John Kuhn, superintendent of the Perrin-Whitt Independent School District in Texas, is a hero superintendent. He has been a voice of reason and at the same time an exemplar of passion and courage since he burst onto the national stage a year ago at the national Save Our Schools rally in Washington, D.C.
That is when many people discovered this fearless advocate for education and children.
He has said loud and clear that schools must serve the neediest children and raise them up, not avoid them for fear of dragging down the school’s ranking and scores.
He has taken to the national arena to oppose high-stakes testing.
He has encouraged those who want to boycott testing.
See here and here and here too.
If every superintendent were as outspoken as John Kuhn, we could take this nation back from the privatizers and restore our ideals and mission.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Under one of your links I noticed the following entry in the comments section that I mostly agree with:
Mr. Trenier
2:19 PM on April 14, 2011
Two reasons why tests are unreliable–there will always be excellent test takers (and poor test takers). A few students could and would sabotage the test to get back at a teaacher.
The hyper reliance on data–data–DATA–is the problem. We are not in labs, we are in classrooms. There are too many variables to control and too many ways to doctor the results in a classroom.
The quest for a way to ensure the best teachers teach is being driven by the corporate world and politicians who are worried that their money is not wasted. We need to instill the idea that education has value, real value, and the cost will not be cheap.
Are there bad teachers? Sure and we can and should remove them from class as soon as possible. But a test should be only one part of the evaluation.
I disagree that a student “test” should be used as a way to evaluate teacher AT ALL, for the reasons above and more. I don’t like how the commenter left it open that a “test” should be used even in part to judge a teacher’s performance.
The students in Finland take very few standardized tests. Our students take more standardized tests in one school year, than their students do in their career.
As a teacher that holds an Associate’s, Bachelor’s, Master’s, and on the borderline of receiving a Doctorate degree, I do NOT need anyone to assess my performance. I can do that quite well myself, and I do on a daily basis. It is part of my job description to analyze the learning of my students and implement remediation when necessary. I am a master teacher, although sometimes you’d never know it by looking at my VAM outcomes and proficiency levels. In fact, I’ve received ALL three possible ratings under our VAM system – this in three years of data.
So under VAM, I’ve been labeled “Highly Effective”, “Ineffective”, and “Average” in three years of data. And by the way, the “Highly Effective” and “Ineffective” ratings stemmed from data that were on completely different ends of the spectrum. So I’d like to know, first, how can this data be reliable, and, second, am I a great teacher, an average one, or a terrible one?
Whether measuring growth or proficiency, no matter how reliable the outcomes, it is unprofessional to assess me by the test scores of my students.
Finland doesn’t do it, and, in fact, NO other country does it, so why would we hold teacher’s accountable for a student’s performance on a standardized test? There are countries out there that holds their kid’s responsible for their test scores, but NOT teachers.
Students in Finland don’t take ANY standardized tests until they complete high school and apply to enter a college.
Superintendent John Kuhn is our hero too. We have great respect for this man’s courage to stand up and speak the truth. His is so incredibly dedicated to his community out in West Texas and cares about kids above all else.
I will be speaking to TASA/TSBA on Sept 30 in Austin. I hope to meet John Kuhn there, and to see you too! Also trying to arrange a get-together that afternoon with parents and teachers in Austin area.
Diane
Prof. D…any chance to convene a mtg of hero supt’s covered by press? Perhaps in DC or NYC or in Chicago to support pending tchrs strike there? A panel you and they keynote? Absoluteley impt to consolidate high-profile voices to counter the Rhee crowd and the Back-down movie-makers.
Love to do that but it is hard when all the money is on the other side of the table.
We have millions of people, no money. They have millions of dollars.no people.
Who wins?
Hopefully and eventually us, but in the mean time how many students will be harmed by the idiotic deformers deforms??
Someone needs to point out that as indicated above, annual changes in test scores at the classroom level are mostly random. And yet this is what the feds have mandated be included in all teacher evaluation systems.
Not according to TVAAS – when standardized testing is subjected to growth measures, supposedly all students can make predictable gains – no matter their SES or demographic labels.
http://blogs.sas.com/content/statelocalgov/2012/08/27/semantics-of-student-growth-test-score-discussions-create-anxiety-amongst-educators/
I would also like to add that I wouldn’t necessarily even say that proficiency levels are ever “random”. Our poor kids fail the state mandated tests in very similar fashion as they fail the international assessments, such as PISA and TIMSS. I’ll post the same link as I did before. Notice the top graph. TCAP is TN’s state test and you can see the pattern indicating that poor kids perform poorly.
The question at the federal level now hinges on whether student growth can capture teacher effects rather than proficiency levels. RttT has infused student growth measures rather than proficiency standards, supposedly because it is more fair to measure teacher effects based on growth rather than proficiency. Hence the new popularity of VAM measures.
Again, look at the top graph:
http://blogs.sas.com/content/statelocalgov/2012/08/27/semantics-of-student-growth-test-score-discussions-create-anxiety-amongst-educators/
I hesitate to speak for someone else, but what I think leonie haimson is saying is not that test scores are random by students, but random by teachers. I believe this is a point Diane made in her book (and she can certainly correct me if I’m wrong). Teachers who are rated “highly effective” one year because their students made big test improvements are just as likely to be rated average or even poorly effective in subsequent years. It’s quite unlikely that any one teacher will always have improving test scores year to year. Not sure I’m saying this well.
Yes, a teacher ‘s value-added as measured by the one year change in student test scores at the classroom level is largely random, with huge margins of error. The value-added of teachers with mostly students who come into their classes either very low scoring or high scoring will be even more unreliable, due to the way the tests are designed. There is so much error in these calculations that even if you believe that test scores are a good measure of actual learning (which I do not) the value-added methodology is practically worthless.
I think you are probably correct Dienne. But I want to also point out is that the superintendent that Dr. Ravitch originally linked to is arguing that test scores should not be used to assess the performance of teachers (of which I agree). But this argument is usually asserted in relation to proficiency rates because some teachers have students who will never be proficient no matter what – mostly based on their SES status.
I just want to make clear – the new teacher evaluation systems per RttT are not based on proficiency levels but growth measures.
I don’t agree with either.
Also, Hamson is correct in asserting that teacher ratings jump around too much to be considered reliable. But these assertions are mostly made in conjunction with VAM formulas used in the LA Times and NY published data.
I know of no one who has measured the reliability of TVAAS or EVAAS. I did read one study that was attempted some years ago in TN, but SAS refused to release the VAM data and teacher ratings.
In fact, on one EVAAS brochure, they publicize the fact that their data is “private, intellectual property”.
Someone will eventually have to sue them to get the data. If someone knows any differently, please let me know.
@ Haimson, can you identify any teacher ratings for EVAAS and TVAAS that suggests instability in teacher ratings? From what I’ve found, this data is under lock and key. There have been some groups that tested the reliability of this system, but I think they simulated their data.
I am afraid that these hero superintendents will all be replaced by Pearson trained supers that will follow the script set before them.
Your second super hero superintendent should be Joe Bruni of the William Penn School District in Lansdowne, Delaware County, PA. He attended the SOS rally, walked the walk and stood in the blistering sun. He tells our faculty each year about the DeVoss and Koch connections and implores people to return any school related or other purchases back to Walmart and to NEVER try to sell him any Amway! You should interview him. By the way, most of the kids in our school district (98% minority; 85% poverty) know this superintendent on sight and by name. He is the kids’ hero.
I felt like I was going to tear up! I am glad there are still administrator’s who know TRUTH and they are not afraid to speak it!! And again thank you Diane for speaking truth as well.
We will find the great leaders and celebrate them.
Diane
I haven’t seen John Kuhn on twitter or anywhere lately. Just hoping he is doing okay and having a great school year!