John Thompson, historian and teacher, says that the Gates Foundation is fighting a losing battle to justify value-added assessment. At its root, he says, is an assault on public education, facilitated by a worship of data and a belief in the value of teacher churn.
He writes:
One of the Gates Foundation’s star value-added scholars, Dan Goldhaber, has voiced “concerns about the use of VAM estimates at the high school level for the evaluation of individual teachers.” Two years ago, he asked and answered “yes” to the question of whether reformers would have placed less emphasis the value-added evaluations of individual teachers if research had focused on high schools rather than elementary schools.
I once saw Goldhaber’s statement as “a hopeful sign that research by non-educators may become more reality-based.”
As the use of estimates of test score growth in evaluations becomes even more discredited, Goldhaber is not alone in making statements such as, “The early evidence on states and localities using value added as a portion of more comprehensive evaluation systems suggests that it may not be differentiating teachers to the degree that was envisioned (Anderson, 2013).”
So, what is now happening in the aftermath of the latest warning against value-added evaluations? This time, the American Educational Research Association AERA Council “cautions against VAM being used to have a high-stakes, dispositive weight in evaluations.”
The logic used by the nation’s largest education research professional association is very similar to what I thought Goldhaber meant when he warned against using various tests and models that produce so many different estimates of the effectiveness of high school teachers. The point seems obvious. If VAMs are imposed on all types of schools and teachers with all types of tests and students, then they must work properly in that wide range of situations. It’s not good enough to say we should fire inner city high school teachers because some researchers believe that VAMs can measure the quality of teaching with random samples of low-poverty elementary students.
Goldhaber now notes, “AERA’s statement adds to the cacophony of voices urging either restraint or outright prohibition of VAMs for evaluating educators or institutions. Doubtless, these stakeholders are genuinely concerned about potential unintended consequences of adopting these performance measures.”
However, Goldhaber and other supporters of corporate reform still twist themselves into pretzels in arguing that we should remain on their value-added path. Ignoring the effects of sorting as one of the factors that make VAMs invalid and unreliable for evaluating individuals, Goldhaber counters the AERA by illogically citing a couple of studies that use random samples to defend the claim that they can be causally linked to a teacher’s performance.
In other words, Goldhaber grasps at any straws to claim that it might not have been a mistake to mandate the risky value-added experiment before studying its likely negative effects. His bottom line is that VAMs might not be worse than many other inaccurate education metrics. And, yes, many things in education, as in all other sectors of society, don’t work. But, even if VAMs were reliable and valid for evaluating individuals, most people who understand school systems would reject the inclusion of test scores in evaluations because of the predictable and destructive policies it would encourage.
Moreover, Goldhaber is attacking a straw man. The AERA and corporate reform opponents aren’t urging a multi-billion dollar investment to scale up failed policies! My classroom’s windows and ceiling leaked, even as I taught effectively. But, that doesn’t mean we should punch holes in roofs across the nation so that all schools have huge puddles of water on the floor!
For reasons that escape me if the goal was improving schools as opposed to defeating unions, Goldhaber also testified in the infamous Vergara case, which would wipe out all California laws protecting teachers’ rights. He chronicled the negative sides of seniority, but not the benefits of that legally-negotiated provision. One would have thought that a court would have sought evidence on both sides of the issue, and Goldhaber only explored one side.
Goldhaber estimated the harm that could be done through “a strict adherence” to the seniority provision of “Last In, First Out” (“LIFO”). I’m sure it occasionally happens, but I’ve never witnessed such a process where the union refused to engage in a give and take in regard to lay-offs. More importantly, it once would have been easy to adopt the old union proposal that LIFO rights not be extended to teachers who have earned an “Unsatisfactory” evaluation. An agreement on that issue could have propelled a collaborative effort to make teacher evaluations more rigorous (especially if they included peer review.)
Reformers like Goldhaber ignore the reasons why we must periodically mend, but not end seniority. His work did not address the enormous social and civil rights benefits of seniority. It is the teacher’s First Amendment. Without it, the jobs of leaders who resist nonstop teach-to-the test will be endangered. Systems will have a green light to fire veteran teachers merely to get rid of their higher salaries and benefits. Without LIFO, corporate reformers will mandate even more mass closures of urban schools. Test scores will remain the ammunition in a war to the death against teachers unions. The poorest children of color will continue to be the prime collateral damage.
Even though he did not do so before testifying in Vergara, I hoped that Goldhaber would subsequently update his methodology in order to study both sides – both the costs and the benefits to students – of seniority protections. He has not done so, even though his new research tackles some other issues. In fact, I would have once been cautiously optimistic when reading Are There Hidden Costs Associated with Lay-offs? Goldhaber, Katherine Strunk, David Knight, and Nate Brown focus on the stress created by layoffs. They conclude, “teachers laid off and hired back to teach in the next school year have significantly lower value added in their return year than they had in years unthreatened by layoffs.” They find that the stress of receiving a lay-off notice undermines instructional quality and contributes to the teacher “churn” that especially hurts children in the poorest schools.
In a rational world, such a finding would argue for the reform of the education budgeting process that distresses educators – not for punitive measures against teachers who were blameless in this matter. In an even more rational world, Goldhaber et. al’s research would be used as an argument for more funding so that systems don’t have to cut it so close, and to provide support to teachers and students in stressful high-challenge schools.
By the way, I once faced such a layoff. It wouldn’t make my list as one of the thousands of the most stressful events of my career. The transparency of the process mitigated the uncertainty, minimized the chance of losing my job, and eliminated the chance that I would lose my career in an unfair manner. If Goldhaber and Strunk are really curious about the causes of teacher churn, they should visit the inner city and take a look at the real world that their metrics are supposed to represent. But, that is unlikely. Corporate reform worships at the idol of teacher churn. It is the cornerstone of the test, sort, reward, and punish policies that VAMs are a part of.
Goldhaber still seems to be sticking with the party line: Teacher churn is bad, except when it is good. We must punish teachers by undermining their legal rights in order to address the failings of the entire society. We must fight the stress fostered by generational poverty by imposing more stress on teachers and students in poor schools.
Once I believed that Gates-funded quantitative researchers were merely ignorant of the realities in schools. Maybe they simply did not know how to connect the dots and see how the policies they were advocating would interact with other anti-teacher, anti-union campaigns. Maybe I was naïve in believing that. But, at a time when the Broad Foundation is trying to replace half of Los Angeles’s schools with charters, we must remember the real danger of mandates for VAMs and against seniority in a competition-driven reform era where test scores are a matter of life and death for individual schools, as well as the careers of individual educators.
Every single rushed policy defended by Goldhaber may be a mere mistake. But, whether he understands it or not, the real danger comes from combining those policies in a top-down assault on public education.
‘Twas list ‘fore it began.
‘Twas lost ‘fore it began.
Gates and Goldhaber have been told many times (by American Statistical Association and others) that VAMs should not be used for evaluating individual teachers.
Only someone who is stupid or dishonest could read the ASA report on VAMs any other way.
But Gates and Goldhaber are not stupid. And Gates in particular KNOWS that ranking employees is very counterproductive because he tried it at his own company with disastrous results.
These two have quite purposefully ignored the actual experts because they are driven by ideology, not science.
That makes them responsible when teachers are fired.
They should be sued for every penny they are worth. And Melinda Gates should be sued as well because she also has her dirty paws all over this stuff.
“Courting Bill Gates”
If Gates were made to pay
For every teacher fired
He’d have a date each day
In court he would be mired
SomeDAM Poet: this paragraph in the posting struck me—
[start]
Goldhaber now notes, “AERA’s statement adds to the cacophony of voices urging either restraint or outright prohibition of VAMs for evaluating educators or institutions. Doubtless, these stakeholders are genuinely concerned about potential unintended consequences of adopting these performance measures.”
[end]
The second line was composed while under the effect of a strong & debilitating Rheeality Distortion Field. In order to bring it back to even a tenuous semblance of sanity and reality it should read:
“It has been painfully obvious for many years now that these stakeholders are rightfully concerned about the proven toxic consequences of mandating these misleading performance measures that repeatedly double down on predictable failure and massive waste of scarce resources.”
Thank you for your comments.
😎
The objective of VAM is to undermine teachers’ due process rights through some quasi mathematical algorithm that the teacher is not privy to. It is old fashioned “railroading” done in a way to give the illusion of objectivity.
The real VAM battleground:
http://www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/teacher-evaluation-heads-to-the-courts.html
Perhaps part of the retreat from VAM is the expensive lawsuits that will challenge its validity and the onerous impact on teachers’ careers.
Some fights are just not worth losing.
Thanks for the summary of the lawsuits. I just saw this now. I think the Lederman case is particularly interesting, to say the least.
Diane, here in NYC we have been told by our high school AP’s that are first observation and possibly second (depending on observational choice we selected) will be automatically rated low on purpose. The third and fourth will show improvement (growth). It’s such a farse. Even the administrators are having fun and have mastered the fake GRIOWTH model. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out to show growth by any means. We give the MISL rest in September with no instructions and WE GRADE IT OURSELVES. In May, GUESS WHAT? WE SHOW GROWTH. HOW FUNNY IS THIS? You mean to tell me no one knows the whole system is showing growth, manufactured? This is hysterical.
The NYS coroner’s report:
The comments are wonderful, except for the fact that the aggrandizement of VAM is not just a feature of corporate reform. It has been embedded in federal and state policy, aided for too long by the silence of the American Educational Research Association and American Statistical Association, and a studied indifference in other policy circles to valid criticisms, accumulating for more than a decade and a half.
And these abuses of mathematical prowess have occurred on behalf of the grand experiment of the early 21st century, one intended to enlist students and teachers as if expendable lab rats in test-driven trials seeking “improved student performances on standardized tests.”
The aim? Closing “THE achievement gap” a gap defined by circular reasoning that aggrandizes test scores as if those scores predicted the well-being of our students, the wonderfulness of our education system, the economic competitiveness of the nation…indeed the very security of the nation from all who wish to harm us.
The era of the grand test-driven experiments on “students and teachers” as if expendable lab rats appears to be on track for continuation, aided again by Congress, with a stealth reauthorization of ESEA, likely before December 5, 2015.
Buried in the detail is the idea that 51% of a state’s accountability system must be scores on tests with “proficiency and “growth measures.” That sounds a lot like the same old VAM SCAM and the same old prospect that the Secretary of Education can micromanage states by the blunt force of accountability based on scores on state-wide tests.
Here is a different view of accountability from Senator Sherrod Brown. I doubt that it stands a chance of getting attached to ESEA but it puts accountability on the side of equity in financing, provision of a complete curriculum for all students, and other “inputs” so carelessly tossed to the winds by the outcomes-only and test-scores-only accountability ethos.
“Addressing Resource Equity Will Improve Student Achievement
Support the Kirk, Reed, Baldwin, Brown Opportunity Dashboard of Core Resources Amendment” (
“All students should have access to a high-quality education, and schools should be able to get the resources they need to help students excel in education and in life. These resources include access to qualified teachers, rigorous coursework, health and wellness programs, high-quality early learning programs, school library programs, music and arts courses, and other opportunities that are important for student success. These critical resources are necessary to meet student needs and create the conditions for learning to take place.
Unfortunately, too many students across the country, and particularly low-income and minority students, do not have access to the opportunities they need to graduate from high school college and career ready. The Opportunity Dashboard of Core Resources amendment addressing resource equity is a step forward to remedying persistent inequities and ensuring that all students have the opportunity to reach their full potential.
Specifically, this amendment (even if poorly titled) would…
Download the one-page summary:
http://www.brown.senate.gov/download/?id=DACA676F-6E1D-453C-9E4F-995456614F3D
Here is a summary of the Senate/House, bi-partisan ESEA re-write, titled, “Every Student Succeeds Act”.
Click to access joint_esea_conference_framework_short_summary.pdf
According to Mercedes Scneider and her sources the full text of what is now being called the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is still not available to the public and will not be until November 30, 2015.The vote is Dec 2 or 3 so no public comment is really wanted Do not trust thisvsummary for accurate information.
I’d like to challenge anyone in Congress to point to what they changed in that bill as a result of teacher testimony.
They said they were consulting with “stakeholders” and they took testimony from teachers- ordinary people who expended time and energy to travel to DC and testify. How did that testimony inform this bill, specifically?
What did they put in/take out as a result of “consulting stakeholders” or is that whole thing just a dog and pony show? If if is a dog and pony show they stop wasting peoples’ time.
What can we trust? It seems as if the improvements are worth the trade-offs and about as good a bill as could be expected given the politics of the neo-liberal era. Or is it a Trojan Horse that will be worse than the Duncan MNCLB waivers?
As long as these three items stay in, the fed govt is mostly out of it, and the battle can focus at the state level:
The federal government may not mandate or incentivize states to adopt or maintain any particular set of standards, including Common Core…
The framework transfers responsibility to states for identifying schools and providing support for improvement in struggling schools, and prohibits the federal government from interfering in state and local decisions regarding accountability and school improvement activities by prescribing specific methods or systems… The framework calls for evidence-based action in any school in which students aren’t learning, but the Secretary cannot prescribe the specific interventions or improvement strategies schools must use…
The framework also ends federal mandates on teacher evaluations, while allowing states to innovate with federal funding.
The NY coroner’s report:
Another great link. And, love your comment on that site: “No smoke. No mirrors.
Just tanking poll numbers and a growing legion of angry parents.
Cuomo will kick the can down the storm sewer where it will drift out of sight and out of mind, never to be seen again”,
Can anyone in the Obama Administration, Gates or Broad explain this?
“Low-income high school graduates were far less likely to enroll in higher education in 2013 than in 2008, a downward trend that came at the same time the Obama administration was pushing to boost college access and completion, according to a new analysis of Census Bureau data.
College enrollment rates have fallen for all students since 2008, which is not surprising given that the economy has improved since then and therefore more young people can find jobs right out of high school. But the enrollment rates among the poorest students has fallen much faster, according to the analysis, which is slated to publish in a forthcoming edition of the Presidency, a publication of the American Council on Education.”
Can they explain why their devotion to market-based “reform” seems to be delivering exactly the opposite “results” than were promised?
Why are we doubling down on this? Why is all evidence that contradicts “movement” claims completely ignored?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2015/11/24/college-enrollment-rates-are-dropping-especially-among-low-income-students/