Dilbert Explains VAM for You

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1. Mark Collins says:

   April 29, 2013 at 3:56 pm

   Touché Diane!

   Reply
2. Jon Awbrey says:

   April 29, 2013 at 3:58 pm

   Value Addled Measures

   Reply
   • Duane Swacker says:

     April 30, 2013 at 11:14 am

     Or we could just call it what it is-Bullshit!

     Reply
3. Ron Poirier says:

   April 29, 2013 at 4:27 pm

   Sadly, education has been looking more and more like a Dilbert cartoon for the last twenty years.

   Reply
   • Ron Poirier says:

     April 29, 2013 at 4:30 pm

     Here’s a good example — in any public school in America with a sizable ESL population, NCLB demanded (and still demands!) continuous growth from the ESL cohort while simultaneously removing the top performers from the ESL cohort (via mainstreaming) and continually adding low performers who entered the system.
     That’s it. You don’t have to change anything about it to make it into a Dilbert cartoon.

     Reply
     • KrazyTA says:

       April 29, 2013 at 6:25 pm

       Ron Poirier: I have worked with ELL students. You very brief explanation is spot on.

       As you so aptly put it, the [literally] most successful teachers and TAs will be mathematically the most vulnerable to be labeled as ineffective because the ‘best’ performers will keep being lost to the count while the ‘worst’ performers will continually be refreshed and/or added to.

       You can’t win for losing. In other words, the punitive effects of VAManiacal approaches to teaching are a feature, not a bug, of their very nature.

     • Ang says:

       April 29, 2013 at 7:09 pm

       What Ron said.

       He speaks true.

4. L H Partridge says:

   April 29, 2013 at 6:10 pm

   When I read this Sunday, I immediately thought of teacher evaluations. At least this point-haired boss is being honest.

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5. egbegb says:

   April 29, 2013 at 7:50 pm

   Been there, experienced that.

   Reply
6. sjnorton4mipfs says:

   April 30, 2013 at 9:54 am

   Just about every time I attend a legislative hearing on some education “reform” initiative or another, past Dilbert strips keep coming to mind. Glad I’m not alone!

   Reply