Governor Cuomo wants to evaluate teachers by their students’ test scores. Fifty percent of their evaluation would depend on whether the scores went up or not. The other fifty percent would be based on observation, 35% by an independent evaluator and only 15% by the principal of the school.
I received the following tweet I taught in the S. Bronx-students passed exams at 50%, now I am in the suburbs and they pass at 95%. I am the same teacher.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It figures. At a meeting at our neighboring town, Munster, Indiana, they are having a terrible time with money. They are a great school district but are in deep trouble because of lack of funding. Recently the town passed a referendum to make up for the loss of revenue.
Anyway, with their rating: This is actually what the superintendent told the huge crowd.
Because of having to include ONE student who is in the problematic group, the whole school went from a rating of “A” to “C”.
It sounds incredible but probably no more so than the other garbage which Indianapolis is forcing on our public schools. [Again: ONE person made the whole school system go from an “A” rating to a “C” rating.
Munster is an upper middle class school with a great reputation.
This whole mess is so inane.
Unbelievable that a superintendent brings a straightforward administrative problem like this to taxpayers, throwing up his hands in helplessness. What is his point? He wants their permission to throw ‘problematic students’ under the bus? He wants parents to rise up as one & take on those he’s too chicken to confront? What are they paying him for?
I hope he was trying to point out how inane the state rating system is but, Gordon, I think you must have thought part of your post and not written it. I lost what you were trying to say at,… “Anyway, with their rating: This is actually what the superintendent told the huge crowd.”
I just don’t get posting something that conflates value added measures with absolute scores. Is it just to try to confuse people? There are valid issues to raise about VAM and the use of state tests. Why imply that teachers are being evaluated based on absolute measures of how their students are performing vs. growth?
Because details, schmeetails.
You will get it. Remember that this blog is meant to justify meaningless information as fact.
If there is a science of implication this is the place.
I think you summed up VAM, nicely.
You are such a horse’s butt Raj. When I see your name, I know B.S. snark remarks will follow. Go home.
Y’know, the funniest thing. There was a guy with your exact same screenname just the other day crying about insults and wanting Diane to police this board better.
Perhaps you should create RAM–a junk science measurement that assists you in assessing your unscientific argument here.
Information is fact. It’s up to the interpreter to divine meaning. We disagree on what serves as meaningful.
Ridiculous as always
Asinine is his thought process
Joke is always on him
Always insulting the host of this blog
Cunning according to his own self image; cuck-coo to the rest
Hilarious to read are his comments; Harlan Underhill has competition
Any thought that pops into his impulsive, immature head
Read at your own peril, but you’re always guaranteed a laugh
Yielding no real critical thoughts or productivity
Any blow-up doll thinks more deeply than our beloved Raj . . . . .
“I just don’t get posting something that conflates value added measures with absolute scores.”
How does the post “conflate VAM with absolute scores? Your got me lost with that comment.
Diane says repeatedly that Gov’s plan “evaluate[s] teachers by their students’ test scores”. It’s no accident that it doesn’t say “growth in test scores”, because that sounds too reasonable.
She then quotes a teacher whose scores went up when he changed district to imply that this (according to the headline) miraculously changed the teacher from ineffective to highly effective. That also implies that he was rated low when his kids were doing poorly and high when they were doing well; again ignoring the growth components.
Under NCLB teachers always have had to show a student’s AYP (Annual Yearly Progress) with targets relative to where the student started. Now with the Common Core and the high cut score that is arbitrary and unattainable by many students, many more students will fail by design. They want to eliminate the GAP by mandating and punishing teachers. In simple terms, let’s have a race. Some of you will be driving a Hyundai starting fifty yards behind the start line, and others will drive a Corvette and start fifty yards in front of the start gate. Who will win the race? Are the Hyundai drivers terrible or are they driving with a disadvantage? This is a graphic description of the GAP. Then, the Hyundai drivers will lose their license because they just aren’t fast enough. That’s the reality lots of teachers are facing.
“Under NCLB teachers always have had to show a student’s AYP (Annual Yearly Progress) with targets relative to where the student started.”
I’m not aware of any concept of reporting AYP on a student by student basis under NCLB (or pretty much anywhere else). Please enlighten me.
Thanks.
Here’s the link on AYP.http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/accountability/ayp/edpicks.jhtml
If we accept that growth in test scores is a valid measure, then we still conclude that the test itself is a valid and the only (or main) measure of a teacher’s effectiveness. If standardized testing is flawed, it should not matter what formula is used. Maybe a child has a growth in test scores because the child is taught test taking tricks – is that a good use of a teacher’s time? Is that a correct assumption? (This last question is a sincere one.)
Thank you John, for admitting your ignorance of NCLB and everything generally relating to the reporting on this blog. Ideologues never prosper, ya know?
Chris in Florida and Retired Teacher,
AYP measures schools and districts. It does not measure student by student. Retired teacher said that teachers have always had to report how students did relative to individual targets.
Chris, how about holding the snark until one of you can show me where teachers report student by student for NCLB.
Retired Teacher, sending me the entire code of federal regulations 😉 might keep me busy for awhile, but doesn’t address the point.
Can anyone else here hop in and straighten this one out?
John, I’m not sure if this answers your question, but it does address some of the issues.
During the NCLB years, the results of the yearly assessments were sent out part way through the following school year with a list of each child’s strengths and weaknesses based on their answers to the test, so that the teachers could address these issues and individualize instruction as needed (if they hadn’t already identified and resolved the problem).
Under the CCSS, the test results are simply identified by stats (such as how many got a particular question right or wrong). Since the teacher is not given any clues as to the purpose of that question, they have no way to address and correct the misconceptions which their students had while taking the exam. Since the test questions are kept confidential and the results are kept hidden, except for a general score, there is no opportunity to reteach any mistaken concepts.
Of course, this doesn’t address the issue of assessments which are beyond the scope of the average ability of a particular grade level or questions with ambiguous answers which become guessing contests. Nor does it mention cut scores which require total mastery of the exam with 85 to 90 percent or more of correct answers. Average students are no longer tolerated.
Please tell me if you went to a school where everyone received an A in every subject?
Ellen T Klock
Thanks. That is very different than what we were discussing, which was targets set per student based on their scores and normed data, and partial evaluation of teachers based on the percentage of that growth target achieved.
I agree that it’s disappointing that missed item info is not available in NY right now. Ideally, teachers are using better, more timely tools to get at that information.
Because it is near impossible for the VAM to accurately reflect growth by whatever definition you choose. We get great teachers ranked ineffective, a few bad teachers ranked highly effective, lots of gaming the system, and in the end, nothing positive is accomplished. It is just chaos, disruption, and churn. Reformers want simple numbers and turn-the-dials solutions. I can not understand why they are unable to comprehend the complexities of education.
Here’s an interest contradiction that invalidates the concept of VAM for learning. If the pre-test measures current knowledge, and the post-test measures knowledge gained over the course of the year due solely to the effectiveness of the teacher, what about the students who score LOWER on the post-test? What exactly does that mean? The teacher took knowledge away from the students? Or, more ridiculous, I am evaluated on knowledge the students lost, that I never taught them as they already possessed that knowledge upon entering the classroom?
The whole VAM idea is absurd.
OK, fine point to make, but then why not stick to that argument instead of pretending teachers are being evaluated on absolute scores?
FYI, I think what reformers want is a system that doesn’t rate all teachers the same. In NY, the old system rated almost everybody “satisfactory”. The new system has some differentiation. I’d rather see something that teachers support that has some differentiation, but in the absence of that, people are looking for something that acknowledges that there are teachers with varying degrees of effectiveness.
I disagree that the idea is absurd because the “idea” is to measure student growth. People understand in their guts that different teachers would get different results in the exact same classroom. They then expect that multiple teachers with similar students (e.g. randomly selected sections of the same class) will get results that can be compared. Again, there are issues (e.g. class with one or two very disruptive kids), but on the whole, it seems like a reasonable measure if other factors are taken into consideration. Finally, it makes sense to them that there is some value in something like the MAP test looking at growth vs. expected growth as determined by how students nationwide do when starting from the same baseline.
Yes, I know none of these measures are perfect, and measuring growth using state criterion referenced test scores year over year is even more problematic but a measure that rates everyone the same is useless. And an argument that starts by implying teachers are being rated based on absolute test scores is also useless.
I’ve seen some decent looking, comprehensive evaluation systems come out of academia, but unions seem to want to just say what’s wrong with the current system, or go back to the old one, as opposed to getting solidly behind something better.
You didn’t address what I consider a fatal flaw in applying the concept of VAM to teachers and, by proxy, learning. To dismiss as a “finer point” is to ignore fundamental errors in reasoning. But I have yet to hear a serious response to my challenge.
You entirely misunderstand. It is not “growth” as the issue. Growth is a good thing. But the definition of growth is far from a consensus. If academia, politicians, and billionaires cannot accurately define growth, how can any mechanism measure it? So we end up with a system that tries to rate teachers differently for merely the sake of rating teachers differently. That is beyond absurd, that is insane.
You seem willing to accept a margin of error because “none of these measures are perfect”. That chilling benefits/costs analysis is disturbing. We do not have to accept the sacrifice of good teachers on the alter of VAM and metrics. Contrary to rhetoric, the application of VAM to learning is far from precise or reliable. In practice, as a high stakes tool, it is horrendous. It is a joke. A complete charade that your academia seems to be ignorant of the real life shortcomings in application. The factors you mention as controllable are too complex and varied. The more the models simplify, the less accurate they become. The more the models control for factors, the more complex and unmanageable they become.
The obsession with dehumanizing teachers and students as data points must stop. It is failing.
John – the VAM idea as currently practiced in ed (Danielson, Marzano etc), is the old ‘Management by Objectives’ formula that I encountered in the late ’70’s-early ’80’s corporate world. (I believe it has since been debunked, but may still be in use here & there). In my experience, it was never applied to personnel evaluation. It was strictly an ‘accountability’ system used to tighten up the old “%complete” formula for paying contractors against a fixed lump sum. The reason it fell out of favor is because it was easily gamed. All one needed to do was predict a lower-than-actually-estimated “% complete”, then ‘miraculously’ achieve better than predicted.
In that era (I am out of touch here), personnel evaluations were quite different. They were based on a list of weighted qualities which dept supvs/mgrs. felt were intrinsic to performing the job well regardless of economic conditions; one had to back up one’s assessments with examples. In order to line a questionable employee up for firing, you had to have a series of evaluations which placed the employee on warning, & spelled out how to get back up to snuff. If you had the misfortune of having passed the employee along for many yrs w/o such warnings, you were stuck w/him/her. You had already evidenced their acceptability; firing would likely lead to a lawsuit.
IMO, that personnel evaluation model works for teachers as well.
The only corporate vehicle I find remotely parallel to today’s high-stakes VAM is the bonus program (usually only applicable to mgt level or above): mgrs. are challenged to bring in new work, adding to the corporate bottom line. If the corporation as a whole profits, those profits are shared via bonus with mgrs. in proportion to the new work they brought in.
Comparing w/a corporate bonus program: the obvious problem with high-stakes VAM for teachers is that there is no true parallel w/”bringing in new work” that plumps the corporate bottom line (as defined by fed DOE NCLB & RTTT). What is the bottom line for public schools? Is it actually progress as measured by SLO’s? Not really. NCLB & RTTT make it clear that the only currency is scores on fed-designed stdzd tests. In view of decades of research, the only way to maintain high scores on stdzd tests Is to have a district population composed of high-SES students…
where does this leave everybody else? What’s all this crap about ‘narrowing the achievement gap”?
FYI, I agree 100% with what you said about performance evaluations against a rubric with documented evidence. I think that would be extremely valuable. I just don’t see it very often in education.
John:
1) “Why not stick to that argument instead of pretending teachers are being evaluated on absolute scores?”
Few will argue that teachers are evaluated on absolute scores. That is not at all the case. But whatever percentage the scores make up within the evaluation becomes something that gets weighted, and the weighting of it is purely political and has no empirical value.
2) “People understand in their guts that different teachers would get different results in the exact same classroom.”
Really? Who are these people, and how, statistically speaking, did their gut get measured? You stand for statistical evidence and at the same time make a broad statement that resembles more a meme than a fact.
When I was in 7th grade (public school) advanced track social studies, we had a horrendous teacher. We were also solid and upper middle class children from socio-econinic and cultural backgrounds that inculcated the importance of doing well in school. Throughout the year, we had many book reports, quizzes, and group projects to do, and the vast majority of kids in the class ended up with an A for the year, and the teacher was a tough grader.
The same class with an “excellent” teacher would have probable scored an A as well. I was taught that I had to perform whether I liked the teacher or not. Unless the teacher was outright abusive with foul language or physically inappropriate, I had to make good grades. If I really had a hard time, my parents would have considered a tutor. This never happened. I’m not saying whether any of these values or good or bad, but I am saying that levels of poverty entering schools today are in need of addressing by the school, but NOT ONLY the school. What is being done outside the schools int terms of wealth creation (for who?)is reprehensible, and the same people who want to measure teachers to death also create two tiered systems and class differences that the United States has not seen since the 1920s.
What is your point about different teachers getting different results?
Are you a teacher in a public school, and do you teach low income students?
Robert,
The argument that there is no difference in effectiveness of teachers in a nonstarter for anyone with kids in school. The denial of this is what keeps teachers being treated like factory workers instead of professionals.
What is a “non-starter”?
How do you confirm that there is no difference in the effectiveness?
How does that keep teachers as factory workers and not professionals?
Also, you did not answer my other questions. I don’t understand.
John, re: this comment “The argument that there is no difference in effectiveness of teachers in a nonstarter for anyone with kids in school. The denial of this is what keeps teachers being treated like factory workers instead of professionals.”
I’m sorry, but this is just nonsense. Does anyone argue that?
Show me a workplace and I’ll show you employees with infinitely varying degrees of effectiveness. Chat with parents waiting to pick up their kids & you’ll soon learn that the teacher who stood in the way of your kid’s 3rd-grade progress worked wonders with your neighbor’s kid. The new preK teacher in the daycare where I’m a weekly specialist was, simply put, atrocious in September. With gentle guidance from a stellar director & 5 mos’ experience she’s already pretty good & improving quickly.
The qualities that make these things possible have yet to be successfully measured. Show me a teacher-evaluation system that resembles assembly-line pay-for-piecework & I’ll show you an unholy mix of edupsychometricians & politicians, each with an agenda & product to sell that have nothing to do with improving the education of our children.
Let me look into my crystal ball. I imagine that Mr. Dolan moved from a diverse school of lower socio-economic level students into a homogeneous, affluent one. That’s what the scores tell us, nothing about his performance as a professional!
In my district, teacherse fifty and over are being rated Partially Effective. Does anybody see any validity in that?
“Value Added Measures” have been found to be meaningless as well.
I think I hear you saying, but absolute scores are just a part of the VAM formula, what about SLO’s? Apparently all is not so straightforward in the NYS VAM formula: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/10/31/high-achieving-teacher-sues-state-over-evaluation-labeling-her-ineffective/
The anecdotes about great teachers being rated ineffective are not compelling to me because they generally (like this one) don’t contain any data, and (like this one) imply that the fact that her students are doing well implies that she must be a great teacher. I agree with everyone here that absolute scores are more a measure of socioeconomic status than anything else.
John, what charter group or reform “non-profit” do you work for?
Donna, I don’t see where that has any bearing whatsoever on the conversation unless your plan is to get into ad hominem attacks. Given your use of quotes around “non-profit”, I guess that’s your plan. Once again, that is a tactic of someone with a weak argument. Why not stick to the topic of discussion?
He wants to hide and never let go of his bottle . . . . .
Do reveal yourself, John.
John, you’re totally right about this. She’s absolutely making it sound like “proficiency” is the same as student growth.
When a sophisticated academic like this blog’s author posts such a fundamentally misleading statement, it really makes me wonder what her goal is. Reasonable people are very concerned about the best way to measure success in the classroom. This just sets the conversation backwards.
I, on the other hand, would love to have a reasonable debate about this. Please find me on Twitter @jgordonwright so we can continue the conversation.
J. Gordon Wright: judging individual teachers by test scores is junk science, debunked by major scholarly organizations. Whether it is called proficiency or growth, the assumption is the same, that teachers produce test scores, and it is wrong.
And how stabilized is the workforce and turnover in charter schools? Are there data on that?
Robert,
Changing the subject. Another tried and true method of deflecting criticism.
Diane,
It’s not a question of whether it’s “called” proficiency or growth. It is a completely different thing to measure test scores or measure growth in test scores. Why conflate the two?
Yes, I understand that you don’t think test scores measure anything useful (though there seems to be a strange correlation between kids who can’t read or do math and kids who don’t pass state tests). I understand you think measuring kids on what they actually know is unfair to them and harms their self esteem (I think pretending they are doing fine and letting them find out otherwise when they drop out of high school is the ultimate unfairness).
But, my point remains. Argue that tests are bad. Argue that VAM is worthless. But when you argue that it isn’t fair to rate teachers based on actual test scores by their students (vs. growth), you are just setting up a straw man and toppling it. This does nothing to advance the discussion of how to best assess teaching and learning.
I find this blog very useful when I can learn from it, and very infuriating when logical fallacies are used to foment disagreement where none exists.
John, I am not opposed to testing. I don’t trust standardized tests. Most tests should be made by teachers. The purpose of tests should be to diagnose students’ learning issues and their progress, not to evaluate teachers. From the research I have read, evaluation of teachers by test scores is riddled with instability and error. Whether it is done by “proficiency rates” or by “growth scores,” it is still the same junk science.
John – I’m the librarian in the school (or guidance counselor, art teacher, music teacher, speech teacher, etc) and my evaluation is based on how well the students perform on the “assessments”. My job is to support the curriculum, yet I am being judged on results which are beyond my control – evaluated on the results of students I do not teach.
How is that relevant (or fair)?
Ellen T Klock
flos56,
I’m not defending VAM, and definitely not defending VAM implementations.
John,
My comments are perfectly relevant. The stability of a work environment impacts a child’s learning conditions. I guess you would know that since you have been teaching for how long and where? And what is the attrition rate for charter school teachers?
Predictably, you did not answer my questions.
Robert,
You want to change the subject instead of discussing it. Let’s have that discussion in a separate thread where the topic is teacher attrition or who is entitled to have an opinion about education.
John,
The point is that the test does not appropriately evaluate students or teachers. The test in 7th grade ELA in NY State evaluates a sophisticated set of inferential skills that require conceptual understanding beyond simple comprehension. Many of the multiple choice questions require a very nuanced understanding of the turning of a single word in a sentence or a single sentence in the passage without necessarily identifying that sentence, by the way. Additionally, it uses unreasonably plausible distractors and for some questions, the answers both right and wrong are a matter of interpretation. The company chooses texts and expects kids to understand the content without context. Now, supposedly context free comprehension is the rage. The back story on that newest skill is that the company needs to be able to sell that test to school systems throughout the country, many of which will not be teaching the same content in science and social studies in the same year. Therefore, the argument is made that students should not need context. And, although the texts should be complex, the real complexity is in the question stems. Often questions are posed in such a convoluted way that students do not actually know what is being asked. When you look at the question, as an adult, there are several much simpler ways of asking the same thing.
So, all of this asks whether or not the goal is to measure the learning of students and the teaching of students? Isn’t it more likely that it is to document the failure of children, their teachers and their schools. What simpler way to privatize schools than to find student learning wanting, fire their expensive and unionized teachers and take over their infrastructures. Charter companies can then come in and profit off of the same system. It also allows for flight to occur under cover. Instead of running away from schools with children who have great needs, we just take over their buildings, fire them if they don’t make the grade (see Geoffrey Canada and his two cohorts fired in grade 8 for not making grade or his 67% graduation rate listed as 100% because he doesn’t have to account for his attrition rate of 33%. Or see KIPP schools who require parent investment … that single most important ingredient to student success…in order to attend. Or see the attrition rate of successful charters anywhere in the country)
You can argue for what you want and you can turn a blind eye to the corruption if you choose, but you are on the wrong side of this battle. We are in the grips of an historic powergrab, and we are witnessing the attempt to disenfranchise an entire profession. Parallels exist in McCarthyism and Japanese Internment.
lunarmoth,
I don’t disagree with what you said about the tests. I also am concerned about the undue influence of testing companies.
But, I don’t buy into the privatization meme. Yes, there are some for-profit charters, and I frankly wish they would go away. In NY, we’re all not-for-profits with volunteer boards and extremely dedicated staffs. Also, while charters have some conservative supporters who are anti-union, my experience is that most people in charters are progressive liberals. We just value the needs of students higher than we value schools as employers. We also value public representation via parental choice as opposed to school Board elections.
Regarding your other points… When you look at charter attrition, you need to realize that most don’t admit students mid-year and many don’t admit students in upper grades. So, the fact that the neighboring district school has the same number of 8th graders as 5th graders doesn’t mean they have no attrition. You may consider it unfair that charters do this, but if other schools upheld the same requirement for students to be remotely near grade level in order to advance, this wouldn’t be an issue.
My understanding is that Geoffrey Canada closed a school that was not performing well. Charters do that. District schools generally do not, instead going on for decades with dismal graduation rates, etc. In NY, charters regularly get closed for failing to meet renewal benchmarks. In my city, if district schools had to meet the same benchmarks as charters, all but 2 of them would close.
Re KIPP, they can’t *require* parent investment. They ask for it at meetings with parents, and generally get buy-in, but they can’t deny enrollment to anyone. District schools should think about clearly telling parents what’s expected of them as well.
Please consider that a lot of this charter “information” is coming from dedicated foes of charters with a vested interest in their downfall.
John, I can only speak from my experiences.
In Buffalo, the charter schools, which draw from the same sort of students as the average public school, have similar results. Those “high performing charters” conveniently have greater diversity (I.e. More white kids), less special ed (because they don’t provide services) and few ELL students (in a city with numerous refugees). The number of students receiving free or reduced lunch is significant, but not at the level of the so called failing schools which is 90% or more. Although the assessment results are higher than the average Buffalo school, they are not stellar, and not the best results of all the city schools. I get sick of hearing how fantastic they are doing when they can easily rid themselves of any “problem” students who are then returned to the public schools. I am not impressed.
I’m not saying that these schools don’t have a hard working staff, I’m just saying that charter schools are not the panacea they claim to be.
My main concern is that a member of the Buffalo Board of Education has a conflict of interest since he will financially benefit since any newly created charters will be housed at one of his properties. He has a majority of votes (the last school board election was heavily financed by outside sources – many with names you all are familiar with) and the only thing standing in his way is a large pushback by numerous city parents of all races and nationalities. It’s pretty amazing to see these parents rally for the good of their children. There have been some amazing speakers at recent school board meetings which are now held at local school auditoriums to hold the overflow attendees.
The issues are extremely complex, both in Buffalo and throughout the US. We need to be honest about what is happening in order to fight inaccuracies with the truth.
Number one – our students have worth, regardless of test scores. Their well being should be out top concern, not a by product of a flawed system.
Ellen T Klock
Lunar moth – I’m going to print and frame your response. Well said!
John,
The political stance of a particular charter or its dedicated employees is irrelevant to the principle upon which charters co-opt infrastructure. Your charter may be filled with good-hearted, well meaning young people who only want to see children get a fair shake. However, the method used can just as easily be used by the charter that wants to train home grown terrorists, slip religious instruction into publicly funded education, or use those very free dollars to increase profits. So, the argument that we’re the good guys is unimportant. More important is how you go about receiving public property, what happens to the people you displace, how you use political influence to game the system, which students you take, which students you remove, where your money comes from and where it goes.
If charters exist for the purpose of improving education for underserved children (as opposed to filtering out the drains to resources and reputation) then when Geoffrey Canada closed his own school (twice), he was saying that his system did not work as promised. He was removing a blight upon his own record. If he could not turn around a school with the identical (not just demographically identical) students, then where’s the miracle here? What do we learn here… that a school works better when you dump difficult kids? What a surprise. That is exactly what Stanford’s charter school discovered when they didn’t filter their student body, too. And they closed their doors, too. I don’t fault Canada for being unable to just turn a school around. What I fault him and other charter chains for is selling themselves as the superman every child is waiting for while not being willing to be the superman for every child.
I’m sure that you understand that the attrition rate in charters is something to be concerned about. It is a way to remove “problems”. If charters were required to keep the same kids, pay for those kids they remove and be closed when too large a percentage of children who are low performing (after multiple harassing detentions and suspensions) leave the school “of their own volition”, I would be less against them. But, that’s not what they do. They have a finger on the scale. They are just gaming the system, using their ability to offer parents a better peer group and pretending that they are doing better when they really aren’t. You can close your eyes to it, but the outcome for the very disadvantaged is that they will be warehoused in the dumping ground schools which will guarantee their failure. In that sense, alone, charters are a blight.
I also have to say that I’m not sure why you don’t “buy” the privatization meme. It’s not like it’s a secret. Hedge fund companies are frothing at the mouth in the effort to invest in charters. Surely you don’t think that it’s conscience that is the driver behind all that investment? Or do you perhaps buy the social entrepreneurship model… where enlightened self interest finds a way to profit while doing good work. Um.. right. Until good work conflicts with profit motive, and then they have to make a choice.
You say… well, we’re not for profit. Okay. Distancing yourself from for profit charters is all fine and good, but it points to my argument: the tactics used matter because the tactic used can be adapted for use by anyone. And, i would also point out that the not for profit charters are rolling in millions of dollars, with their CEOs paid better than the Chancellor for an entire state (true in NY). Not to mention the clever way some of them have of giving no competition bids to their own outside companies and the companies of their friends. Only the very naive are unaware of how much fraud and corruption can be done in the name of not-for-profit.
Finally, it is an interesting message when you suggest that charters value the needs of students over the needs of workers. What does mean? Are you suggesting that the needs of workers are in direct competition with the needs of students? I think that is a false dichotomy Of course, the needs of students come first in certain regards, but does that mean that students succeed at the expense of decent wages, reasonable working hours and healthy working conditions? We are in the midst of watching the middle class be eviscerated. Teaching, which was once a relatively secure if not elite, middle class career path. Does student growth require the collapse of a career path?
I’m going to answer your post in more detail when I have time, but can you provide a list of these hedge fund managers who are invested in charter schools? Charter schools are terrible investments. One hedge fund manager that I know is “short” K12 education because he thinks it’s a scam and destined for failure.
Lots of people (including Diane) like to say that hedge fund managers are “investing” in charter schools, but they are actually referring to charitable donations. It’s a pretty blatant attempt to mislead people into thinking that philanthropy is a for-profit investment.
The only thing I’ve heard regarding profitable investments “in charters” is the New Market Tax Credit, which enables investors to make money on buildings constructed in economically disadvantaged areas. But, only 21% of NMTC money has been used in all aspects of education, including higher ed. The rest has been used for hospitals, low income housing, etc.
The only reason that there is some money-making opportunity in charter school real estate is because it’s risky since charters get closed down. Risky investments are expensive for the charter schools and we would rather get our buildings paid for by the state or have access to the types of financing that district schools have.
Hedge fund managers are not donating to charter schools nor supporting them politically because they are making money on them. I suppose there are some that are doing it because they want to weaken unions, but there are a lot who are doing it because they believe that public education needs to do better for low-SES students.
John, you make an interesting point about hedge fund managers. No one (certainly not me) has ever explained why Wall Street is so bullish about charters. I have never suggested that Wall Street loves charters because the hedge funders expect to make money. The most active supporters of DFER are already fabulously wealthy. It may be that they see charters as a way to destroy unions, which I personally think is despicable because unions protect the working conditions of teachers. The hedge fund guys seem to have some idea that schools should run like businesses, that no one should have job security, that teachers should come and go like temps, that the only thing that matters is the bottom line (test scores). The hedge funders have fasted on Success Academy because it gets very high test scores, but they ignore the large numbers of low-performing charters, the large number of charters run by incompetent corporations and individuals, the charter scandals that have become a near daily occurrence. Wall Street is sinking millions into Eva’s charters in New York City, but there is no evidence that whatever she is doing can be replicated on a large scale nor that she opens her doors to show the world the secrets of her success. Destroying public education for fun is a dangerous undertaking. The Wall Street boys have no skin in the game. They are not educators. They are just networking and enjoying a hobby.
Reuters, Bill Moyers, Forbes, etc.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/12/usa-education-charter-visas-idUSL1E8LAOAK20121012
http://billmoyers.com/2014/05/15/hedge-fund-titans-hum-a-happy-tune-as-they-target-public-schools/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2013/09/10/charter-school-gravy-train-runs-express-to-fat-city/
http://www.alternet.org/education/who-profiting-charters-big-bucks-behind-charter-school-secrecy-financial-scandal-and
http://capitalroundtable.com/masterclass/For-Profit-Education-Conference.html
Yes, I’ve read every one of those articles, but there’s no “there” there. None of it shows investors investing in charter schools, nor any financial reason that hedge fund managers are philanthropically supporting charters. Diane acknowledges in her post that she doesn’t understand why they are doing it and is not alleging that they are making money from it.
The fact that some investors (mostly banks) can make money building buildings in low income areas is no smoking gun. This was passed by the Clinton administration and has been responsible for a lot of hospitals, low income housing, etc. Investors get high returns for building in risky places. No shock there.
I should add that the vast majority of “investment opportunities” in education are with district schools, supplying textbooks, software, services, etc. I’m confident that completely dwarfs anything that can be done with real estate for the 6,000 charter schools in the entire country. When people talk about the “boom” in education investment, they’re talking about for-profit colleges, distance learning, trade schools, and the billions spent by traditional schools, not for-profit charters.
I’ll add that NMTC is only good for 7 years, and as near as I can tell, there was a total of about $1 billion invested. Over roughly the same period, over $500 billion was spent on school buildings altogether.
So then let me get this straight. From your perspective, there is no fire in the smoke. The hedgefund and equity firms funding charters and hosting roundtables to encourage investment are engaging in social justice. The CEOs garnering half a million in salary are only being paid a reasonable about to do good work. You reject the various arguments that suggest self interest on their part. Can I infer that you feel positively about enormous capital and clout used to set governmental policy and to enforce a country wide experiment using the bulk of America’s children and an entire industry of middle class workers? Do you agree with collecting tax dollars and then withholding those dollars as a means for coercing compliance with unfunded mandates? What about holding teachers accountable for a test that may not be used to determine student placement? What about the take over of schools against the wishes of the communities they serve? Is this just acting in the best interests of people who are not able to consider their own best interests? Charter attrition and cherrypicking, charter co-locating and co-opting of resources and infrastructure… these are all just the necessary means for effecting positive change for children? Charters are doing what they were intended to do: children are moving expeditiously into them or out of them as the need arises, teachers who clearly do not do their jobs are finally getting the boot they deserve, and education is improving all around?
No, I’m making one point. People throwing around the concept that hedge fund managers are profiting off charter schools and support them for that reason are mistaken or being deliberately misleading.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you were just repeating something you’ve heard lots of times when you said “it’s no secret” that “Hedge fund companies are frothing at the mouth in the effort to invest in charters”.
With regard to what Diane posted at 8:44 pm on February 3, 2015:
Turnover in charters is notorious. John refuses to see this as problematic for children. While teachers in charters work very hard and do have some more flexibility as to how services get delivered, most never stay for the long haul because they cannot: either they don’t perform well enough (according to some questionable standards – DRA 10 at the end of kindergarten and DRA 28 at the end of first grade – that the school sets for reading levels of children, for instance) or they burn out or both.
John refuses to acknowledge that working conditions are critical to academic success. If the working conditions in charters are so fantastic, why is there such acute teacher attrition in charters across the nation? In New York City?
Why is there a mass exodus within less than 7 years among teachers from charters to public schools? It’s time to really look at this data under a microscope.
In fact, John conflates having working conditions set up by collective bargaining as putting employees’ interests above the needs of children. Don’t you have that reversed, John? Excellent working conditions are highly correlated to excellent instructional delivery. Compare a school with a resplendent library of read-aloud books for emergent literacy and a leveled guided reading library that is dripping with books and 3 certified reading teachers per 90 children who know Reading Recovery inside and out, as well as a librarian who teaches library classes to pre-K to 5th grade. Does this characterize your school? If teachers speak out against a lack of resources or misappropriated resources that would create these working conditions, will tenure be there to protect them? Would an absence of a union that protects those teachers help create those conditions?
John thinks great teaching and conditions happen in a vacuum. . .. or in the imagination of policy makers who don’t understand the nuances of teaching and learning.
John will not tell anyone who he really is. That would have too much integrity. John, you’ve been teaching for how long?
Oh, I’m sorry, John.
Have you been teaching?
If John’s sensibility of teacher turnover is not beyond deceptive, it is completely void of critical thought and “liberal progressive” thinking.
John wants to dismiss this as avoiding the subject or distracting the thread, while his inability to connect some major dots is the major distraction.
Don’t fall for it . . . .
Okay, John. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, too. Given that I gave lots of points, you chose to address the one. And your argument is that the investors may be making money hand over fist, but it’s for the right reasons. Okay.
people don’t understand that only qualitatively you can evaluate pedagogical issues, and relational issues inside the class, by asking students and aprents, and always working with the teacher being evaluated and, quantitatively, only if you want to ask about the injustified missing class. Or if he or she came late for the class.
I have 20 years in. I wonder if I could get a job in a top Westchester district if I offered to take a big pay cut? I might prefer to save my job by starting over in a district where I could guarantee an effective rating and actually get to teach something besides how to read deeply enough to identify the plausible distractors on a tricky multiple choice test.
Now there is an effect I hadn’t thought of…
Hmmm. Rather than hire TFA temps at bargain low prices, high performing districts can simply get rid of their costly veterans and replace them with experienced teachers from other districts at a fraction of the original teacher’s salary-all for a chance to raise their APPR scores.
How original and devious at the same time!
I think I see the plan… degrade the profession so that any teacher (including the experienced) can be had for less.
Within our own school district, I see teachers waiting for a chance to jump to a higher performing school. It is almost a given. Better scores, less social work to do, less of one’s own money to spend, and now, a higher professional rating!
When they label you as ineffective, how will a teacher get a job anywhere? Isn’t the point to run all the teachers out of Dodge?
We see it in Michigan too. It’s called jumping from charter to traditional public school. We had a social studies opening two years ago and the resumes from charter teachers poured in.
Wonder why they would leave heaven?
Yup Donna!
That might depend on whether your lower-cost community is within reasonable commuting distance of pricey Westchester…
What’s with Mike Pence wanting to have his own news agency reporting all the important news in Indiana. Sounds like the same thing he tried to do with the Supt. of Public Instruction. When called on it, he claimed he knew nothing about it. What’s up?
Scott, Scott, Scott…
Clearly you are NOT the same teacher. You obviously learned from your personal failures, and over the summer between your two schools obtained the necessary professional development and, and this is the important part…changes in attitude and motivation to do a better job.
Plus your new school probably has air that smells of cinnamon buns and has flying unicorns buzzing around that test well on standardized tests.
How can you not be changed by that?
-sarcasm off-
I’ve been saying this for years. It’s the kids and ONLY the kids!!!!! If you teach at a dumb school with dumb kids, you’re finished. If you teach at a smart school with smart kids, you’re fine. CASE CLOSED!!!!!
Same teacher either way. Unfortunately if you teach in the dumb school, you are viewed as a dumb teacher whereas if you’re in the smart school, you’re viewed as a successful teacher. Either way you’re still the same teacher. It’s all in the kids.
I see this happening clearly in even the best districts, scripted teaching to the tests.
This letter really nails it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/06/teachers-resignation-letter-my-profession-no-longer-exists/
Wow. What a letter.
Great letter! Thanks Joseph!
NJ Teacher, Can Education Law Center help re teachers age 50+ getting unfair ratings? (It wasn’t possible to reply to your reply above.)
Hi booklady!
I don’t know that the Education Law Center is working on this issue. Several tenure charge cases were defeated this year by the NTU due to the law not having been in effect for the requisite two years. It is my guess that more of the tenure charges filed at the end of this school year will stick. Many teachers retire when faced with the stress and humiliation of being brought up on tenure charges.
At a meeting of NBCs in my district a number of years ago, I was surprised to see a former math teacher at my inner-city school, whom the students mostly hated, and who was regarded as not very effective. He too had moved to the ‘burbs, and talked about his excellent classroom management and his new-found success in the classroom. Clueless.
OH IRONY: we have this exactly backwards – it’s more difficult to teach in a low performing inner-city school then in high-performing suburban schools, due to the challenging behaviors exhibited by high needs kids.
We are ranking teachers basically on how much content students absorb, as shown on tests. But many inner city kids have less ability to sit still and focus for five 45 minute periods. The reasons are many, but originate outside the classroom.
As an inner-city teacher I have to design lessons that incorporate lots of physical activity and hands on experiences. Yet we receive barely any materials. I have to chunk down concepts so they’re able to be understood by students who are multiple years behind grade level.
I have to juggle students that come late, come high, miss weeks at a time or are disruptive, often to hide the fact that they function so low. I have to maintain engagement, even if the door is kicked open by high schoolers from the school upstairs, even if a waterbug crawls out into the open.
In the suburbs, teachers deal with more compliant kids from intact families with college educated parents. Their challenge is how much content they can get through before the tests interrupt their high level learning.
It was a fundamental mistake to say we should compare affluent and impoverished kids’ test scores, whether we are ranking students, schools or teachers. The differences are so obvious, this policy cannot even be looked at as scientific or useful, it must be looked at as an attempt to destroy the teaching profession and privatize education.
^o^
This is brilliantly accurate. Everything inner city educators deal with every day.
If you drive your car down a smooth road for 2 miles, you will get to the finish line intact, both car and yourself. If you drive your car down a mountain the same distance, both you and the car wind up a twisted wreck. The only difference is … the “road” – so, if you teach in a wealthy district with every possible advantage and adequate funding given to both the school and the children at home – or you teach in Camden, NJ for instance – what kids do you think are going to do better on the tests – and whose “fault” is it when the teacher is blamed or praised for the test scores that are being used at THE measurement?
Donna, “the test scores” are not being used for the measurement. The growth in test scores is. Comparing scores across districts is nonsensical, and that’s why nobody is doing it. Just another example of a straw man argument.
The “growth in test scores” – do you think the growth would be the same in Compton, California and Beverly Hills, California? Give me a better argument, John. Give me an analogy. Here in NJ, there is a big difference between public schools in Mendham, and public schools in Newark. The teachers in Newark have harder tougher kids, more kids living in poverty, more kids without 2 parents, more kids with parents in jail, more kids who are desensitized and emotionally vacant and without proper parental guidance. The “growth” measurement is going to be lower in Newark than Mendham. Also, all the reformers who force this onto public schools don’t send their kids to public schools. Also charters are being forced on us as well. Show me some logic John.
Donna, growth scores are generally higher with kids who come in lower because there’s a lot more room to grow. Getting growth with accelerated kids is actually much harder.
But, that’s not my point. My point is that measuring growth is the not the same thing as measuring absolute scores, so saying teachers will be measured on the (absolute) test scores of their students, or pretending that teachers who are teaching kids below grade level therefore get low evaluations, is just wrong.
Someone who has to resort to hyperbole and logic errors to make a case generally doesn’t have a strong argument. In this case, I think there is actually a valid argument to be made against value-added measures, so why resort to these intellectually dishonest means instead of just taking the subject on directly?
In NJ, scores are compared across districts all the time as they are in New York. Where are you?
Across districts to evaluate a teacher?
I’m in NY. I’ve never even seen school-wide data compared without adjusting for % economically disadvantaged. Who is evaluating teachers base on scores between districts?
John, the “growth measures” that you think are great are so flawed that the American Statistical Association has come out against their use. https://www.amstat.org/policy/pdfs/ASA_VAM_Statement.pdf
John, that may be the case in some schools but not all. In my case. Our school does not require a growth model for what I teach. I ach Regents Earth Science, and my students enter my classroom in September knowing virtually nothing about the subject. For a few years we were required to do a pre-test to confirm that which we already knew. Our final exam is the Regents in June, and wonder of wonders the students did better on the final than they did on the pre-test.
That foolishness ended last year. Now we simply need to have a certain percentage pass the exam. In my school an 85% pass rate equals a 13 out of 20 on the 20% portion of my APPR score. If a higher percentage pass, my score goes up.
But make no mistake…the student test scores determine a portion of the measurement of my “success”, and if our craven Governor gets his way, those student scores will determine an even larger portion.
Rockhound2 – those Earth Science Regents scores are problematic in the Buffalo Public Schools. Since former Commissioner Mills determined the Magic Five Regent requirement to graduate, The Earth Science Regents is obsolete and thus the course is not taken seriously by the majority of students. (So much for rigor!) This effects their attitude and thus their class attendance and participation. If 30% pass the Regents, that’s a very good year (unless you are in one of the select schools). The deck is stacked against the urban teachers.
Oh, and did you get a look at the Common Core Algebra Regents given last week? I guess the state expects twelve to fourteen year olds to have mastered Advanced Algebra. How ridiculous! We’ve gone from allowing students one and a half to two years to pass Math A to half a year to pass Math A and C. This new generation of teens must all be budding geniuses, at least according to Pearson.
Ellen T Klock
Thank you for understanding my point and for giving a clear example of where an absolute score is being used. My knowledge is in k-8′ which is why I didn’t think of that.
How was the scale by which that part of your APPR gets scored derived? If arbitrary, I agree that is of no worth.
GROWTH MISCONDUCT: John you are right many confuse growth with absolute scores, but neither model is accurate. A superintendent from Schenectady just told Susan Arbetter on Capitol Pressroom the system is unusable because it favors a teacher whose student went from a 14 to a 35 over a teacher whose student went from 90 to 99.
Another superintendent from Westchester told his staff the algorithms used desperately to try to compare apples to apples are absurd. They consider dozens of arcane data points like whether or not there is an internet connection in the household. If this information, filled out on a parent survey is not accurate, up to date, and provided for every single kid, there is no comparing apples to apples, but more worrisome is the lack of transparency in these formulas and the resultant lack of buy-in by educators, parents, taxpayers, watchdogs and elected officials.
One stated purpose of Common Core standardization was to compare schools, students and teachers across states, which failed miserably as the two early adopters NY and KY set cut scores differently. The idea of comparing kids is anathema to teaching, so this whole charade is only about union busting and setting the stage for privatization. Are you defending VAM?
I think VAM as a concept has a place as a component of evaluation, but I think it has to be a much more controlled set of data than is possible using state test data. The implementation in NY looks terrible to me.
I truly was just trying to point out the misleading post, not to defend VAM.
Students tend to get the same raw score each year on Aptitude Tests, dipping a little or rising above the former year’s result based on the dynamics of that individual exam. If a score rises significantly, it is usually because the child has learned how to take that particular test, not because they are smarter.
Most children achieve a year’s growth in a year. Now we expect them to skip on ahead and advance two years or more? It’s just not going to happen often enough to make this edict viable.
Does he plan to base it on schools rating? Fifty percent seems a little excessive. Would rather see them follow Germany and split that 50% among student performance, student and parent evaluation and professional development…
Student and parent evaluation? Really? In my state our evaluations are required to be partly based on student and parent evaluations. Very few parents do the evaluations, and as for the students, I would really rather not have my career based on thirteen and fourteen year old kids who I know tank evaluations on purpose to get back at teachers that give them low grades or whatever. I have had kids admit that they do this.
I experienced that phenomenon when I worked in California. I was somehow transformed from the best teacher in the district to the worst teacher– just by accepting a job at a low socio-economic school. That car ride across town really changed me as a professional. 😦
Sometimes it’s not always the “poor kid who.can’t.pass.these.tests. Any thought to.the amount of free head.space.and.creative.license one.regains.when.they.are not working under an oppressive school.system with oppressed students? There is no way anyone is ,”the same teacher”….working in 2 systems that are designed to produce 2.different outcomes. I don’t agree that teachers should be tossed out because of a by product of generational poverty rendering sitting still.and.taking in info extremely.difficult. But, I do hope that the aha moment will occur….if we are comparing the offspring of the haves and have nots and we TRULY believe.there is no intellectual superiority factoring in then we will resource and staff.the schools of the have nots adequately. All children can.learn but yes poverty is a real obstacle.
I switch.between Urban and Suburban.schools.throughout the year and while I am the same person I have to.be a different teacher. I have high standards for all but the questions become how do.we get there ? depending on rhe zip code. Going through Dada and his big machine takes us off course. Yet that’s the course they want the offspring of some to be on….Dada,dada,dada: give the schools back to the communities and go count your frkg money!!!
Donna, the point is to get rid of the older teachers, and hire the young ones that the district can mold into what they want. Besides, the young ones are at half the cost of the seasoned teachers. It’s all about the money, no matter how you look at it.
You don’t have to prove that to me, I believe it, I know it. John doesn’t seem to get that it is all a ruse/charade. Also, he doesn’t seem to get that kids from different backgrounds/towns will perform differently. Its really hard to ace that test when your brother got shot last night, but John thinks that doesn’t matter because “growth” will show more for the harder to teach kids. I call B.S. I wonder what his agenda is, but he won’t give up the ghost.
And then there is the test content which is slanted toward the more affluent. It does make a difference if the reading passage is on familiar topics and I’ve never read a passage about coping with a shooting death or the day daddy came home from jail.
Also, in my school, a teacher of the year was rated partially effective. WTH! She was a fantastic teacher.
I’ve taught the poorest of them all. No matter what… when dad’s in jail and mom’s on drugs, and grandma is raising the kids, they are going to be behind. The emotional damage takes a toll on these kids. Or, mom and dad are divorced and are fighting all the time, it’s very hard for them. That’s all the children can think about. They would come to me crying, and all I could do was to hug them and say I was sorry.
I’ll never forget one year. There was one particular student I remembered so well because she was stunningly gorgeous. Her eyes were bluer than the sky, and her hair was long and wavy. But, she was filthy dirty. I could smell her 10 feet away. I decided one day to see where she lived. As I drove by her house in the country, I noticed her house had open windows. I don’t know if she had ac or not in her house. In the lot next door there were people who had a wood business where they cut down wood and were burning some of it. All the smoke permeated her house. That’s when I realized what poverty was to her. There was no one to take this little child and scrub her down from head to toe. She just came every day smelling the same. The other kids didn’t want to be around her. Imagine what kinds of problems she had learning. The stories go on and on. Children can not learn as well as those children from more educated families. Once they get behind, they never catch up.
She was never able to start out with advantages that middle to upper class children have. The cards were stacked against her.
Just imagine when 2/3 of your class is on free lunch. What does that tell you? They are disadvantaged from the get go. That’s how it was year after year after year. If you were “lucky” and got the “creme de la creme” students, you had easy street. If you had the poor ones, your work was cut out for you. That’s no joke. I loved the poor ones just as much as the more well to do kids. But, it was so much struggle teaching the poor ones, not because they were not smart, but because they were light years behind. It was very hard to fight that.