I received a letter from the teachers at PS 321. I have a direct connection to the school, as a member of my family is a student there. He loves school. He is in third grade. He is working on an essay whose topc he chose. He is researching “the Silk Road.” Last year, in second grade, he wrote about bioluminescence (I had to look it up.) this obviously a wonderful public school.
References in the letter are to Liz Phillips, the principal.
Here is the link: http://ps321.org/letter-from-ps-321-teachers/
Letter from PS 321 Teachers
February 23, 2015
Dear PS 321 Families,
It is with heavy hearts that we, the teachers at 321, reach out to you to ask for your help.
Governor Cuomo has proposed major changes to teacher evaluations in New York State. We want to let you know, from a teacher’s perspective, the changes this law could bring to PS 321 – and to our profession – if it passes.
50% of a teacher’s rating would be based on state test scores. (Currently it is 20%).
35% of a teacher’s rating would be based on the findings of an outside “independent observer” who will conduct a one time visit to the classroom. (This has never been done before. Currently our principal and assistant principals’ observations count for 60%).
15% of a teacher’s rating would be based on observations by the principal or assistant principals. The very people who know our work best would have the least input into our evaluation.
50% + 35% = 85% of our evaluations would be removed from the hands of our community and placed in the hands of the state.
And then, using these numbers, any teacher who is rated ineffective two years in a row can be fired. Liz might have no say in this.
So what might that do to PS 321? Realistically, many of us could be fired. Every year. And many more of us would be pushed away from the profession we love.
Here’s something parents need to understand. Even though, when our students take the standardized tests, most of them do just fine… many PS 321 teachers do not. Teachers’ ratings are not based on their students’ raw scores for the year, but whether their students improved from one year to the next. If a student with a ‘3’ gets one fewer question correct in 4th grade than she did in 3rd, that student might not have demonstrated the “added value” their teacher is expected to have instilled. Even though the student has mastered that grade’s content. Even though it’s just one question. And that teacher might, therefore, be rated in the bottom percentile of teachers.
That may sound patently absurd. However, that has already happened here.
If Governor Cuomo’s evaluation proposals come to pass, it might start to happen more and more. And if we are rated ineffective as a result two years in a row, we might be fired.
That is why so many schools in NYC spend so much time prepping for the tests. One or two wrong answers can make or break a teacher’s rating.
Faced with these changes, we’ve already been hearing from so many of our colleagues from across the city and state who will be forced to do more test prep. Even when they know that the tests do not give an accurate picture of student learning, or of the effectiveness of teachers. Even though they know teaching to the test is bad teaching. Faced with the reality of the loss of a paycheck – the loss of the career they are building, have built, or want to build – these proposals will push them to teach in ways they know to be counterproductive.
That breaks our hearts. But the truth is, faced with the same reality, there are those of us here who would be feeling the very same pressure. Not because we’d want to. We would try to resist. But it is inevitable that if the governor’s proposals go through, all schools will narrow their curriculum to some extent.
And that’s scary. And it breaks our hearts even more. Because we know what we have here. We love what we have— in you, in our students, in all that the PS 321 community represents. The joy that is present— every day, in our school. The value that is placed on intellectual curiosity, on creativity, on the arts. The love of learning that is visible when you enter our building, when you go into classrooms, and when you talk to students and teachers.
The values present in Governor Cuomo’s proposals are antithetical to our own. And they place them at risk. The numbers are clear: 50% of our value will be six days of tests. 35% of our value will be one day with an independent observer. And 15% of our value will be in evaluation by Liz and the assistant principals, those who know us best as educators.
Those are their values.
Our joy, our love of learning, our desire to help students become deep thinkers and problem solvers, our community, our commitment to constantly improving our practice… those are ours.
PS 321 Families: don’t let them take our values away.
We need your help. And we need it now. The education law is folded into the state budget. It goes up for a vote before April 1st.
We need you to let your legislators know that you disagree with this plan:
Email Governor Cuomo right now at gov.cuomo@chamber.state.ny.us.
Visit http://www.nyteacherletter.org/ and sign the letter to let your legislator know you disapprove of the law.
Contact your assemblymember. Go to http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/ to find their contact information. Don’t stop there. Go to their offices and demand attention.
Post this issue on Facebook and tell your friends. Use social media to spread the word. Go to Albany. Make whatever noise you can.
And sign up today at ps321.org to receive information and updates from the Testing Task Force about what you can do to help support us.
What we have together is rare, especially today, when so many schools have succumbed to the pressures of testing. We must not take our school’s joyful community for granted. All that we have– all that we do together–is far too important and far too valuable to be taken away. Thank you, as always, for your energy, your support, and your inspiring, creative children.
Your Devoted Teachers
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Great letter! I will also add that Assembly member Jim Brennan has an online petition at this time that briefly touches on this and the need for fair funding. I encourage people to read and sign his petition as well as signing the letter mentioned in this post.
Forgive a question of ignorance from a non-teacher. When student “growth” scores are calculated, are the scores based on following specific, individual kids? Is it Johnny’s score from last year compared to his score from this year? How would that work if Johnny transferred from a different school, especially a school out of the state or even the country? Or is there some other way that this is tracked?
Very good questions. If VAM cannot easily answer the question “how do I improve my teaching?”, then the approach is useless. The models get so complex with multi level stats, counterfactuals, and cool looking matrices, that what they really measure anymore is anybody’s guess.
“. . . that what they really measure anymore is anybody’s guess.”
NO! It’s not anybody’s guess!
We already know that THEY DON’T MEASURE ANYTHING!!!
No test, no evaluation, no assessment “measures” anything because the teaching and learning process is not amenable to “measurement”. These attempts are not measuring devices by any stretch of meaning. They piss poorly attempt to assess that process causing real significant harm to the most innocent in society, the children (and then by extension the teachers, schools and districts).
Dienne –
There are some programs that districts purchase such as “Infinite Campus” that “claim” to be able to send scores (and all other information, etc.) to participating districts nationwide… shades of Big Brother!
Dienne in our schools in NC it is by class grouping, not individuals. Those teachers who teach smaller groups from many grade levels (EC) get a percentage of the growth score from the various classes their students come from. Those who teach everyone get the school score. Art, music and PE will now submit their own artifacts to show growth. The state tells us which of our classes (3 out of 25) we will submit on (I guess a computer program randomly chooses the classes) after we verify our 25 class lists and the principal approves it. We have to choose from provided objectives and submit evidence of growth based on those objectives (recordings for music). For our VAM score (which is 20% of our effectiveness rating), they average three years worth of scores, but drop the lowest (this year). After this year they average three years, and the next year the oldest one gets dropped.
They have people whose job it is to go to schools and explain all of the accountability measures based on scores. For K-2, who do not do end of grade testing, the data for scores comes from progress monitoring, which is assessment that tracks children’s reading progress (skill wise).
I think of testing like X-Rays. You don’t need x-Rays every time you go to the dentist. Right now we are testing in a way that is like x-raying too often. But we all know it is likely more because of external accountability pressures, contracts that were signed under RttT, and a fascination with data than it is about refining best practices in classroom approach. Most teachers (Title I ) tell me they can tell what the weakness is in an emerging reader without the assessment data. Often, there is not time for the child to apply the techniques learned in interventions before the required time to once again assess them rolls around.
I like your x-ray analogy. Your Title I teachers are right, and their observation applies to older students as well. Of course, what do teachers know? (snark alert)
This document explains it in all its gory details, but the upshot is that kids are compared to the average of similarly scoring kids who share the same demographic characteristics and attend demographically similar schools: https://www.engageny.org/sites/default/files/resource/attachments/explaining_growth_scores_faq_2012-13.pdf
In reality, the teachers at PS 321, which is far less racially and socioeconomically diverse than even New York City’s $50,000/year private schools, have very little to fear under a revised evaluation system. As long as the preferred middle schools across the district and city require state test scores as a significant requirement to apply, PS 321 parents (and parents at other so-called “public-privates,” with infinitesimal numbers of high-needs children) will do everything in their power to ensure that their child’s scores are high and growing.
Tim – looks like you may have missed the part of the letter where the teachers express that many at the school have not done well, due to these growth scores in this way, even though their students do. And that some of the teachers have been ranked in the bottom percentile of teachers, despite the school’s students scoring highly.
Tim,
You are wrong. The teacher of a gifted class at 321 had children who were at the top. They entered her class with an average of 3.92 out of 4.0. The computer said she should raise their average to 3.97. But it rose only to 3.95. She was ranked as a failing teacher. Her principal said she was an excellent teacher. Who do you trust? Her supervisor or the computer? This is madness.
I guess this is what I was asking about: “They entered her class with an average of 3.92 out of 4.0. The computer said she should raise their average to 3.97”. Where does that 3.92 come from? Are students’ scores from last year somehow gathered and aggregated, or is it a pre-test given at the beginning of the year or what? I don’t see how either approach (or any other) would be valid. A pre-test can be easily gamed based on the conditions under which you give it. But when students come from all over the place, I don’t see how the previous year’s scores can be used either. The whole concept of “measuring” academic “growth” boggles my mind.
The same thing happened leading up to the financial mess—-they trusted data when common sense said there was no way the money could keep flowing like it was before the music stopped.
You’re right, Clark, I did miss that part of the letter. Can you show me the passage where it claims that *many* at the school have (past tense) not done well?
Dienne,
“Where does that 3.92 come from?”
Out the VAMINATOR’S ASS!
Diane,
PS 321 doesn’t have gifted classes, and I know that a progressive educator like Liz Phillips would never, ever track students into classes grouped by ability, so I’m a bit confused here.
While I believe the current state tests leave a lot to be desired, in terms of quality, length, clarity, and alignment with what’s taught, I do think they should be part of the evaluation process. I also support having a third party involved in the evaluation process: to paraphrase Sinclair, it is difficult to get principals to objectively evaluate someone when their own evaluation depends on having positively evaluated teachers. I believe that measuring student growth is far more important than measuring scores.
What I would like see added to the current proposal is an appeals system that goes to the district level, not the school. If the district feels the teacher is effective and the growth measures aren’t telling the whole story, they can reinstate the teacher. If they don’t, they don’t.
We probably have a much different idea of what an appropriate Blackstone ratio is. Everyone wants to protect effective teachers, but we should be mindful of the cost to kids who are in classrooms with bad apples.
“I also support having a third party involved in the evaluation process: to paraphrase Sinclair, it is difficult to get principals to objectively evaluate someone when their own evaluation depends on having positively evaluated teachers. ”
Then we need evaluators to evaluate the evaluators because who knows how their agenda is being influenced and evaluators to evaluate those evaluating the evaluators of evaluators… Do you suppose tying everybody’s success/bonuses or failure/firing together makes sense? I sure am glad there wasn’t a mandate to base my teacher’s success by my test scores when I was in third grade. I think my life’s goal at that point was to own a horse and maybe get married. It would have horrified me to think that my teacher’s job depended on my test performance.
As to third party evaluators, they had better be required to have a thorough understanding of the makeup of each class they evaluate. I remember one principal commenting that one of my students was not doing a particular activity. He had no idea that the student was in my class because he frequently refused to come to school never mind do the work. He often needed one-to-one time; any pressure was turned into a power struggle. If a principal can be so ignorant, imagine the evaluator who comes in with no understanding of the class or school culture.
Tim,
Although having the principles evaluate might be biased, they are in the building all year getting feedback on the teacher from students, parents, and other teachers. Having a grader come in for an hour seems like the worst in terms of arbitrary, capricious, dog and pony show, dance monkey dance. Plus there is a good possibility the grader will have less classroom experience than the teacher.
If the entirety of work of a teacher was reviewed and graded by a group of professionals maybe that would be fine. How to distill that is the hard part. How to distill the parent’s collective objective view? How to distill the student’s collective objective view? Testing only works in some subjects and then it is all teach to the test and beat the system.
Seems like the good part of the defense and measure of a teacher’s work is the portfolio of assignments and tests they gave.
“While I believe the current state tests leave a lot to be desired, in terms of quality, length, clarity, and alignment with what’s taught, I do think they should be part of the evaluation process.”
Well, your thinking is misguided and wrong!
“We probably have a much different idea of what an appropriate Blackstone ratio is. . . ”
Blackstone ratio: 10-1
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”,
I don’t think the question is whether there is an “appropriate” Blackstone ratio but whether your perception of the number of “bad apples” is anywhere near reality.
Duane,
During the 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 school years, a total of 23 NYC DOE teachers were terminated for poor performance. That is out of 75,000 full-time classroom teachers.
I don’t know sure what the “right” number is, but I think there’s a chance it is slightly higher than 0.02%.
Tim,
How many teachers quit without being terminated? Many teachers are asked to leave without being terminated. You posted a misleading statistic. In the U.S., 40% of teachers quit teaching within first five years. In urban districts, the figure is higher.
And for TFA recruits, it’s even higher—much higher. Astronomical.
How many teachers left voluntarily? How many teachers were denied tenure? Surely you realize teachers are advised to quit without tarring their reputations? Not that all these teachers deserve to be let go, but I do think there is room to realize that most poor teachers or potentially poor teachers never reach the stage where they have to be forcefully removed.
No, no misleading statistics, Diane. That is the actual number of tenured teachers who were terminated for performance over the course of that two-year-long period.
The five-year teacher retention rate in all schools in the US has actually increased to 70%, and most encouragingly, the gap between the retention rate in high-needs and low-needs schools has shrunk considerably. I’ve posted and discussed this report in other comments, but here it is again: https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/news/2015/01/08/103421/despite-reports-to-the-contrary-new-teachers-are-staying-in-their-jobs-longer/.
In New York City, per the UFT’s February 2015 attrition-retention report (“Hiring Up: City’s Educator Workforce Expands”), the five-year retention rate for the 2009-2010 cohort is 65%, and first-year attrition is down to a mere 7%.The same report shows that in any given year, the overall number of teachers who leave the system for any reason–retirement, resignation, or termination–ranges between 6 and 7%. In 2013, the most recent year for which I could find numbers, only 2% of 4,660 teachers who were eligible for tenure were denied it outright.
Even if there is a natural weeding-out process of ineffective or potentially ineffective teachers that occurs prior to tenure, that does nothing to address the issue of ineffective teachers who have received tenure. You can say that the blame for an ineffective tenured teacher lies with the principal who gave it to them (5 or 10 or 20 years ago), but that doesn’t matter much to the kids in their classrooms today. 23 tenured teachers out of roughly 60,000 being removed for performance fails any common sense test.
Tim,
Wouldn’t you insist on evidence that a teacher is bad before insisting he or she should be fired? Under Bloomnerg, the requirements for tenure were made more rigorous. So I assume you are saying his reforms failed.
“Last year, in second grade, he wrote about bioluminescence (I had to look it up.) this obviously a wonderful public school.”
Makes sense, bioluminescence is part of the Common Core-aligned ELA & Literacy Curriculum in New York for Grade 2.
. . . . © 2013 Core Knowledge Foundation
Your point? Make it.
Does anyone have any doubt which approach helped that student learn about bioluminescence? How many teachers here are eager to follow the script above? How many have students who have gotten so excited about something that they create their own project? Who cares whether all 2nd graders learn and remember the term bioluminescence (after reciting it three times)? Who applauds a child’s excitement in their own exploration? Who learns more?
Not sure what the other approach you’re referring to is. As for this approach, it may not necessarily be a script in practice. It may be something that teachers are free to look at and use, borrow from, or disregard at their discretion. What happens beyond the threshold of the classroom door is a black box to me for the most part. It does seem to be that whether one concludes that the Core Knowledge curriculum guides are “developmentally inappropriate” or evidence of a great public school education depends to some degree on how one is predisposed to think about it. Diane seems to think that it’s not developmentally inappropriate for second graders to learn about bioluminesence, but like me she may not be competent to make that assessment.
Flerp, do you really think any competent teacher needs to be told how to teach the word bioluminescence? Perhaps you are not familiar with scripted lessons. After teaching a program for two and a half years to a special ed population using my professional judgement to meet their needs (and their IEPs), I was told that “making it my own” was not teaching the program “with fidelity,” another favorite expression of the scripted ed crowd. My department chair, who was trained in special ed, retired after a year and a half. He gave me excellent marks as did my supervisor my second full year, also a special ed professional. My third year they hired someone to head the department who did not have advanced credentials and decreased her authority. She reported to the principal and the new data guru neither of whom knew anything about special ed or the program beyond the sales pitch. I attended the national conference and took workshops with the professionals who developed the program as well as completing several intensive workshops on the local level. At my review, my supervisor told me she would hire me in a moment to teach English but that I wasn’t following the program guidelines. At that point, I had taught the program for over two years with no complaint. I of course had prepared a special lesson to demonstrate my teaching for my observation that showed how I taught a concept that needed further instruction. She loved it, but got overruled because it didn’t fit the higher ups narrow understanding of the program. Of course, they had not provided any of the materials the program regarded as fundamental and the students who were assigned more often than not did not fit the protocol. They were put in my room because I could teach them. My department superiors were upset when I was not rehired on the recommendation of the data guru (I could go on about him!) even though I managed to earn a satisfactory rating while NOT following a protocol I had never been instructed to follow!
What’s the other way? Well, it sounds like Diane’s relative researched the subject on his own, I’m sure with guidance from the teacher when needed. He picked up some beginning independent learning skills on a subject he was interested in. He didn’t sit there and chant bio-lumin-escence and then look at the visual while the teacher recited her lines. He was excited by what he was doing and learning and his teacher created an environment that fostered that excitement.
I have not unloaded like this in quite a while. Nobody wants to hear my story of woe over and over again. I really had no reason to expect that you could see the different approaches if you are not a teacher, so I apologize for the diatribe. The discussion is too important.
I appreciate the diatribe.
FLERP, you missed my point. My second grader chose on his own to study and write about it on his own. It was not an assignment. The nature of the class was that every child chose what interested him or her.
But did they choose their topics from a menu of items covered in a Core Knowledge curriculum? That’s what it sounds like, given that Core Knowledge covers that topic in the Second Grade.
Well, actually the middle schools in D15 where 321 is profess not to use test scores for admission, Tim. And it is hard to “grow” scores when you are starting with students already near the top, so yes, these teachers could suffer. Evidence: that “worst” teacher from Anderson.
Mad,
I wasn’t aware that MS 51 removed state test scores from admissions last year–thanks for letting me know. I still think that many 321 parents will want the scores for other middle schools/Hunter, or even for mere familiarity with taking tests (the SHSAT, etc.).
There were some outliers in the first iteration of publicly released teacher growth scores, to be sure. I don’t recall whether that Anderson teacher’s score was based on one year or multiple years. In any case, a silver lining here might be that teachers will be more motivated to work with high-needs kids given that they have more capacity for growth. I will add, though, that 4.00 is not the highest score on the state tests, it’s 4.50. Even at the most selective exam or wealthiest, highest performing gen-ed schools there is quite a bit of room for growth on state test scores.
Good point – MS 51 no longer uses test scores for admissions. And Tim, Anderson and Hunter are not D15 schools. They are highly specialized public schools in Manhattan. “Many” 321 parents would prefer to send their children to district schools.
Anyone who thinks that that lesson will take “10 minutes” has never been in a classroom much less trying to convey a concept that is high school biology material to second graders.
Who the hell comes up with this crap.
from a document prepared by parents at BNS/PS 146:
The Anderson School
PS 334
100 West 77th Street, New York, NY 10024
(212) 595-7193
Students without state test scores “would, of course, be considered and we would use the grades on the student’s report card in reading/writing/math to calculate points in lieu of standardized test scores.” (Donna Smiley, Community Coordinator)
NEST+m
111 Columbia Street
New York, NY 10002
(212) 677-5190
“Students can still apply without test scores. Other metrics will then have more weight. For example, report card, in-house exam, attendance will count more.” (Mr. Alfieri, MS Asst Principal)
Hunter College High School
(Admission for Grade 7)
71 East 94th Street, New York, NY 10128
(212) 860-1261
Hunter uses the 5th grade state tests to determine who may sit for the 7th grade admissions exam. However, if a student does not have test scores, s/he may take a qualifying exam in November in order to sit for the admissions exam in January. There is a fee to take the qualifying exam, and the principal must send a letter attesting to the student’s readiness to take it. (Kyla Kupferstein Torres, Director of Admissions and Outreach and HCHS website)
I love the Hunter one: “Don’t worry, if you didn’t take the state standardized tests, you can pay us some money to take another standardized test, the results of which will be used to determine if you’re eligible to take yet another standardized test.” Sweet!
Flerp, good summary.
Flerp – as the parent of this child, I can assure you it had nothing to do with Core Knowledge. He wrote it as a poem in 1st grade, not a report in 2nd grade. His interest was sparked by a visit to the Museum of Natural History earlier in the year. Just for the sake of accuracy. 🙂
Thanks. Do you know if 321 uses the Core Knowledge modules or other EngageNY curriculum guides?
Also, can I now say that I’ve interacted with two Ravitches in one day?
FLERP,
I don’t know the answer to your question.
This is an excellent letter and I am using it as a model for my own school. I strongly suggest that every school do the same–politicians will care most if parents refuse to vote for them afain. Furthermore, I think that Mulgew and other school leaders should draft a generic form of this and email it to every parent, teacher and voting aged teenager. This issue is NOT getting any media play; it should be front and center of every news outlet/broadcast/neespaper.
Newspaper. I also left a voicemail and email for Errol Lewis today on NY 1 to address this matter
Sorry for the typos.
Is it time for every public school in the United States to select one day and fly the U.S. flag upside down?
“The flag should never be displayed with the union (the starred blue union in the Canton) down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.” #176a
http://www.usflag.org/uscode36.html
I think what is happening to the U.S. public schools qualifies, and it would certainly gain the attention of everyone.
Thank God I teach in California and thank goodness for Jerry Brown.
Off-topic, but it’s useful to remember that what’s happening with the privatization and profiting off education is only one symptom of what’s happening wholesale to the government. Here’s an article about privatized foster care monitoring: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/01/privatized-foster-care-mentor
I should clarify – privatized *for-profit* foster care monitoring. Most foster care monitoring is and has long been privatized. But I’ve never before heard of a for-profit company doing it.
that is strange.
As the Educational Testing Service states in an explanation of its mission, the line between profit and non-profit is blurring.
When the non-partisan and non-profits serve the profit interests of the 0.1%, the nomenclature ceases to have meaning.
Dear PS321 Teachers,
Do not expect Diane (or anyone else) to be your saviour. You all will have to take action yourselves by REFUSING TO GIVE THE TEST, NOR DO ANY TEST PREP. It’s that plain and simple, no data = no VAM.
NO ONE ELSE BUT YOURSELVES CAN SAVE YOUR STUDENTS.
Sincerely,
Old Fart Spanish Teacher
Duane E. Swacker
P.S. By the way learn to focus on the negative effects of these educational malpractices ON THE STUDENTS, otherwise you come across as self serving “union thugs”.
I’m not a believer in heroes, but I do believe in heroic actions on the part of people. I think you are right, Duane. What Dr. Ravitch provides is a central place to have the sense of frustration and fear ameliorated a bit by others who are also noticing it and feeling it. Her heroic action was speaking out first and helping to be a leader in some resistance, discussion and common sense. So maybe by coming to her, they are acknowledging that they’ve reached a point where they can’t just carry on while perplexed about new mandates (as most of us did with NCLB).
And by being in contact with her, they will garner the confidence to move forward.
Good advice, per focusing on kids.
Duane,
I agree with you that teachers taking action will be the only way to solve this in the end. It’s not going to be easy. No revolution ever is. Teachers are going to have to risk losing their jobs, homes, etc. So many teachers are NOT leaving the profession even though they believe what they do every day is hurting children (and themselves). Why? Many reasons, I’m sure. I agree with Joanna’s post that this is a place to speak out, be educated, and try to find some way of coming to some resolution concerning many issues. I think teachers are struggling to make change within the system, but there are powerful and wealthy forces which are going to make it difficult. Hopefully, as Joanna says, teachers will gain the confidence to move forward in whatever way they choose whether it be staying in teaching or finding another career. It’s going to be a long battle.
It’s hard for me to understand the argument that teachers should not advocate for themselves or for their jobs. Imagine if lawyers or doctors were being evaluated according to unfair parameters in a system over which they had little control. Would they not be advocating for themselves and telling of their education and experience and why what was happening to them was not fair? I think they certainly would. Just because teachers get paid for what they do doesn’t mean they don’t care about students or the profession.
I would like to add that my VAM is based on my students test a year before that was only reading. Their test this year is both writing and reading. Only 19% of the state’s freshman passed the writing portion last year. So good luck to me.
TX doesn’t use VAM in evaluations yet, but our superintendent, who is tight with our new Gov, volunteered our district as guinea pigs for the potential rollout. So we are one of the few schools who have teachers who are affected by VAM? Illegal? It would be if we had a union.
I wonder about “value-added” year over year. Here’s an example. My son’s 5th grade math teacher added a lot of value, according to the formula. We get this elaborate report in August and if one read it carefully and knew what to look for one could identify the “value-added” in 5th grade as compared to the other grades. I think she did this by having the students use an online test prep program for homework, so I don’t know if she was doing anything differently in class (maybe she was). I do know she made extensive use of what is test prep, online. The kids who didn’t have internet access at home were staying in from recess to plow thru this program.
I sort of give her credit for shifting test prep to homework. I think that’s a work-around she came up with. That way she can do something else in class.
So here’s my question. If she maxed them for 5th grade in test score gains and the 6th grade teacher does a perfectly adequate job in 6th grade but can’t show that same rate of increase, is he then “less effective”? If you show a big bump in 5th grade aren’t you almost always going to have smaller gains the following year, with the same students?
If the test prep is homework why would we credit the teacher with “value-added”? I’d be more likely to credit the students who stayed in from recess to complete the online test prep. They were at a disadvantage and they worked around it themselves.
“The kids who didn’t have internet access at home were staying in from recess to plow thru this program.”
And that is an abomination of educational malpractice. That teacher should have her license pulled for unethical practice.
My eldest son works in that field (not ed tech, but tech) and the people who develop these things are encouraged to “play” – to make mistakes and deliberately screw with the program.
It was funny because my son and one of his friends did that. They were either told or they believed that the program was “adaptive”- it would throw up a different question depending on the answer to the question prior- less or more difficult. They tried nonsense answers and then “real” answers and they got the same response from the program. They were extremely proud of this discovery 🙂
I hope no one was using that session to make hiring/firing decisions or “inform instruction” because it produces tons of “data”.
I love the language of “adding value” to human beings through test scores! What is happening to us as a society and as human beings?
I agree. I was just looking at how it is rather than how it should or could be.
“Value-added” (as you may know) is all the rage in business. management, which is where it came from, like a lot of ed reform ideas and beliefs. I don’t think the 5th graders who scored higher on Ohio’s tests have more “value” which would be a logical extension of “value-added” thinking.
Mamie,
Your point is perceptive.
Kings do not ascribe intrinsic worth to serfs.
The destruction of the middle class is the “evil” about which Lincoln warned. The “divine right of kings to eat the bread of those who toil to make it.”
PS 295, where a member of my family attends, is all in as well:
http://www.ps295.org/pta/cuomo-reforms-bad-for-students-teachers-and-schools/
This is insane. Teachers are crushed even before Cuomo’s ridiculous evaluation plan is proposed.
Reblogged this on Network Schools – Wayne Gersen and commented:
My grandson’s school, PS 295, also sent a letter opposing the bill. Here’s hoping more and more schools and school boards actively oppose this!
I posted this in another Dr. Ravitch blog today but it bears repeating.
In Indiana a school superintendent with humongous courage suggested to the parents that hey could take their children out of school,home school them during the test period and then re-enroll them after the testing period.
Gordon,
Diane posted that on 2/21/15.
I teach in a school with a similar demographic as 321. One thing which I’d like to comment on is that the percentage of kids we have with special needs is going up, not down. Private schools don’t need to take these kids and don’t usually have the expertise as well. Well off parents are coming to districts such as ours with special needs kids because it’s a much better deal than a dedicated private school. We, as a public school, are federally mandated to help kids in need. Private schools are not.
I was a teacher for 28 years both in an urban district and a suburban school. the integrity of teaching will be destroyed by your stupid system of evaluation. Don’t do it or thousands of teachers will leave to find another profession. Steve
To Tim:
This is what you wrote: “…I also support having a third party involved in the evaluation process: to paraphrase Sinclair, it is DIFFICULT to get principals to OBJECTIVELY EVALUATE someone when their own evaluation depends on having positively evaluated teachers.”
Similarly, it is EVEN MORE difficult to OBJECTIVELY IMPROVE Public Education by having APPOINTED Chancellor, Superintendent, and principle from corporate influence. We definitely need the ELECTED PUBLIC officials as a third party in Educational policy.
Testing scheme is obsessively controlling students’ joy of learning, as well as ruining teachers’ joy of teaching and promoting a creative learning for young generation.
Tim, you sound as if you are an authority in CCSS. It seems that you and Flerp enjoy promoting, squeezing and draining Public education Tax Fund to the hand of foreign publisher? Both of you represent for ANTI-PUBLIC Education, and PRO- excessive-testing SCHEME, don’t you?
Please remember that DO NOT quickly trust, follow, obey, and submit to any speculation which the rich and the power DO NOT IMPOSE on their children’s education. It is very simple. Back2basic
Here is some news that ought to reassure teachers not only at wealthy, low-needs schools like PS 321, but for teachers who work at schools across the socioeconomic spectrum:
“Even though about two thirds of the state’s students failed Common Core-aligned state exams last year, the majority of educators in New York’s five largest school districts got high ratings on the portions of their performance evaluations that were based [solely] on students’ test scores, according to new data released Thursday by the State Education Department.
“In New York City and Buffalo, the state’s two largest districts, 91 percent of educators were rated “effective” or “highly effective” overall. If only the component that measures student performance on state exams is considered, 89 percent in New York City and 90 percent in Buffalo were rated in the top two categories.”
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/albany/2015/02/8563000/most-ny-urban-teachers-rated-highly-student-test-scores
Keep in mind that these scores are for a single year. Hopefully the SED will release data showing how many educators would have been rated ineffective by student test scores over two consecutive years.
Tim,
Great news! Only 2/3 of NY teachers will be rated Ineffective based on VAM junk science. When you get the news about who will replace them, please share it
I’m not sure how you could arrive at that conclusion.
Only student growth measures are used to calculate teacher effectiveness, not whether the student scores are proficient (a 3 or above). Teachers who work exclusively with children who score well below basic can be (and indeed are) highly effective.
Tim,
Why don’t you read the statements of the American Statistical Association, and the joint statement of the American Educational Research Association and the National Academy of Education. I have posted them many times. Or is research evidence of no interest?
Whether teachers have only a 1-14% impact on standardized test scores is also a separate issue. Profiency and proficiency rates have no bearing on whether the statistical model finds a teacher effective or ineffective; it is all about growth. The statistical model found 89% of NYC DOE teachers highly effective or effective last year.
Sounds right to me. The statistical models are junk science. Bloomberg and Klein replaced 80% or more of principals. That may be a bigger problem than teachers.
Hello all on DR’s blog,
Apologies for the slightly late response to this thread. I wanted to point out that P.S. 321 teachers were not the original authors of this letter. The original version was written and sent several weeks ago by teachers at the Brooklyn New School, P. S. 146. The letter was then “borrowed” by several other schools (including 321) and adapted to fit each school’s individual message.
As a BNS parent who is on our PAC and actively working to expand our testing refusal movement (we had 80% refuse last year and are working toward much more this year!) I want to applaud teachers of all schools who are educating their families about the horrific consequences of Cuomo’s proposal to have invalid test scores decide their fate.
Having said that, I want to note that P.S. 321 Principal, Liz Philips DISCOURAGED the testing refusal movement at her school last year and I believe she will do the same this year. With all due respect, I find this extremely hypocritical. Last year after the tests were taken there was a vocal recognition by Liz Phillips of the corrupt, horribly written, and invalid tests. Yet on the other hand, her message is to continue taking the tests and thus to participate in a corrupt system. Why? Is it because P.S. 321 is an upper middle class school with predominantly white kids who’s school is NOT the target for closing and which has parents who can raise enough money to fill in all the gaps that the state budget does not?
The testing refusal movement is an extremely strong and needed act of civil disobedience against an attempt to privatize, further segregate, and ultimately destroy the public school system. The “reformers” at the federal and state level want to then have all of their cronies (private corporations) own all schools and reap huge profits.
At BNS we are refusing the tests (and partnering with other refusing schools) not only because the tests are bad for our OWN kids, teachers, and school. We are refusing the tests because it is a powerful way to bring attention to an increasingly
unjust system that is hurting ALL children and all schools. The problem is not “bad teachers”, or “failing schools”. Although certainly we know both of those problems exist.
Yet these facts are just symptoms of the real fundamental problem which is the
extreme lack of full and fair funding for ALL public schools!!
We know how to teach. We have some of the best schools of education right here in NYC. We know what makes for academic success at all ages. Its been studied over and over in our own country and all over the world. The answers are 3-fold: well funded schools, small class size, and well trained teachers. But the powers that be don’t want to hear that. It cuts too much into their profits. So instead, they pay their cronies (not educators) billions of dollars to invent wild “assessment” schemes (tests, Common Core, etc. etc.) that they force (bribe) on states in order to try to convince them that “failing schools” (i.e. poor schools in communities of color) must be closed so that for-profit charters can take their place. Its all smoke and mirrors. Its a divide and conquer pyramid scheme to pit poor schools of color against wealthier whiter schools. Its the same old game wrapped up in a new package. We must fight it and expose it all levels!
Refuse! Opt-Out! Don’t have your children take the tests and don’t let
any administrators bully or intimidate you!
Daniella Liebling
mother of a 4th grader at BNS
who will again NOT be taking the
tests this year.
“The problem is not ‘bad teachers’, or ‘failing schools’.”
I totally agree that the problem is not ‘bad teachers’ or ‘failing schools’, because how can 1% – 3% of the total be the cause of any problem?
When I use 1 – 3 percent of teachers and/or schools might be bad or failing, I’m using the guesstimate by the so-called expert witnesses used in the Vergara trail in Los Angeles, who said from years of observations that they felt (guessed) 1 to 3 percent of teachers were incompetent.
If that guesstimate was accurate, that means about 37,000 to 111,000 teachers in the U.S. public school might be incompetent leaving almost 3,589.000 – 3,663,000 who were not.
There are 98,300 public schools and 3.7 million public school teachers.
Imagine if we take only the lower guesstimate what that would mean—that almost 61,300 public schools wouldn’t even have one incompetent teacher. And if we took the high guesstimate, then each public school would have at last 1.1 teachers who were incompetent at each school.
As for failing schools, while a few might exist, I argue that there are few if any failing schools. Using test scores to identity schools as failing is a gimmick, a ruse, a trick, and a con that can’t be accurate unless the buildings are falling down, full of mold, rotting, and need many repairs.
Schools don’t take tests—-students do. Swap the teachers at a so-called failing school with a school that is considered highly successful and competent and I’d be willing to bet that the low test scores would still be there five years later without much improvement and those so-called highly successful teachers would all be ranked failing by then.
I think we should swap out the work “failing schools” for “failing students” and then figure out what is causing those students to fail without blaming teachers and schools.
Hi Daniella –
I agree with you about opting out, but this is extremely unfair to Liz Phillips. First of all, she has softened her tone on opting out. She is not encouraging it, but she is also very understanding, and the PTA meeting Wednesday (led by her) included a long discussion of opting out and I expect significant opt out at 321 this year. Most of all, however, your attribution of motives to LIz (that she doesn’t care because her school is privileged) is borderline offensive. She has been one of the most effective and outspoken critics of testing madness and she has a strong awareness of how these policies affect all schools, not just hers.
In New York, Assemblyman Jim Tedisco (a former guidance counselor and SPED teacher) is sponsoring the “Common Core Parental Refusal Act” which will require that school districts notify parents of their right to refuse grade 3-8 CC assessments.