Cody to Gates; What Should We Measure?

16 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

1. Joe Nashville says:

   February 10, 2013 at 1:47 pm

   Very well said! If measurement is key as Gates suggests, perhaps more variables should be included in the measurement. Also, how about not using biased samples, not mistaking correlation for causation, and not reporting only the results that support Gates’ predetermined conclusions? Data and evidence are not always one and the same.

   Reply
   • Cosmic Tinker says:

     February 10, 2013 at 3:45 pm

     “If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” ~ Albert Einstein

     Reply
2. unheardofwriter says:

   February 10, 2013 at 3:44 pm

   Let’s also measure student responsibility for their learning. How invested are they in their education? What are they actually doing that helps them to learn? How much time, effort, and energy do they put into learning?

   For every hour of classroom time in college, it is recommended a student put in 3 hours of study. So a full time student (12-15 hours) should be studying 36-45 hours of time each week. A recent study of 1100 students showed the average study time was closer to 5-7 hours a week, yet these students considered themselves above-average and perceived they were working hard at their education.

   If learning is so dependent on teacher strategies, it should be showing up, because I know a lot of hardworking dedicated teachers who turn cartwheels (figuratively speaking) to engage the minds of today’s young people. A professor I teach with has one of the most engaging, entertaining classrooms. The students say his classes are almost like a “game show”. It is a production every time, uses music, socratic questioning, group work, the use of technology and social media is woven through the content…it is truly amazing. In this format, he has increased achievement and retention greatly in the last two years, yet he still only has a 90% pass rate. Current thinking in our public school system would blame him and say he is a failure, but in reality, the only reason the achievement is not 100% is because the students are dropping the ball. Poor attendance and not doing the work are the reasons. That’s their responsibility.

   But none are speaking of the student’s responsibility in their education. Do you know if you search research data bases for “student accountability” nothing comes up? And, what about “parent accountability” for their children’s education? There’s another issue we are not addressing.

   A fellow doctorate student in my cohort who is a new assistant principal at an elementary school presented a project on effective teaching strategies and stated, “We cannot control students, and we cannot control parents, so we must expect more from the teachers.”

   Where did this thinking come from? When and why is it about control? And, as an administrator, if you’re admitting you cannot control students, should you even be in you’re position?

   I just silently said in my head, “Oi vey! Here’s another data junky administrator. That’s all we need!”

   Reply
   • TC says:

     February 10, 2013 at 5:31 pm

     Yes. If teachers are performing at 95% and students are scoring at 20%, something is amiss. A) teachers are overated, or B) teachers are rated fine, and students are not focusing and are lazy.

     Assuming it is B), how do you get students to focus? Their attitude is determined by three things I can think of, their own inner motivation, their parents impact on them, and their peers impact.

     How do you get students to take more ownership of their situation? Explain that they have free will to succeed or fail, the choice is theirs. If they choose to be left behind, so be it, they have blown the opportunity. Give parents public school choice, which makes them take ownership.

     Reply
3. Eugene T. Buckley says:

   February 10, 2013 at 3:47 pm

   College students these days have a motto: “Maximum grade, minimum sweat.” If the tests are too hard, they find a reason to complain to administrators and bash away. A long time ago it was explained to me that there are three qualities that make a teacher a great educator: High instructor ratings, low drop rate, no complaints. I did not bow to that philosophy and was restricted to one class per semester. It cost me half a million dollars in lost wages and benefits. One semester, I was suspended after they told me I had set the academic standards too high and the students (led by one who clearly had serious mental problems) were complaining. Two students had complained about the complainers but that was never mentioned at my disciplinary hearing. I finally couldn’t take it any more and retired at the first opportunity in July, 2010.

   As I walked out of my last class, the Dean was standing there with a witness and proceded to shower contempt on me in front of the students. It was not the first time this was done and I had long made up a list of really awful things that had happened to me and it was about 100 incidents. The school was Lansing Community College in Lansing, Michigan, once one of the finest Community Colleges in the nation and now little more than an empty diploma mill with a huge rotating part time faculty, teaching(?) for the money in these hard times. Every time I faced criticism from teachers or administrators, I would always answer the same way with a proposition – Let’s take the students who passed through our classrooms and find out how successful they are five or more years down the road. If mine are doing poorly, I will quit, walk away and never return. If mine are better, I get half their paychecks. Not one ever took up that deal.

   But, as most teachers/educators know, it doesn’t take much to keep you going. When you walk into the department office and come up behind a former student who asks the secretary where to find me because he wanted to thank me for the education he received, you get at least two years worth of energy. When they stop you on the street and say that what they learned in my class really helped them in their career, your heart beats a little faster. Then, there are the letters, not a whole lot but every one a cherished memory of those who said I made a difference. I am tutoring students at Michigan State University in Microeconomics now and that keeps me in touch with the subject matter.

   Look up http://www.ratemyprofessors.com. This website advertises that you can find a class and get a high grade for little work. Notice that the easier the grade, the higher the praise. “This class was easier than my Ping Pong and Yoga classes.” “Let’s you out 45 minutes early (90 min class). Don’t miss out on Bob.” “She will fill in the final exam answers for you if you ask her.” “I only came on exam days and got a 4.0.” These teachers were highly praised by administrators for their teaching. You are welcome to look up my student comments. Also look up Wyzant for tutoring comments. Sorry for the rants today but I just found the Ravitch blog & Twitter and didn’t realize that there were so many teachers who care.

   Eugene T. Buckley
   Lansing, Michigan
   35 year Economics teacher
   20 year General Motors employee (Automation systems)
   mrpebble1@hotmail.com

   Reply
   • "2old2tch" says:

     February 10, 2013 at 8:41 pm

     Welcome. Diane’s blog is a life saver. You are joining a community of teachers/educators who care.

     Reply
4. Jane Averill says:

   February 10, 2013 at 4:17 pm

   Our school in Chicago is doing MAP testing and several teachers have complained of students rushing through this 40-50 minute test in 5 minutes. Not enough attention is being paid to the element of student rebellion, organized or not, to overtesting. Yet our teaching is being evaluated based on these results. BTW there are a growing number of families opting out of testing – especially MAPs.

   Reply
5. merlynj5 says:

   February 10, 2013 at 6:28 pm

   All of these arguments as to why Gates’ measurements are not valid miss the point and seem to have more to do with creating excuses for not expecting teachers to be effective than with really dealing with the reality at hand. Do you really think Gates, or anyone else trying to deal with the problems in education, does not realize that there are thousands of variables that can affect how students perform in school? Because Gates–or Obama– may send their children to a private school, at a cost of tens of thousands per year, is simply not relevant to the problems of dealing with the problems in the public schools where these kinds of resources are not, will not, nor ever have been available. The job of public policy makers is to solve, as best they can, the problems they face with the resources and authority that they have at hand.
   Policy makers must deal with the situation at hand in terms of what they can actually do. School boards and administrators know every well that many children come from disadvantaged situations. What can they really do about these things??? They have neither the means nor the mandate. Try telling a parent who wishes to give their child a decent education that, “Oh, sorry. We have to end poverty first before we can really do anything about insuring that your child can get a decent education. You are a poor, uneducated, unmarried mother. Your child is malnourished and you live in a crime ridden neighborhood We must solve all these problems before we can do anything about your child’s education. And by the way, as school administrators, we can’t do anything about any of these problems, so you are just out of luck.” Talk about the bigotry of low expectations….
   Children have one shot at school. Administrators have to deal with the situation at hand, and the problems they can actually affect in the immediate future. Does anyone deny that, like it or not, teachers are on the front lines of these challenges? The more effective they are, the better chance there is that kids can overcome their handicaps. Getting better results from the teaching staff is a top priority. This is no different than what any organization does with regards to improving the productivity of their employees. This falls within administrators’ purview. This is one of the things they can do now.
   I’ve been following this blog for a while now, and I’m struck by how much of it has to do with fortifying the notion that teachers should never be evaluated Why is this? Professors in higher ed are evaluated all the time. No one questions it. Their advancement depends on these evaluations. Too many teacher bargaining units want to guarantee advancement up the salary scale for no other reason than longevity and for accumulating college credit without having to demonstrate that these credits make any difference in the classroom.
   I think we all agree that high-stakes testing is not the way to judge a teacher’s effectiveness. But testing has been going on in schools from the beginning as a device to determine what students do or don’t know. Teachers have something to do with how well they do. Some are better at it than others. We need to figure out what effective teachers do, and try to inculcate these methods in all teachers. Those who can’t improve are standing in the way of a student’s ability to learn. They need to move on. Teachers need to be leading this initiative. It’s their profession, after all.
   Perhaps some of you saw Michelle Rhee on Jon Stewart the other night. I’m no fan of Rhee, but IMO, she got the better of Stewart, who tried to insist that it’s all these other variables that are the problems in education. Her response, which he couldn’t deny: Administrators can only try to fix what goes on in the schools. Parents can’t wait a generation to educate their children while society solves all it’s problems.

   Reply
   • TC says:

     February 10, 2013 at 7:16 pm

     While I agree with some if Rhee’s theories, the rash way they were instituted did more harm than good. I remember a quote from a top ten senior in my yearbook, “delay is preferable to error”. Words to live by when you are buying a car, buying a house, or overhauling the nation’s school system.

     Reply
     • merlynj5 says:

       February 10, 2013 at 7:51 pm

       Again, tell this piece of cracker barrel advice to a parent whose child needs a good education now. When Rhee started in DC, only 8% of the students were graduating. Yet something over 90% of teachers were declared “satisfactory.”
       The thing that’s missing from many of these discussions is the fact that all the so-called “reformers” didn’t come from thin air. “They saw their opportunities and took ‘um.”

   • Linda says:

     February 10, 2013 at 7:52 pm

     Most professionals who have dedicated their lives to teaching and learning do not believe Gates cares about a quality education for all children.

     For an educator’s take on the Stewart appearance see here…quite different from your viewpoint:

     Our nation’s dialogue about education has been commandeered by a bunch of ill-informed, intellectually lazy, bought-and-paid-for edu-celebrities. Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, Wendy Kopp, Ben Chavis, Steve Perry, Jeb Bush, Arne Duncan, and a few others are pushing an agenda that has little evidence to support it; worse, they are rarely questioned by well-informed journalists as to the specifics of their plans.

     http://jerseyjazzman.blogspot.com/2013/02/rhee-on-stewart-final-thought.html

     Reply
     • merlynj5 says:

       February 10, 2013 at 8:13 pm

       I think he agrees with me. Stewart let Rhee get the best of him. (But don’t take my word for it. Watch the Stewart show.) And your blogger is right. It’s because the people who interview these people aren’t really informed about the real issues involved in education, so they don’t know what to ask. The PBS Frontline program came as close as any to penetrating the fog.
       BTW, if you think the celebrity interviewers are in the dark, try to talk to a state legislator. You’ll get a better response from a Jack Russell terrier.

     • Linda says:

       February 10, 2013 at 8:20 pm

       I think your average Jack Russell is much smarter than our elected officials and policy wonks. I watched all the clips with a barf bag close by. What does she actually say other than generic, feel good statements? She never gets into details because she can’t answer specific questions.

       She was never a great teacher herself so how could she even identify one.

       Rhee is everything I would never want my daughter to become: a sociopathic, self-serving, hypocritical, greedy, back stabbing, lying fraud

   • "2old2tch" says:

     February 10, 2013 at 9:31 pm

     merlynj5,

     The point is not to do nothing because a child comes from poverty. The point is not to expect the teacher to be able to overcome the effects of poverty on their own. If we have to use metrics, the metrics show that teachers play a minor role in the overall educational success of a child. Factors outside the classroom are overwhelmingly more important. We can’t do it all! We need help!

     I can’t say I have ever seen a blog entry that says teachers should not be evaluated. I have seen a multitude of posts that object to being evaluated with high stakes tests that have little to do with their curriculum and are not designed to evaluate teachers. We do not have the metrics yet to validly rate teachers in such a manner. However, an evaluation process done by well trained professionals, both teachers and administrators, that informs a teacher’s practice is welcomed by all good teachers. If you have read carefully, you have seen that no one objects to being evaluated on the basis of their own practice. Done correctly it is a process designed to strengthen a teacher.

     Finally, you seem to be stuck on the idea that we have to fix schools, and the way to do that is to fix teachers. If fixing teachers were the root of the problem, then we would be able to move top rated teachers into any environment from the most underfunded, impoverished district to the most elite of magnet schools and expect them to get the same results. It doesn’t happen. The current “reform” movement has essentially said that they cannot deal with the effects of poverty (or apparently the inequities in school funding), so we will simply declare that excellent teachers, which we will define by student test scores, can solve all school problems, both real and imagined.

     And yet despite this impossible mandate, we still have teachers trying to beat the odds. It takes a lot to destroy our hope. The abuse that teachers are taking now is driving dedicated professionals out of teaching. Can you not hear the frustration and anguish?

     Reply
     • KrazyTA says:

       February 11, 2013 at 2:00 am

       2old2tch: your reply to merlynj5 is polite, informed, and answers every substantive point.

       Echoing your comments in eloquent language is Jennie, one of the respondents to a Gary Rubinstein blog posting. Link: http://garyrubinstein.teachforus.org/2013/02/03/the-eagle-has-landed/#comments

       Let me add something from firsthand experience. One student I worked with idolized [the word is carefully chosen] his uncle who had just finished serving 15 years at San Quentin [and no, he hadn’t served time because of mistaken identity]. This young man’s only goal in life was to emulate his idol. Nobody I worked with—other SpecEd TAs, his teachers, or other school staff—balked at having to doing her/his best for someone who resisted all help and guidance. We soldiered on as best we could. Why? Because that was not just our job but a moral obligation freely taken to do whatever we could for any young person who walked through the doors into our school; because in public schools we take on all comers. Especially the kids the charters and private schools overwhelming counsel out, force out, and leave out so that the “strivers” are not held back [a bow in the direction of Michael J Petrilli].

       I was especially struck by your words: “I can’t say I have ever seen a blog entry that says teachers should not be evaluated.” If you would pardon the impertinence, I would amend this by changing “a blog entry” to “a blog entry here.” I have followed this blog since its inception on April 26, 2012. If I have interpreted your words correctly, they are a simple statement of fact.

       I read education blogs for years before I ventured to post a single comment. In all sincerity, I would advise those who post extensive comments here to do their homework first. Read this blog’s postings and comments [yes, even the ones you disagree with] for at least a month or two, get a sense of what people are actually saying, and then your remarks will make more sense in terms of what this blog is about.

       Just sayin’…

     • "2old2tch" says:

       February 11, 2013 at 5:11 pm

       Thank you, KrazyTA. And yes, I did mean a blog entry here. Since merlynj5 was addressing her remarks to people on this blog, I intended for my comment to refer only to this blog. My mistake. While I read others, I don’t follow them as closely, and I tend to stop reading when people get really nasty.