Gary Rubinstein on VAM

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1. RAC says:

   October 6, 2012 at 8:14 am

   I wonder why the reformers don’t try this experiment: Take the staff of an underperforming school and switch them for a year with the staff in a high performing school. Let’s see if the results are that different.

   Reply
   • David Eckstrom says:

     October 6, 2012 at 1:35 pm

     They won’t try that experiment for the same reason they exempt charter and voucher schools from the same accountability measures applied to the traditional public schools. Namely, when you keep the blinders on, it’s way easier to convince the public that the emperor really is wearing clothes.

     Reply
   • ME says:

     October 6, 2012 at 6:55 pm

     I have seen either you or somebody else propose this elsewhere. I have also proposed it. I think it presents a valid, curious anomaly.

     I do think there may be some slight improvements if this were done all the way from kindergarten to 12th grade.

     But herein lies all issues with using science to study a social setting – there’s no way to have the same population of students move through a K-12 system in two different schools with two different staffs. The best we could do is set the experiment up with two similar populations of students, and I use the word “experiment” loosely.

     I highly question correlation studies in social settings, and many, if not most, conclusions in the social setting are based on correlation studies.

     Reply
2. Paulo Maurício says:

   October 6, 2012 at 8:17 am

   Its interesting to remark that a class is a complex system of multiple relations. Teaching and learning can only be reduced to averages or any other statistic if we drop out all research on science education on, say, some decades ago. Why a figure is more reliable than a text? Naive Positivism is well alive.
   My formation is in physics, but as a teacher I seek to value above all the relation that is established in the class. This have cognitive impact.

   Reply
3. ReTiredbutMisstheKids says:

   October 7, 2012 at 2:48 am

   In this report, Gary says that the state tests aren’t very good. And everything is built upon these “Pineapple” tests! Again, read Todd Farley’s 2009 expose–Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry. It’s all about the questions, the scorers and the juking. This book contains enough information to convince people what a sham “standardized” (& Todd says it’s not, wherein the quotation marks here) testing is, and the fact that the very existence of our public schools and teachers’ careers are dependent upon these faulty tests is criminal.
   Call in the lawyers!

   Reply

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