs and SLOs and predicted that this would come to court!
And add to your list the American Association of Statistics, which decries VAM . . . . .
The current system to evaluate teachers in New York State school districts is in shambles. This is a fraud being perpetrated by the NY State Education Department imposed on school districts. I am a science teacher with 36 years experience in a “high performing” district for the last 18 years. When 100% of my students passed the Living Environment Regents, with 85 % of them achieving mastery, I was rated as “effective”. As my district superintendent has noted publicly, this evaluation process must be totally replaced. Districts are spending a fortune and reducing valuable instructional time on this ineffective (to use NYSED’s term) method to evaluate teachers. What a waste of the taxpayers’s money!
My admin just gave me a 19 out of 20 for my first observation. He said he is not giving anyone the full 20 because it might trigger an audit from the state if they see perfect scores. That logic alone invalidates the entire process. I would love to see NYSUT file a lawsuit that individual teachers can join if they wish. I’d also sign up for some sort of no-confidence vote against King and the Board of Regents.
He is correct. any outliers on the high side are flagged by the computer programs and the person who awards these is subject to audit. In addition, the correlations among VAM ( or SLOs), observations, and student surveys are supposed to be relatively high. In other words, the computer is programed to honor congruence in the measures.
I’ve told my local president to get ready. If need be, I’m taking this as far as I need to if I’m deemed ineffective or developing this year. I honestly thought I was going to beat Dr. Leaderman to it. In my district, there is very little evidence (cough) of inter-rater reliability amongst our administration; each is as each does. Evidently, SED seems to have forgotten about special education teachers when they came up with SLOs, APPRs, and their VAM B.S. There seems to be no consistency or uniformity from one district to the next. In my district, for my SLO, I am evaluated on 51% of my students’ (w/IEPs only) end-of-the-year exams. Last year I was evaluated on the growth (read: achievement) of THREE students. In September, I had to predict (with my invisible crystal ball) how these students with language-based reading disabilities were going to perform (I mean “show growth”) on the NYS Comprehensive English Regents exam in June, based on their pre-test scores. I am not a content area teacher. I teach strategies and techniques to students so they may compensate for learning differences.
I have my evidence folder and I have my EVIDENCE folder.
Happy to send you my research on SLOs. Send request to chapmanLH@aol.com
No validity, No reliability. Just hype and a desire to micromanage teachers. Four studies from USDE reviewed, plus the marketing campaign.
If you are Sheri and would like more information on the multitude of errors that result in many “invalidities” in these educational malpractices please feel free to contact me at dswacker@centurytel.net and I’ll be happy to send you any information that I have or discuss it with you.
I am so excited about this lawsuit!! After just reading about CA making it easier to fire “bad teachers” this was refreshing. Thankfully there are some rational folks in positions of authority.
Go get ’em Dr. Lederman. Hang in there.
After only reading the title of the article, I was about to suggest that the teacher sue for damages, as two teachers have done so here in Tennessee and brought teacher evaluation via VAM to a halt (or at least a pause). The burden of proof in such a lawsuit rests on those who would punish based on such an evaluation, which cannot be shown to measure ANYTHING.
I see, however, that this NY teacher has already had excellent advice, and is pursuing the same strategy. I hope she can not only recover her lost salary, but money to compensate her for the time and energy needed to pursue such a case against the likes of the Cuomo syndicate, as well as the psychic ‘pain and suffering’ she had to endure along the way. Bravo!
“. . . which cannot be shown to measure ANYTHING.”
Quite correct John, quite correct!!
As a special education teacher, I have been given an “ineffective” rating. Now, understand that this rating is based on 100 points, 60 of which come from direct observation. Of those 60 points, I was given 58 points….can’t argue with that. My ineffective rating is SOLELY created by my VAM on my students’ NYS test scores. Most of my career has be spent teaching children with significant speech and language impairments, auditory processing delays and short-term memory deficits. They are all at least 3 years behind academically when they come to me, yet they are tested at grade level, based on their chronological age. My students ALL learn, just not as fast as their peers and not at the same level. Asking them to take a test that is years beyond their ability and then using their scores to judge my teaching is ABSURD….and why NYSED doesn’t get this is beyond me!
I’ll be anxiously watching Dr. Lederman’s case.
We’re ALL behind you!
I thank that universe everyday that you keep bringing stories like this to light Diane…thanks again for give the rest of us the facts we need to present our case (to both our peers and the public at large)!!!
Let the suits begin. As a retired Union President, I knew it was a matter of time. We had to wait for damages to come in. Now that damages are here- results that could jeopardize either present or future employment, it is my hope that every teacher who is rated less than they deserve based on past evaluations takes this forward.
I have been waiting for 2 years for someone to take this to court. Thank you Dr.Lederman- I wish you all the best, and many of us will be following your case in hopes it brings this destructive, horrid APPR to an end.
My only concern regarding this suit is the degree of “harm” inflicted by the evaluation. Does being unfairly labeled “ineffective” reach a level of harm (slander?) sufficient enough to invalidate the APPR policy negotiated in the Great Neck school district? Legal proceedings are not necessarily about justice. They are about laws. Time will tell.
We are all rooting for you – and for all who follow you.
“For the past two years, when the percentage of students across the state of students meeting or exceeding standards is only about 31%, approximately 68% of Dr. Lederman’s students have historically met or exceeded state standards.”
This district spends $33,000 per student (elementary school teachers can make as much as $140,000); 92% of that is funded by local property taxes. Only 6% of the district’s students qualify for a free lunch, 4% are LEP, 7% are Latino, and somehow, in a community in the heart of the NYC metropolitan area, a stone’s throw from the borough of Queens, just 1% are black. The median home value is $800,000 or so; the median household income is $90,000. Many of the residents are close-knit multi-generational Persian, Korean, and Chinese families who are passionate about education and who moved to Great Neck expressly for the schools.
Perhaps the judge assigned to this case won’t have heard the argument that schools are only as good as their students, or that these tests are a proxy for family income, education level, and involvement, and he or she will be impressed by this 68-31% comparison. Otherwise, unless the teacher can prove she was somehow assigned a disproportionate share of the district’s scant number of at-risk students, 68% might not say what the plaintiff thinks it says.
Interesting. I had thought Great Neck property taxes were fairly reasonable (at least compared to the hellfire of Westchester County).
I started my response but deleted it for fear of tracking and punishment.
Let’s put it this way. I’ve been teaching for 18 years. My band ALWAYS gets 1st place regardless of the requirements, expectations and standards of each competition. The first year of APPR I was highly effective, the second – ineffective. Why? Because of the 50% rule, seat time rule and the whole school score. Observation: 60/60. SLO: 2/20 Local: 11/20. Why was the SLO so low? My band’s pretest was so high, there was hardly room for improvement. Why was it so high?? So many took the same pretest as the previous year. Because of seat time, my lower every day student numbers compared to my 1/4 time student numbers is so disproportionate that it counteracts the every day students. Never mind the successes that we have – that 14 question test determines if I am a good teacher or not. Oh – and the Danielson rubric??? It is set up to destroy performance-based classes. All 4’s are “student-led”. Sorry…my bass clarinet player cannot tell a trombone player how to play his instrument. I’ll just take my 3 and leave, thanks. Nor does the 14 question test make them play their concerts any better.
Reblogged this on peakmemory and commented:
“The lawsuit alleges that the New York State Growth Measures (or Student Growth Model or State Provided Growth Model or Value Added Model), as presently being implemented by Respondents, actually punishes excellence in education through a statistical black box which no rational educator or fact finder could see as fair, accurate or reliable.”
I am so happy you posted this blog entry. I am an art teacher in Michigan. I have been teaching art for the past 16 years. I received a rating of “minimally effective” last year; the first time in my career. Part of my low score was based on student performance on the Michigan Merit Exam (MME), which is a state standardized test. As the Michigan Art Education Association Region 10 Liaison, I am in contact with a lot of art educators in the state. Many have told me that their evaluations are also based up to 60 percent on student standardized test scores in their district. I happen to work in a small poverty level community with minimal resources. Standardized test scores are hovering above the priority school rating. Did I mention I am an art teacher? Yes, you might have thought it was odd that an art teacher’s evaluation was based on the standardized test, when art is not even a subject that is tested… Me too. I have been told by administration that everyone is responsible for student MME scores. I practice discipline-based art education and do a lot of cross curricular assignments to help students understand the connections art has to the other disciplines. I work with other teachers with curriculum mapping to align assignments with what they are doing in their classrooms. I am sorry, but scoring my evaluation based on student standardized test scores of which do not test my subject is just plain wrong! I have consulted my uniserve director who advised me to file a grievance on the same basis as I see Sheri Lederman did… arbitrary and capricious. My grievance was denied on the basis that in our contract we cannot grieve this type of matter. I am currently working toward my doctorate degree in education and I have a law class right now where I am expected to research a subject of my choice. I have chosen this subject. I would really like to keep in touch with Sheri or at least keep abreast of how she is doing with her law suit. I too am on the verge of taking the same action.
Tammi Browning, Ed.S Doctoral Student University of Michigan-Flint
________________________________
Tammi, you are certainly not alone in this. There are so many teachers being evaluated based on subjects they don’t teach. What boggles the mind is that this nonsense is taking away from the kids EXACTLY what progressive educators fought so hard to attain for all learners, access to arts education. The entire evaluation system is an abomination. As a doctoral student, you are a living example to your students and the entire school community of a life-long learner. Where does that fit in with your composite score?
I received a 1 as my APPR test score for last year, but I work with classified children and children who receive AIS services. My children did not do well on the state tests, but I did not expect them to. I would love to talk to the lawyer to present my situation to them to see if it can help.
How can we stop NYSED from using scores in 7th stanine as proficiency? Do we not have sufficient statisticians who can explain this foolish predictive model in terms most high school graduates could grasp?
This NY Teacher Evaluation Case Becomes One of Most Read Articles in Washington Post. Sheri Lederman’s case was reported on Monday in this Blog. The case generally received widespread support in posted comments. On Friday, Valerie Stauss wrote an article in her blog about the case, which can be found at http://wapo.st/1tmJg62 . Today (Sunday) the article is on the cover page of Washingtonpost.com, and as of now is the 4th most read article nationally in the paper.
Diane and Sheri’s Lawyer,
Quite simply stated, follow longitudinally the growth contributions made by any given student over the years that this VAM system is put in place. I suspect that you will find VERY FEW students who consistently contribute positively to each teacher’s growth score as they progress through the grades. This will be especially true of students who perform at a level 4 each and every year. It is likely that a well respected teacher in the community has several families request her as a teacher for their children. If and when these requests are honored, teachers like Sheri are doomed by VAM because kids who care and try their best will have a difficult time bettering already high scores from year to year. Those folks who instituted VAM nationally are likely aware of this phenomenon. So, what are their intentions?
BTW, I received a 1 out of 20 state score for two straight years. My colleagues think that it must be a mistake. No… A majority of my students have been HONORS students and we teach them the 8th grade math standards in 7th grade such that they can take and pass Algebra regents in 8th grade. The VAMpire formula in the “black box” is not able to account for these realities.
My case would be predicated on the above concepts, but, I believe in Karma. I give my all and good things will happen to me. My clients (students) and customers (parents) are my most valuable social capital. I serve humans… not a inhumane system.
I need a lawyer. I am a teacher in Paterson, NJ