Archives for the month of: June, 2012
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Reformers vs. Democracy

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2012 //
18

One thing reformers don’t like is to hear from teachers or parents or the public. We see the same pattern repeated again and again.

Reform can only be successful when power is consolidated in the hands of the mayor, preferably when the mayor has a puppet board appointed by him and that serves at his pleasure. (See New York City.)

Reform can only be successful when it is rammed through the Legislature with a minimum of public notice and a minimum of public hearings. Fast action means no public deliberation. Reformers say, “We can’t afford to wait,” but what they mean is, “Our collective mind is made up, and we don’t have to waste time listening to those who don’t agree.” (See Louisiana.)

Reform can only be successful if the governor and the state commissioner get to make all the decisions. That way, they can circumvent and ignore public opinion in the districts that they control. (See Connecticut or Idaho or New Jersey or many other states).

Reform can only be successful if the governor controls the state board of education and its members do what he wants. That way, they can ram through the changes that must take place right now, without public deliberation. (See Louisiana and many other states.)

Reformers are so certain they are right that they can’t wait to hear other views.

Reformers don’t like democracy.

Readers: Feel free to add your state to the lists above or to suggest other ways in which reformers take control of the political process and exclude those who disagree with their policies.

Diane

P.S. This is how it worked in Idaho:

As a resident of Idaho, as a student teacher in Idaho and as the parent of a child attending a public school in Idaho, there was a great deal of outrage directed at Luna and his political allies when these “reforms” were first proposed. Remember, according to Mr. Luna everything was hunkydory in the land of Idaho’s educational system during his campaign to remain in office. Within just a few days of being re-elected, Luna was hit with the disturbing realization that teachers needed to lose their collective bargaining rights, every high school student needed a laptop supplied by their district, students needed to generate so many class units in online classes and only those venders on an approved list could supply the on-line requirements…oh, and the fact that those approved venders had supplied a large chunk of Luna’s campaign funds had nothing at all to do with this sudden epiphany and anybody who said otherwise was a “union thug”.Phone calls were made in the tens of thousands, letters to the editor of all the papers were written and published. Rallies were staged and attended. Over flow crowds attended and spoke against these “reforms” at the public hearings. The overwhelming sentiment from the public was negative. We the people spoke up and the state legislature said “so what”…and pushed it through anyway. On a fast track, because apparently the situation was so bad that only immediate action could rein in all the “bad teachers” and indiscriminate over spending in the public schools.Believe me, there was diversity of opinion. Unfortunately, the majority voice of parents and educators were effectively ignored.This is how it worked in South Dakota:

South Dakota, House Bill 1234: Governor proposes merit pay, math/sci bonuses, end of continuing contract, and statewide test-based teacher evaluations in January. Teachers, parents, citizens swamp public meetings in opposition. Legislature passes bill by end of February. Bill creates numerous committees appointed by governor and legislature. Sec. Ed. Melody Schopp calls HB 1234 a “gift” to teachers that opponents just don’t understand. Citizens now working to refer HB 1234 to public vote.In California, the reformers controlled the State Board of Education under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and they and their allies pushed through legislation called the Parent Trigger, allowing 51% of parents to take control of their public school and give it to a charter corporation. This law was pushed by a group called “Parent Revolution,” which is backed by the Broad Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and the Walton Foundation. The Parent Trigger is opposed by Parents Across America. So far, not a single public school has converted to charter status because of the “parent trigger.”

Here in California we have ‘Parent Revolution’ trying to ram their agenda. Parent Revolution dupes parents into signing petitions the ultimate result being parents are left out of the process and corporate charter organization strike it green.

In Ohio, Governor John Kasich is pushing the same corporate reforms as in other states. Maybe his playbook is ALEC?

Ohio. Vouchers, 99% of which go to religious schools, reduced oversight for charters, John Kasich and frank jackson and their Cleveland plan….it’s like they’re all working from the same boilerplate legislation…

 
Categories Education Reform

Idaho Has A Great Teacher

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2012 //
3

I got a comment from an elementary school teacher in Idaho. She sounds like the kind of teacher I would want for my grandchild, who starts first grade this September. She knows what matters most.

She reminds me of Mrs. Ratliff, the high school English teacher whom I wrote about in my last book. I dedicated a chapter in the book to her. It was called “What Would Mrs. Ratliff Do?” She taught her students to read, to write, and to think. She had high standards, the standards she set. She had high expectations. She had a red pencil and she knew how to use it. She cared about her students and we knew it.

This teacher sounds like Mrs. Ratliff for the elementary grades. I hope that Tom Luna, the state superintendent of Idaho, doesn’t ruin her classroom by putting her students online. It would benefit the companies that got him elected, but it would cheat the kids. He should trust the professional judgment of teachers like this one.

Diane

I am an elementary education teacher in Idaho. I have taught both 2nd and 4th grades, and have been in the profession for 20 years. As far as technology is concerned, I keep my young students away from it as much as possible. Instead, I teach them to be writers, mathematical thinkers, and great readers. I engage them and encourage them, and yes, I demand the best from them. When my students leave my classroom they are able to write paragraphs, letters, and stories with interesting words, proper format, and almost perfect punctuation-and most importantly they leave my room loving to write. I help them become lost in novels and learn from well-written stories. I show them how to find out information (without Google) and how to learn how to spell words (without Spell Check). They figure out how important math is in their lives, and they learn to enjoy being mathematical thinkers. They learn why education is important and how they will use it in their lives. They find meaning in learning; power in knowledge.I am confident that when my students use that fancy typewriter, fancy dictionary, and fancy encyclopedia, called a computer, they will be able to produce amazing things from it/with it because they have the foundation that will allow them to do so.I have my masters degree in technology, and I am very good at all things technology. But, I am only as good as I am because I learned to read, write, think, and do math from a good teacher, good parents, and good grandparents.Luna’s online education plan will cost a lot more than money. It will cost our students a real education. But, how would he understand that since he has never been a teacher.By they way, can you check into Apangea. It’s a program that Luna pushes in Idaho. It is an online math program that, in my opinion, is very poorly put together. Anyway, I wondered if that company gave him money too..or maybe he owns a piece of it. He sure is pushing it and promoting it and I wonder for whose benefit. Has he heard of the free Khan academy?-an excellent online math tutoring program.
Categories Education Reform

A Parent’s Advice to the CTU

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2012 //
9

During these stressful times, teachers sometimes think they are alone in their struggle to maintain the dignity of their profession. They may get the impression by listening to politicians and the media that no one cares about them or about public education. This is wrong. The American public does not want to turn its schools over to inept amateurs or Wall Street financiers. And the overwhelming majority remembers its teachers warmly and respects their work.

I recently wrote a blog about the Chicago Teachers Union’s overwhelming decision to authorize a strike. This decision received the affirmative vote of 90% of the members (actually it was 98%, because non-votes were counted as negative). Less than 2% opposed the strike resolution. This is quite a stunning rebuke to the bully tactics of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. And it is a stunning rebuke as well to Jonah Edelman, the civil-rights-activist turned corporate-reformer, who predicted (and boasted) that the teachers would never get 75% of its members to agree to strike and spent millions of dollars lobbying to change the law to make sure that CTU had to meet what he thought was an impossible threshold. Edelman, head of Stand for Children, went to the Aspen Ideas Festival to advise the nation’s elites how to cripple their teachers’ unions by adopting his hardball tactics.

In response to my blog, I received the following comment from a parent. I post it here to let teachers know that they are not alone. Count on your parents. Enlist them as allies. I would go even farther and say appeal to your local business and civic leaders. They are not pawns of the financial elites. They are your potential allies. They do not want to see your community torn apart. They will stand with you as you fight to defend your students, your school, your profession, and your community.

This is what the parent wrote:

I’m not a teacher. Neither is anyone in my family. The way in which you beat bullies and well-funded propaganda campaigns is to ENLIST THE PARENTS. Get us on your side. It’s not an “easy” thing to do. But it’s not nearly as difficult as it might first appear.

For every irate, blustering, nasty parent you’ve encountered, I guarantee you there are 2 or 3 or even 9 who feel differently. And a lot of them will have your back, stand with you, speak out for you, support you fully: but you have to approach them, one on one. You have to make the first move, reach out, and ASK their help.

Most parents know it’s all about a partnership with your child’s teacher and school. We WANT to work with you. Please don’t be afraid to, quite literally, ring our doorbell and initiate the conversation.

Stand strong, teachers. And don’t let a handful of elitists—whose own children are always in fancy private schools—intimidate you and destroy our American system of free public education for all.

Diane

Categories Chicago, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm, Stand for Children, Unions

What Do Graduation Rates Mean?

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2012 //
11

Everyone talks about high school graduation rates, but no one-including me–has any idea what they mean and what they really are.

We operate from the assumption that 100% of students “should” graduate from high school and excoriate the schools when the numbers are anything less. The assumption–which is wrong–is that we used to have high graduation rates but now we don’t. This is simply wrong. Over the course of the 20th century, graduation rates started from a very low point–less than 10% of young Americans finished high school at the beginning of the 20th century–and the rate rose steadily until it reached 50% in 1940. By 1970, it was 70%, and since then it has inched up.

Today, it is difficult to know what the graduation rate is because there are so many different ways of counting. If you count only those who graduate in four years, then it is about 75%. If you include those who graduate in August, after four years, it goes up. If you add those who took five or six years, it goes up more. If you add those who received a GED or some other alternate degree, it is up to 90%. (Aficionados of the issue can have fun poring over the latest federal data here).

These days, politicians play with the graduation rate to make themselves look successful (never mind the students). They lament the “crisis” in dropouts when they enter office, then crow at every uptick once they are in office to demonstrate “their” success.

Unfortunately, the pressure to raise the numbers typically overwhelms the standards required for attaining a high school diploma. When teachers and principals are sternly warned that their school will close unless they raise their graduation rate, they usually manage to raise their graduation rate without regard to standards. The usual gambit these days is called “credit recovery,” a phenomenon that was unheard of twenty years ago.

Credit recovery means simply that students can earn credits for courses they failed by completing an assignment or attending a course for a few days or weeks or re-taking the course online. As I wrote this week in Education Week, online credit recovery is typically a sham, a cheap and easy way of getting a diploma that was not earned. Students sit down in front of a computer, watch videos, then take a test that consists of multiple-choice questions, true-false questions, and machine-graded written answers. If they miss a question, they answer again until they get it right. Students can”recover” their lost credits in a matters of days, even hours. I wrote about online credit recovery as academic fraud in my EdWeek blog this week. Students realize quickly that if they fail, it doesn’t matter because they can get the credits in a few days with minimal effort. In this way, the diploma becomes meaningless, and students are cheated while the grown-ups fool themselves into thinking that they succeeded in raising the rates.

In this way, Campbell’s Law applies. When the pressure is raised high to reach a goal, the measures of the goal become corrupted.

The same number may be used either to bemoan a lack of progress or to claim victory. For example, the recent “Blueprint” created by a business strategy group for the school district of Philadelphia lamented that “only” 61% of its students attained a high school diploma in four years. At the same time, Mayor Bloomberg in New York City was delighted to report that the graduation rate was up to 65.5%, a figure that included summer school plus a heaping of credit recovery. The state of New York, which did not include summer graduates, put the actual figure at 61%, no different from the rate in Philadelphia. The state says that only 21% of students are “college-ready,” and the City University of New York–where most of the city’s graduates enroll–reports that nearly 80% require remediation.

So what is the real high school graduation rate? I don’t know.

Categories Accountability, Bloomberg, Michael, Campbell's Law, Education Reform, NYC, On-Line Education, Philadelphia

How Idiotic Is VAM? Very.

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2012 //
21

One of my favorite bloggers is Anthony Cody. Anthony is an experienced teacher of science in California. I always learn by reading his blog “Living in Dialogue.” He recently offered his column to a teacher in Florida to explain how his or her evaluation was affected by “value-added modeling” or VAM.

The idea behind VAM is that teachers should be evaluated based on the rise or fall of their students’ test scores. Arne Duncan made VAM a requirement of the Race to the Top program, despite the lack of any studies or research validating this practice and despite ample warnings that it was invalid and would mislabel teachers as effective or ineffective. Nonetheless, many states pushed through legislation requiring that teachers be evaluated in part by their students’ changing scores. If the scores went up, they were a good teacher; if they did not, they were an ineffective teacher.

This idea was embraced most warmly by very conservative Republican governors like Rick Scott in Florida, where VAM accounts for fifty percent of a teacher’s evaluation. In the column cited here, the Florida teacher explains how it works and how absurd it is. This teacher teaches social studies to students in the 9th and 10th grades. When he/she went to get his evaluation, it turned out that the administrator had no idea how VAM would work, especially since the Florida test does not test social studies for 9th and 10th graders. At first, the teacher was told that his/her evaluation would be based on the whole school’s scores–not just the students in his/her classes–but then he/she convinced the administrator that the evaluation should be based only on those in his/her particular classes. That took a while to figure out. The teacher got the FCAT scores in May, but it took the district or state three months to prepare the teachers’ VAM using those scores.

By the end of the blog, it is obvious that the calculation of VAM is confusing, non-scientific, and inherently unrelated to teacher performance. It will be used to take away teachers’ due process rights and any protection for their freedom of speech. It is a weapon created to harass teachers. As this teacher concludes:

As someone who is not comfortable living life on my knees with duct tape over my mouth (you may have figured this out by now if you have been reading this blog for any length of time), I am not comfortable working on an annual contract. Teachers must be able to voice their concerns about administrative decisions that harm students without fear of losing their jobs. Eliminate continuing contracts and a culture of complacency, sycophants and fear will rule the schools. Senate Bills passed in state after Race to the Top state have included VAMs as a major portion of teacher evaluations all in the name of “Student Success” and “Educational Excellence” when in reality they have been immaculately designed to end the teaching profession as we know it and free state and districts from career teachers with pension aspirations. Some may brush me off as your typical history teacher conspiracy nut, but my daddy didn’t raise no sucker. VAM is a scam.

Diane

Categories Accountability, Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, Florida, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure

This Is What “Reformers” Say in Louisiana

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2012 //
13

An editorial writer for the New Orleans Times-Picayune wrote a scathing critique of Governor Bobby Jindal’s reform legislation: the haste with which it was adopted, the lack of forethought, the approval of schools to receive voucher students even though they had no facilities, the diversion of public money to private schools, the lack of accountability for private schools getting public money, and Jindal’s refusal to allow tax breaks for those who make donations to public schools (he supports tax breaks only for contributions to private schools). The editorial expressed appreciation for the fact that legislators were starting to ask tough questions, but concluded it would have been better had they asked tough questions before they voted approval for the legislation, rather than afterwards.

Not brooking any dissent, the Governor’s communication director responded with an email. His defense to every question raised: Look how terrible the academic performance of students in public schools is. Look how many received a D or an F last year (44 percent). Look how terrible the American education system is. Look how many nations got higher test scores than the U.S. in the latest international test. Companies that move to Louisiana can’t find skilled workers. Children get only one chance. We can’t wait.

Translated, his response means: We don’t know how to fix the public schools so we will hand out public money to anyone who wants it. Academic performance is so low that we will try anything, without any evidence, even if it means destroying the public school system and giving funds to tiny evangelical schools that have no resources or track record. We will give public money to anyone who wants to open a charter school, even though the charters we now have are no better than the public schools. Our public schools are so bad that we have no obligation to improve them. We will try anything even if the outcome for children is likely to be even worse than what we are doing now. Unspoken but implied: When you are the governor and you control the Legislature and the state board of education, you can do any thing you want, even something as wacky as sending children to religious schools that have no facilities and no evidence of a better academic program than the local public school.

Diane

Categories Education Reform, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Vouchers

In Which I Answer Some Questions

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2012 //
4

A reader asks a few questions about teachers. I follow his questions with my answer:

Why do some teachers argue on one hand that they are not that important (discounting studies that show the value of excellent teachers, claiming that there are no bad teachers, insisting on equal pay for all teachers regardless of performance, avoiding effective evaluation, deriding the notion of excellent teachers in front of every child, claiming that poverty is destiny and there is little a teacher can do to change that, etc.) and at the same time question why they are not respected as professionals? If teachers are treated like interchangeable parts in some 19th century education factory, it’s because they apparently insist on it and work hard to keep it that way.

No teacher says they are unimportant, but they recognize that teachers have less impact on children than their families. Teachers are the most important school-based factor in students’ achievement, but families matter even more than teachers. Research says the same thing. Wouldn’t you agree?

No teacher, or none that I know of, says there are no bad teachers. What they say is that student test scores are not a good way to identify bad teachers because teachers who have classes of English-language-learners or special education may be mistakenly identified as “bad” teachers because their test score gains are small. Teachers don’t want to teach with bad teachers, and they rely on good principals to weed out bad teachers, not to give them due process rights.

Teachers don’t want to be paid by the rise or fall of their students’  test scores, because they know that test scores represent student performance, not teacher performance. Teachers would love to be paid more for doing more, but not for teaching to the test. Don’t you agree?

Teachers know they are not “interchangeable parts in some 19th century education factory.” In good schools, teachers think of themselves as members of a team, working together as equals to help children grow up to be good people, responsible for themselves and for their community.

They work hard to keep it that way, but right now there are just a large number of very powerful politicians and financial types who demean the teaching profession, want to lower the standards for entry, and disrespect those who have chosen to devote their lives to educating young people.

Diane

Categories Education Reform

“Hysteria” about the Galvanic Response Skin Bracelet?

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2012 //
48

Here is an education professor in Kentucky who thinks that I reacted “hysterically” to the Gates-funded galvanic response skin bracelet.

He describes me as a defender of the “status quo” because I have a distrust of people from on high telling teachers how to teach and punishing them when they can’t produce higher test scores every year. Also I do have an attachment to public schools as opposed to handing public dollars over to the private sector. I have this deep-seated preference for helping people when they need help instead of punishing them.

But I ask readers: Do you think that it is “hysterical” to worry about the use of devices to monitor the physiological reactions of students? I happen to think that it is a step towards “brave new world” thinking, this idea that school officials or teachers or government or anyone else has the power to watch us whether we like it or not, even to the point of checking on our bodily responses over which we may not have any control. I just figure that it’s nobody’s business but my own whether I am excited by what I read. Ask me to interpret it, ask me to summarize it, but ask me about how it affected my emotional life or whether it made me perspire. That’s not your business.

But then I’m old fashioned that way. I like the idea of personal privacy. I don’t like the idea of being surveilled by other people, especially without my permission.

Diane

P.S. I do not like to refer to gender and I seldom do. But I can’t help but mention that there is a long history of men asserting their superiority by calling women “hysterical.” Why is it that men never are “hysterical,” only women?

Categories Education Reform

Is Rahm in Trouble with Voters?

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2012 //
2

This reader says that Mayor Rahm Emanuel is in trouble.

I don’t live in Chicago so I don’t know if he is right.

The one time that I met Rahm Emanuel–a meeting at the White House to talk about Race to the Top–he was arrogant and unpleasant, but that seems to be his style with everyone, I was told, don’t take it personally. I didn’t. But then, I don’t live in Chicago.

Anyone reading this who lives in Chicago should let me know if they agree with this assessment:

Rahm’s base has withered to the top levels of the Plutocracy, and he is afraid to go out in public in any situation that he does not control completely. Were he to re-appear at a White Sox game, for example, as he did after he thought he had a star turn following NATO, he would be booed. That’s where the working class issues its judgements on guys like that.

During the last two weeks, as his myrmidons and minions pushed as hard as they could for a “NO” vote, Rahm retreated into his gilded Fueherbunker, surrounded by public relations and propaganda flacks who ensure that his every appearance is carefully scripted so he doesn’t hear the boos. I once counted a dozen of them (CPS and City Hall) at a small event at the “Disney II” elementary school that I covered. There were more PR and propaganda staff there than teachers (not surprising). I was covering the event as a reporter (substancenews.net), and outside I got a story from the parents (from Raise Your Hand and 6.5 to Thrive) who were forced to remain outside while Rahm and his myrmidon Jean-Claude Brizard prattled from the usual scripts inside. The parents outside were told they would be arrested if they dared do inside.

Since the May 23 mass rallies and march (10,000 is the numer; the largest teacher march in Chicago history), Rahm has retreated into his comfort zones. He has given graduation speeches behind a wall of security to the Pritzker School of Medicine, two or three charter schools, a parochial school, and one real public school. He’s constantly nervous outside of the phalanx of security he huddles behind.

And remember, the majority of cops in Chicago dislike him, too. He has attacked the police union almost as viciously as he has attacked the teachers union, but the police can’t ever strike. He reduced the actual number of cops on the streets. He has preached the kind of “efficiency” that means he tries to replace humans with gimmicks (speed cameras and blue lights for example; see the opening scenes of The Wire for all the commentary anybody needs about that privatization craziness) and technology at every opportunity (providing lucrative contracts to his buddies, while letting the streets become less safe).

Rahm Emanuel is a coward and, as people put it on the streets, a punk. Back in the day when I taught high school here (before being fired and blacklisted; that’s another story), I taught a novel called “The 13th Valley,” the best of the Vietnam fiction (but considered “too long” by most high school teachers). The first lesson included a memo to parents, including a page of dialogue. Parents had to give permission for their senior children to read the book, because it was an authentic fictional rendition of the complex horrors and realities of men in combat, which also gave a realistic rendition of the Vietnamese. Most parents gave permission for their children to read the book.

The first day or two, we talked about the language of young men in combat, and how the “F” word was really an indicator of immaturity and fear of violence. As John DelVecchio depicted in “The 13th Valley,” the soldiers who used the “F” word most were the FNGs who were still too new to understand the horrors, and the REMFs like Rahm who would always utilize their powers and privileges to assign others to do their fighting for them.

Rahm specializes in the ludicrous dispatch — proudly — of his “F bombs.” To the trained ear, that shows, as much as anything else, what a punk and coward he really is. My father served with the 44th Infantry Division across Europe from 1944 – 1945, while my mother was serving as a nurse in the Pacific (ending on Okinawa). One of the things they taught me during the 1950s was never having to use the “F” word. It was a sign, they said, of immaturity or worse, and it didn’t prove how tough a guy was, but only how silly.

Rahm has already been reduced to tears because he can no longer bully his way across the big screen in Chicago, no matter how many propaganda hacks and flacks he surrounds himself with.

Rahm’s script has been upended. His show is over, no matter how many times he repeats childishness like the “F__k you Lewis…” he blurted at Karen Lewis almost a year ago. That was when Karen tried to tell him that his “Longer School Day” campaign was not going anywhere without teacher support, union input, and some true funding to make it more than babysitting. For a year, at great expense, he has surrounded himself with mercenaries. These ranged from the Rent a Preachers I reported on last August at Sox Park to the Rent a Protesters they got caught sending out in January to support Rahm’s vicious school closings. They continued all year to the “Vote No” trolls and flacks (most notably, a couple of local bloggers here in Chicago, one of whom blogs about Chicago from Brooklyn) and the highly financed national corporate “reform” groups that tried, at great expense, to stop us from rallying, marching and voting to do whatever it will take to begin the long process of saving the public schools, here, then elsewhere, from the clutches of the “one percent” and their avatars such as Rahm Emanuel.

The narrative is now in the hands of adults who will sacrifice, as my family and I did when we outed the CASE tests and fought back, for democracy, public education, and our rights to protect our jobs, professions, and families with unions.
Categories Education Reform

One Courageous Teacher Says No to Test Madness

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2012 //
7

Yesterday I heard from a teacher in New Jersey, who read my blog about giving tests in the arts and physical education. I said in no uncertain terms that giving state tests in the arts is wrong. It diminishes teacher professionalism. It has nothing to do with improving education. It’s just the mindless need to test everyone and create data so that teachers can be evaluated by numbers.

This teacher described the nightmare of testing that is descending on her state under the leadership of Chris Cerf. Not only will students be constantly pre-tested, tested, test-prepped, and post-tested, they will be tested in everything to measure their “growth.” They will be tested in dance, physical education, art, etc.

This teacher knows that what is happening is wrong. Other teachers know it is wrong too, but they are afraid to speak up. As the movement accelerates to strip teachers of tenure and any job protections, the climate of fear takes hold. Who will risk their job to do what is right? Who has the courage to stand up to the powerful? Who will defend the defenseless children who are the victims of all this obsessive measurement?

She will. Who will stand with her?

It is funny that you say that because my school is piloting the new teacher evaluation in NJ. NJ has chosen to go with the Student Growth Percentile (SGP) model in the teacher evaluation. So, with SGP, students are given pre-midterms, midterms, pre-final, and final to measure the growth of our students.Here is the breakdown of how it is calculatedQ: How does New Jersey measure student growth?
A: New Jersey measures growth for an individual student by comparing the change in his or her NJ ASK achievement from one year to the
next to that of all other students in the state who had similar historical results (the student’s “academic peers”). This change in achievement
is reported as a student growth percentile (abbreviated SGP) and indicates how high or low that student’s growth was as compared to that
of his/her academic peers. For a school or district, the growth percentiles for all students are aggregated to create a median SGP for the
school or district. The median SGP is a representation of “typical” growth for students in the school or district.However, since we do not have longitudinal tests in the high school, our district/school chose to create their own tests for every content area.
I’m talking dance, physical education, art, musical theatre, graphic arts, sculpture, play-writing etc. This week, our students are taking multiple choice tests mixed with open ended responses in dance and all those other areas I mentioned, and I found myself think, “this is absurd” yet I’m the only one saying anything. Am I the only one who thinks this is DEAD WRONG! No I am not, but I found out yesterday everyone else in our school is afraid to say anything. They are afraid to take a stand because they are not willing to suffer any repercussions from the administration. However we are doing our children a disservice by keeping silent.So, I’ll stand alone and take the stand with one or two other teachers. It may not make a big impact, but I will make a point. We owe this to our children and future generations.
Categories Accountability, Education Reform, New Jersey, Teacher Evaluations, Testing
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