Bill Gates is wrong. American education is not “broken.”
Federal education policy is broken.
Testing children until they cry is a bad idea. It is educational malpractice.
Basing teachers’ evaluation, their salary, and their tenure on student test scores is a bad idea. It doesn’t work. It is professional malpractice. The Gates Foundation has invested hundreds of millions of dollars trying to make it work. It doesn’t work. Arne Duncan has made it a cardinal principle of federal education policy. It doesn’t work.
Giving bonuses to teachers based on test scores is a failed idea. It has never worked. The U.S. Department of Education under Duncan put $1 billion into such programs. They fail.
Closing schools doesn’t make them better. It shatters communities and sends children to search for a school that will accept them. That’s federal policy. It’s wrong. It is wrong in Chicago and it is wrong everywhere else.
There is no such thing as a “failing school.” Schools are buildings. Buildings don’t fail. If the students in a school have low test scores, it is the responsibility of the superintendent to find out why and to supply the needed staff and resources to improve the school.
When schools struggle, it is the responsibility of the people at the top to help them, not to close them.
Federal education policy, from No Child Left Behind to Race to the Top, is broken. It has failed. It must be changed.
Testing children until they cry is indeed education malpractice.
Basing teachers’ evaluation, their salary, and their tenure on student test scores ALONE is indeed a bad idea.
Schools are NOT buildings. That is what we say around our Council all the time. Schools are the whole of the people, the place and the culture.
Being a trustee of public funds means that sometimes, you have to make that choice to close a school and move those kids into other surrounding schools – simply because of numbers.
“If the students in a school have low test scores, it is the responsibility of the superintendent to find out why and to supply the needed staff and resources to improve the school.”
And what is that way is to get rid of some pretty terrible teachers? Maybe some terrible administrators? How do we know who those people are? By what measure do we do it?
Personally, I think it’s almost easy to do so. Real 360 degree evaluation. Opportunities to improve. And dismissal if it proves to be ineffective.
Can you agree with that?
I agree with you, and think you make sense.
Increase prep time for teachers and suddenly many “bad” teachers will become good ones. In South Korea and Japan, teachers face the kids ~700 hours per year; in the US it’s ~1100. These Asian countries understand that crafting an awesome lesson is a craft that takes time and skill, just like making a great meal. In the US we’re only willing to pay for microwave meals. You reformers think you can get Chez Pannisse quality on a Taco Bell budget by identifying and culling the lowest performing teachers. Good luck with that.
The idea that there is an abundance of terrible teachers is a myth. Do they exist? Of course. Bad workers exist in every facet of the workforce. But do they exist in large enough numbers to be the reason for the so-called failing schools? No.
You didn’t address Diane’s very important point that our educational system is not broken. Politicians have simply designed a system to call it broken.
You say “Basing teachers’ evaluation, their salary, and their tenure on student test scores ALONE is indeed a bad idea.” But given how completely unreliability of these methods, why would they be used at all? It’s like saying “Only part of a teacher’s evaluation should be based on a coin toss.” It is seriously that flawed. (See “Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers” Co-Authored by Scholars Convened by The Economic Policy Institute. One telling outcome: “A study designed to test this question used VAM methods to assign effects to teachers after controlling for other factors, but applied the model backwards to see if credible results were obtained. Surprisingly, it found that students’ fifth grade teachers were good predictors of their fourth grade test scores. Inasmuch as a student’s later fifth grade teacher cannot possibly have influenced that student’s fourth grade performance, this curious result can only mean that VAM results are based on factors other than teachers’ actual effectiveness.”)
Tests of students are designed to assess students. They are not designed to assess teachers or institutions. Assessments being used for purposes for which they are not designed, and basing teachers salaries on it is a bad policy.
Yes, terrible teachers are not in abundance. However, they exist, and they are part of the problem.
It’s funny that when it does come time to close schools, they always happen to be in low income neighborhoods and the kids are dispersed to other low income schools. I’ve never heard of a school with predominantly higher SES students close down…unless of course they were being dispersed to newer, cutting edge buildings. Perhaps things are different in Canada, but here in the US, poor children are typically the only children who have to worry about their school being closed–and their new school is often of the same quality and just getting larger/more difficult to manage. Just about safeguarding public funds? Please, that’s absurd. I’m sure CPS is shutting down the 60 somehow schools “simply because of numbers.” Don’t be so naive.
As far as evaluating teachers goes, I would emphasize peer evaluation led by a team of master teachers (Nationally Board Certified, minimum 5 years of experience, evidence of improving student learning outcomes–can be much more than test scores, etc) in each school. I think teachers should be able to produce a portfolio of documentation as well to support their evaluation.
But while we’re holding people accountable, I think “public trustees” like yourself are not adequately held accountable for poor public policy due to the very loud rhetoric of so many education reformers who have put student learning outcomes squarely on the shoulders of teachers. I
Well-said. I’d like to add to my point above that most teachers don’t teach awesomely not because they don’t KNOW how to teacher better than they’re currently doing, or that they are lazy, but because of the simple fact that it’s 3:00, you’re wiped out from teaching seven classes, you have to commute home, work out, make dinner, do the laundry etc. Building an education system on the idea that teachers should neglect family, household maintenance, exercise, etc. so as to compensate for the schools’ failure to build deep planning/lesson study/grading/ collaboration time into the workday is crazy. The main reason I have a lot of good lessons is that I’m single, childless and have sacrificed my social life and yard maintenance for years to lesson planning and grading. I’m getting tired of that, and I don’t think it’s ethical to ask a teacher to do this his whole life.
NO, Mr ‘avoteforthefuture’: I don’t agree that it should be simple for a trustee or anyone to close “a school and move those kids into other surrounding schools” and such decisions should not ever simple “because of numbers.” What numbers are you talking about, the number of your kids who go to that school or the number of your family who live in the neighborhood or the number of abandoned schools and neighborhood schools that you are willing to walk past after the sun has set (no, I guess not)?
Have you ever heard the term “social contract”? 50 to 100 or more years ago, some factories or bakeries or wholesalers or whomever needed more unskilled laborers but the areas around their facilities were sparsely populated. So, they talked with other business leaders, most likely over a beer or two or on the first tee waiting to start a round of golf: “What do you think”, said one; “should WE relocate or should we black-top some of these dirt streets, build a few tenement houses, and open up a few convenience stores, turn that there grain store building into a schoolhouse and go rustle us up some of those farm kids and their families and bring them down here?” “Yea, that there might be a good start”. … and then, 10-20 years pass by and are talking again: “Think we need to spruce things up a bit — you know, some street lights and garbage collection or whatever — cause we need to get us some more cheap labor, ya know”?
Well. that there is how some ‘social contracts’ got started. No one realized how fast things would change; how many farms would be foreclosed on (couldn’t pay mortgages and all) for lack of cheap labor or that eventually these local companies would get bought up and moved to China, or Malaysia or Bangladesh for yet cheaper labor and how many government officials would throw up their hands or look the other way. Our state and local governments were part and parcel to these “social contracts”; they collected taxes built courthouses and, yes, built the schools all to make people feel good and stay working and paying taxes so they could build the cities prettier and attract more business.
So, now these local governments, they have to do these fancy balanced budgets every year ‘just like business does’ and, as part of the good old USA, they are feeling the pain of the recession and all so they think they can just just ‘rewrite’ all those social contracts and let those old neighborhoods rot and let those kids walk through gang-infested Chicago streets to get to another school where class sizes are set at a more economically supportable level — like 30 – 40 kids per classroom per hour.
And we, as good and highly moral and independent and strong citizens, are going to just stand there and say to ourselves: “Oh, yeh, its the budget”. And, when was the last time these slick lawyers — we voted into office — brought a budget around and explained the whys and wherefores” or asked for votes of approval?
People, you all better wake the F up you all been letting it run down the streets and into the sewers for too long already.
“our Council” What is “our council”?
“Real 360 degree evaluation” What do you mean by that statement?
I am a Commissioner in a Council of 21 that is elected to oversee Quebec’s 3rd largest school board.
What I mean by 360 degree evaluation is an evaluation taken from all sides – and yes – it’s a business term, but please – not all business practices are irrelevant to education.
360 degree evaluation includes self evaluation, peer evaluation, administrators evaluation, evaluation from the students/parents. Yes, each must be weighted and each must be understood. And clearly anomalies would be treated as such.
If there is better method, I would love to hear it.
I have seen what students survey’s can look like- great scores but they don’t mean anything to how teaching should go. Middle school students can be very vindictive and so their parents/ high school as well. I wish the Maryland PARCC ( I believe that is the spelling) was applied to teaching evaluation instead of any business model. Students and their parents are NOT customers and teachers are not producers/ business. I may get a lot of flak for that but reducing down teaching to anything but its own self determined entity by applying business models won’t work.
Yes, the teachers were given access to 360 evals of the admins and the log in information was potentially trackable back to the teachers so just how truly honest teachers are going to be in this chronic attacking and undermining of teachers climate we in the us are experiencing. Only the teachers are getting treated like non professionals.
Personally, if business was dominated by females like education is, there would be no trying to displace business models on to education. There would be an engineering based model or some other model used to fix what is a societal issue. The dominate paradigm doesn’t make it the correct or best paradigm.
The issues you bring up with specific assessment types is exactly the reason why the 360 evals mentioned are needed – that no singular assessment is without flaws and gives you the full story.
Having spent years in business, I cringe at blindly applying business models to education. 360 evaluation is a business fad that will join MBOs and matrix management. I tried student evaluations. Students are usually upset over not getting a certain grade on the most recent test, angry over a detention, or at the other extreme, like the teacher and don’t want to say anything negative. I eavesdropped on two of my high school students evaluating their teachers and a “good” teacher had more to do with being lenient, funny, and good looking. It took me years to later appreciate my good teachers – not at the time the most popular. Most parents mean well, but often have only glimpses of the classroom from their child’s perspective. Often the truth is difficult and not always well received. Peers are OK, but not all peers are objective or can separate politics. Administrators may not have spent enough years in a math or language arts classroom – perhaps moving up through phys ed – to understand content and delivery. Third party evaluations are too disconnected and have conflicts of interest.
So a better solution? First, and this principle is also overlooked in business, IF IT AIN’T BROKE, DON’T FIX IT. Not all schools are failing, and then, not all for the same reason. Blanket, scorched earth solutions never work and just replace one set of problems with another. Improving upon what exists takes skill and savvy. Second, if you want to know what makes a good teacher, ask a good teacher. We all know who they are. Mentoring is by far the best system with centuries of success. Make it work. Third, start listening to teachers, not politicians, billionaires, and opportunists. The latter have other interests. Teachers, in contrast to the constant demonizing, are in the classroom everyday and want their students to learn.
The best approach to education is there is no single approach to education. Students are individuals and human. Not data points in a multi-level statistical model. Teachers know this. Will anybody else listen?
And guess what? By Utah law next year, ALL teachers’ evaluations will be based partially on student AND parent surveys. I teach middle school. There goes MY evaluation.
duckmonkeyman, once again, the idea of a comprehensive evaluation is that by triangulation of data you are able to build reliability across assessments. If student surveys suggest something wildly different than all other assessment forms, that would lead one to question student surveys more. If all forms of assessment are saying the same thing, that builds credibility that there is, indeed, an issue.
In terms of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” we clearly haven’t worked in the same schools. I’ve worked with some great teachers, some lousy ones, and most in the middle who have great hearts, big effort, but could always improve. To say that we should stop expecting teachers to improve is to ignore the reality in many schools. The good news is that it sounds like, at least in your school, there aren’t any issues.
When you say students are humans, not data points, you’re unnecessarily dichotomizing those constructs. No reasonable educator I’ve met who believes in data-based decision-making reduces any student down to a number. However, I’ve met few educators who are truly effective (at least with struggling learners) who don’t take a data-based approach. In other words, it isn’t necessary to discard data to see students as human.
Finally, it’s not just politicians and billionaires who believe education needs to improve. There are countless folks, like myself, who know (and are friends and family members of) many amazing teachers, but who still believe the teaching profession has a way to go. The idea that the only folks who believe in change are “corporate reformers” is a false argument created by certain folks to emotionally fuel the debate by creating a clearly visible enemy. We tend to not like rich people, outsiders, know-it-alls, and people who are out of touch with our daily lives. It’s easy to villify Bill Gates. Much harder to villify your average educator who works 80 hours/week and still believes schools could improve.
What you refer to as 360 degree evaluation (which is not a term I’ve heard before) is exactly what we should be doing. My experience from student evaluations is that kids are pretty insightful. If kids are being vindictive en masse, then maybe it’s not vindictiveness. Don’t be afraid to ask your students what they think. Even if you don’t use it as part of a formal evaluation, it’s a great tool to help us grow as teachers.
avftf,
Thanks for the response. Are you a teacher also?
Having worked in the business world till I was 38 doing inventory control and purchasing, scheduling production, materials management and customer service management (along with being a master upholsterer) I feel I understand how business experience might help a teacher in the realm of self-organizational skills and time management. But I’ve never encountered the overbearing “evaluation” process through which teachers are put. Now it may be that the business world has changed in that regard in the almost twenty years I’ve been teaching.
Basically the evaluation process in teaching is insulting and absurd. Come talk WITH me about my practices, how and why I do what I do. Talk WITH me about those teaching and learning processes that I choose to use but DON’T TALK TO ME with some assinine evaluation form. I am a professional teacher and have been at the art and craft of teaching longer than my evaluators have been out of high school. And they evaluate me??? What a joke of a system.
So much push-back on the idea of student evaluation.
First off, this should only be a piece of evaluation. Weighted, as I said. And we all know that teaching isn’t a popularity contest. But tossing aside the opinion of the students is disrespectful. Sure, there are lousy students who are going to be vindictive etc. And there will be those who evaluate based on who’s cute. But by and large, students know who the good teachers are too. And as a piece of the overall puzzle? It’s important.
And someone mentioned Master Teachers etc – absolutely. And likely this is the most important piece of the puzzle – weighted as such.
An “evaluation form”, someone mentioned? Agreed – absolutely useless. Talking about teaching practices? Why the choices, and perhaps some back and forth with a Master Teacher with the experience that they have? That helps make an evaluation valuable to everyone.
And to the person who asked if I have been a teacher. No, I have not taught in a school environment. I do consider myself a lifelong learner, and that’s a big part of why I want to know what Diane Ravitch thinks, and why she thinks it. For the most part, I don’t agree with her points. But – they make me think. ‘Tis the goal.
Finally, for the people who maintain that “if it ain’t broke” line. Is there some reason to believe that education should be the only thing that doesn’t evolve? Have we learned everything we can learn about how to teach? Now there’s some real arrogance if that is the thought.
(Wish I could find a way to have the posts/comments use my name – Steve Mitchell – and not the name of my own WordPress blog.)
Sorry to hear you usually don’t agree with Diane who has made the study of education her lifelong mission. So who do you agree with? I agree education should evolve, and this is why PAR is better than your system IMHO.
Steve,
When you log into the wordpress account just delete the name of your blog and it will use your name.
I’m the one who asked if you were a teacher. Those who have not taught in a public school setting usually do not have a good understanding of what the teaching and learning process entails and the physical and mental energy a teacher spends in a day. Most people, as students, have seen what appears to be an effortless effective teacher but don’t realize the amount of work and effort that the teacher has put into the lesson prior to the lesson. The teaching and learning process is actually quite complex and the “master” teachers are those who have figured out the many subtle nuances of the art.
Duane
For me, what is taking place across our country is a simple as understanding agenda.
Choose one:
__Corporate Agenda: Coercing teachers and students into performing to the Business Roundtable’s standards in order to outscore competitors. Shift decision making in education away from the workers (teachers) and local communities and into the hands of the wealthy and powerful.
__Political Agenda: Gain political power by implementing the goals of lobbyists (testing companies, charter school companies, cultural/religious lobbyists…)
__Self Righteous Agenda: No excuses for all those lazy minority families living off American taxpayers. Jump higher, faster, and do it now. Quit making us look bad on international tests.
__Family Agenda: I want the best for my child. I want a useful, robust education that gives my child the best chance at fulfilling their dreams. I am torn between developing my child’s talents, but also scoring high on tests so they can compete.
__Teacher Agenda: I want a fighting chance to do the best for my students: workable class size, with realistic, ongoing, predictable support (curriculum, school community, knowledgeable leadership) and to be able to earn a reasonable salary.
__Presidential Agenda: (All of the above, but money and influence get priority)
Very well said!!!
Great comment, I agree most of our current ed problems are motive not science. I am still a naive believer that each element of formal education should be able to stand the test, “…does this enhance life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?”
I think your simplified view of agenda will limit your ability to see nuance that is often more of a prevailing force than blunt agenda.
The other alternative in some areas is to survey the students which is just as bone headed. Thanks Gates and your formidable dollars based non research based destruction of public ed.
Basing teacher’s professional evaluations on student surveys is not at all what a true professional teacher wants. Middle school and high school students have some perspective on teachers professionalism but there are some teachers who’s impact can’t even be realized until much later on in life. Teacher evaluations by survey are reducing teachers down to popularity contests. Wait until parent survey’s are part of the planning that avoids these scenarios– give little johnny a bad grad or little keshia ‘too much homework’ that she doesn’t turn in and watch how the survey’s will go. As the survey’s go so will the teacher planning on dumbing down units or teacher firing or quitting. The pressure to alter grades or give consideration so that high school kids will look nice and shiny on their college apps is already at a fever pitch. Imagine how the teachers will feel if they know that parents will blackball them if they don’t comply with the parents wishes. Bench my child and your survey will get tanked by his/her friends and teammates. Fail my child on a test and watch how he/she and their friends will conspire to get you fired based on surveys. I have heard both of those scenarios played out in high school and it is very chilling. Te hear high praise from admins for how great one’s survey score is is to realize that the admins don’t even know to how to take the survey input in its proper perspective. It isn’t being used to adjust teaching practices- it is being used to evaluate teachers. Surveys that inform the teachers on how effective they are are created by the teachers and the students together- not as a means to give broad sweeping evaluations to a teacher’s professional evaluation- but to inform the teacher in future planning. It certainly is easier to create an online survey that kids can belly up to the computer during class time and take but it certainly isn’t going to say who is a great teacher or not.
As for the original post, there is a great post on the chalkface about how the conversation should not be changed to just change the tests or perfect the tests etc. It should be about halting the uses of testing- there is learning going on during this and the kids minds and ability to analyze is being atrophied just as much as their cortical structures are by being subjected to testing under fear conditions. If you wonder what this will look like in a few years, just remember that we are animals and are subject to conditioned responses just like Pavlov’s dogs were. Testing+ fear= vomiting and anxiety. The kids will learn to associate learning with fear in some cases- many many more cases now thanks to this testing machine. Behaviors that get someone removed from that scenario that remove oneself unremitting anxiety and stress- acting up, truancy. belligirence will be on the rise. Urban school problems are now coming to a suburb near you.
Thanks Bill Gates for bringing on a whole new category to future DSM manuals:
STA-STI severe test anxiety- standardized testing induced.
Again, you’re missing the point of comprehensive evals – yes, a student survey can be biased, which is why a reasonable person would never base an entire evaluation off of that. Gates doesn’t suggest it, and I’ve never heard of anyone else who does.
Which begs the question of why we are using them to evaluate teachers. If student surveys are terribly flawed, we should not waste time and money. Anybody honest knows they can be used punitively. Teachers have to make difficult, not always popular, decisions.
“If student surveys are terribly flawed, we should not waste time and money.”
Oh, but someone is making money on the surveys and the database with which to store the “results”, thus they will have more time for golf.!
That is why.
The point of “comprehensive evals” is to control and dominate the teachers, nothing more, nothing less.
There is a difference between something being so flawed as to provide NO information, and something which – by itself – is incomplete. Yes, a student survey may be inaccurate, but if a teacher is consistently getting poor evals that may help the teacher and administrator problem-solve the situation and think more about why that’s happening.
Duane, there’s simply no basis for your statement about the purpose of the evals being to control teachers. Have you never worked for an administrator that provided support and helpful feedback based on information collected?
Reasonable and teacher evaluations seem to be mutually exclusive terms these days. 50% value not big enough of a hit – even 5% is too high for input that should not be there in the first place. The entitlement and the classroom management issues of some of these teenage teacher evaluators are going to be front and center next year. No reasonable teacher would put up with what is surely going to be a real headache.You eded have missed the point that teachers are professionals and should be evaluated as professionals by professionals within their profession. Anything else is to state that teachers are not capable of that level of professional respect.
Reasonable means not basing test scores of children you don’t even
teach but it happens all over the place now so please don’t even think that unreasonable applications of surveys can’t and won’t happen.
Not sour grapes- I have almost perfect survey scores and I still object that 50% of my eval comes from that determination.
concerned citizen I agree that something with NO validity should not be used at all. The idea of “incremental validity” would apply here. The issue seems to be our disagreement with the usefulness of various evaluation components such as student surveys. Are you saying that student surveys can provide NO useful information in any circumstances?
To reply to your query below, yes I do not think surveys of students have any place in a teacher evaluation system. I survey my students for many things, I solicit and get information from them- it is called feedback. I craft my future plans with that feedback in mind but I also take a look at how their feedback actually gibes with their actual results- students might think that something is not that great but is something that ends up being highly effective in the end, I temper their feedback with other information. Somethings are not always clear to them until they are on the other side and get the aha, I get why you asked us to do x,y or z moment. It is called teacher experience and something that students don’t have- no matter how great the teacher or how wonderful and insightful the student. So, yes, I do not think that any part of student or parent survey should be used to evaluate teachers professionally. I do not think that something so labile as the moods or attention spans of teenagers over ‘some stupid survey we have to do’ should be used no matter how seriously they take it or how great their intent. Does that mean I don;t listen to my students- I listen to them every day. I get feedback from them every unit and every semester and every year. I get and give and take in and evaluate- that is my job to do that. The surveys being given are ridiculous and students do not know what it means to teach in a classroom with several ieps, several esol, a few students who are medically fragile and have attendance with giant holes in them, students who are undergoing psych evals and fractured families, a couple of students on homebound and two who are scheduled to go to jail for outside of school issues. So no, I do not think that students need to evaluate how good I am at juggling all of my various duties so well that it seems seamless. Give me a real teacher who will know the gamut of my classroom needs and how well I have met them to evaluate me. I am a darn good teacher who has taught in incredible circumstances but in no way shape or form do I think that students are qualified to be any percentage point of a professional teacher’s evaluation. I don’t think my own children are qualified to judge their own teachers that way either.
My sense here is that we’re probably in agreement, but talking about different things. First, teacher evaluation can be used to provide helpful feedback to teachers, or to make judgements/statements about those teachers. I see student surveys as being more helpful in the former, though not exclusively.
Second, I think it may be helpful to clarify which questions might be included on a survey. A question such as “Do you think your teacher effectively teaches math?” is probably less helpful than, “Do you feel your teacher wants you to do well.” I do think it’s important to get input from students about their reactions to instruction, rapport, etc.
Finally, if student surveys are considered within the context of other data, it may be determined that – in some circumstances – the results should be given less weight. For example, some students may rate a strict teacher as showing less empathy. However, a good administrator would be able to interpret those results within the context of his/her observations of the teacher in the classroom. In that case, student surveys wouldn’t be considered to be the definitive source of information about teacher empathy.
Talk to me at this time next year when my evaluation is based on these surveys. I did not become a teacher to be the Prom king/queen. I didn’t do it to be popular. If the students like me, that’s great, but it’s not essential. I make them work hard. We write. My 8th graders just took an in-class essay test, and I made one of my 9th grade classes redo a quiz because everyone kept talking through it. What if my survey had occurred this week? BUT, what if my survey occurred the week I took my Geography kids geo-caching or took my 8th graders to the state capitol to watch the legislature make law? Then my surveys would likely be higher. The point is, that NEITHER of those surveys would likely be completely valid.
And don’t get me started on parent surveys. Most won’t even be returned. I’m concerned that the only ones that WILL be returned are the angry parents who think their perfect child should be getting an A when they have only turned in a few, partially-completed, assignments all term and that I haven’t done “enough” to help them. Besides, most parents never set foot in my classroom, not even for Back to School Night or Parent Teacher Conference. How am I supposed to have my evaluation based on that?
A powerful post, Dr. Ravitch. The truth is powerful.
Or calling for teachers to get a bonus if they teach an oversized class, and then saying….
“At the same time, education budgets are contracting, and the number of students per teacher is probably going up nationwide no matter what. Organizations like Parents Across America, which has lobbied for indiscriminate and far more costly across-the-board reductions in class size, might help preserve smaller classes for those children who most need them and would demonstrate their willingness to experiment with innovation. One class size need not fit all.
Deal?”
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/04/does-class-size-count/?smid=fb-share
Regarding abusing children in the name of reform: I am writing about NY charter zealot Eva Moskowitz. Below is an excerpt from an article in which Moskowitz is proud of her callous push for the highest test scores. I have included the link:
…Moskowitz says her teachers prepped their third-graders a mere ten minutes per day … plus some added time over winter break, she confides upon reflection, when the children had but two days off: Christmas and New Year’s. But the holiday push wasn’t the only extra step that Success took to succeed last year. After some red-flag internal assessments, [Director of Instruction] Paul Fucaloro kept “the bottom 25 percent” an hour past their normal 4:30 p.m. dismissal—four days a week, six weeks before each test. “The real slow ones,” he says, stayed an additional 30 minutes, till six o’clock: a ten-hour-plus day for 8- and 9-year-olds. Meanwhile, much of the class convened on Saturday mornings from September on. …
The day before the scheduled math test, the city got socked with eight inches of snow. Of 1,499 schools in the city, 1,498 were closed. But at Harlem Success Academy 1, 50-odd third-graders trudged through 35-mile-per-hour gusts for a four-hour session over Subway sandwiches. As Moskowitz told the Times, “I was ready to come in this morning and crank the heating boilers myself if I had to.”
“We have a gap to close, so I want the kids on edge, constantly,” Fucaloro adds. “By the time test day came, they were like little test-taking machines.”
http://nymag.com/nymag/features/65614/index3.html
There you have it: Children become “test-taking machines.” And these so-called educators are fool enough to openly promote their objectifying of children.
Important to note that these are teachers and administrators who made this choice – not macro-level reformers.
…but it’s the macro-level reformers who create the environment in which the only way to succeed is to be extreme.
I agree that the pressures created by the tests are inappropriate. However, that doesn’t mean these folks made the right decision. Is it okay for a student to cheat on the SAT or an AP exam because there is a lot of pressure to do well? If they cheat, is that the fault of the system which creates that pressure, even if that system is wrong?
… well, it’s not right for the people who “just followed orders” to hurt their “underlings,” but that doesn’t make the Nazi politicians less culpable either… the system that promotes hurting those at the “bottom” is fundamentally evil…
Testing doesn’t promote hurting those at the bottom inherently. The best way to get good test scores is to teach well, which isn’t hurting kids. Yes, schools can go to extremes, but so could kids studying for SATs.
So you associate good test scores with learning and competence. Teachers find that to be shallow and a sign of someone who has not spent much time seeing and hearing real children who develop at different rates, socially, emotionally, academically, etc. Your lack of in the classroom daily teaching experience with real live children shows.
Teaching is a human experience based on relationships and building trust. It takes many years to perfect and it is an art, not an exact science. Poor Bill, Arne, Eli and rest…they will never get it.
But it’s a stupid system that measures an outcome that can’t distinguish “teaching well” from tortuous test prep.
Linda, actually I find that good teachers have a strong sense of how various assessments can inform their instruction. One issue in the teaching profession today, from my experience, is that some teachers don’t understand how to integrate data into their practice. Do tests give us information about what a child has learned? Absolutely. Does it give us the complete picture? Absolutely not.
So, I find that our experiences in education are just different. By no means would I say that my comments aren’t informed by actual educational experience. Quite the contrary actually.
We can be data informed, but not data driven and experienced teachers can create authentic data. We don’t need computerized or bubble tests to assess our children. That seems foreign to the faux educators. They don’t get it because they don’t actually understand what they are talking about. They repeat popular rhetoric without ever having been great teachers themselves. You must be invested in some type of data gathering business.
Good to great teachers are student driven and student centered first and foremost.
Professionals learn more about their students from authentic assessments designed to pique student interest and promote creativity, something not measured by standardized tests.
From your comments, I am not convinced you are have enough direct teaching experience yourself to be judging a teacher’s ability to “integrate data into their practice”.
If you haven’t mastered the practice yourself, how do you know?
There are any eduexperts out there that don’t even know what they don’t know.
Megan, what evidence do you base your statement on? Have you read any research that “tortuous test prep” yields test results equally as high as good teaching?
EdEd….fess up…are you in the test design business, Pearson, data gathering, etc. Are you in a school? Do you see children? Why are you so shady about what you do?
Linda, I think you’re confusing what I mean by standardized assessments. I’ll give you an example – a comprehension test where students are expected to answer multiple choice questions about a passage. Are you saying you wouldn’t be able to learn anything from such an assessment based on that child’s response?
You seem to be mentally creating a false dichotomy between “authentic assessment” and other forms of assessment. I’m in complete agreement that some assessments just aren’t helpful, and I’ll be the first to say that year-end state tests aren’t helpful to teachers in terms of designing instruction. However, you cast your net too wide when you say that ALL standardized assessments or multiple choice response type assessments are invalid or unhelpful. To me, it demonstrates a real lack of knowledge of instructionally relevant assessment on your part.
In terms of your comments about my employer, we’ve covered this extensively in previous posts. If you can connect the relevance of who writes my paycheck to my comments, I’d be happy to consider answering any questions.
Don’t lecture me about my lack of knowledge about assessments because I don’t agree with you and a rudimentary multiple choice scenario. That shows your ignorance and arrogance and therein lies the problem. Go back to creating data systems….your area of “expertise”. Sorry if this was too harsh. I know how you are easily offended. It is difficult to understand teaching and learning when one has never perfected the art themselves.
It’s interesting that you’ve interpreted my comments as lecturing you, given the tone you take with me on this blog.
Eded,
A couple of comments. My experience with administrators is such that there is only one I have met that I would trust. And it has been my experience that the evaluations are a blunt control instrument.
You stated “However, you cast your net too wide when you say that ALL standardized assessments or multiple choice response type assessments are invalid or unhelpful. To me, it demonstrates a real lack of knowledge of instructionally relevant assessment on your part.”
I emphatically state that ALL standardized assessments are invalid. Wilson has shown why that is the case. Don’t know if you’ve read his works yet but when you do you will understand why that is the case.
Duane
Duane, definitely sounds like you’ve had some bad administrators. The problem, it seems, is not teacher evaluations as a concept, but how they’re used. If a bad administrator uses a good tool, the end result will be bad, but not because of the tool.
In terms of the Wilson material, I mentioned this in my last comment but I sent you an email reply about Wilson’s material and am looking forward to your response whenever you get the time. I haven’t been convinced of Wilson’s arguments, and continue to believe (as do most folks) that reliability and validity can be demonstrated for particular applications of assessments.
Unbelievable. I cannot believe that policy makers would agree that forcing little children to walk through a blinding snow storm in order to prep for a standardized test is a good idea. What if we told Gate, Obama or Duncan that THEIR children had to do that?
Nutty. Why don’t reporters call them out of this bs? I laughed when I read, “I come in and crank the boilers myself.”-whatever.
Yes, and I’m SURE Moskowitz, herself, “trudged through 35-mile-per-hour gusts.” Probably more like a private car drove her to “crank up the boilers.”
Amen.
Sometimes making a collage from old wildlife magazines can be a more sophisticated learning exercise than a test on an I-pad. Sophistication is as sophistication does. Ignoring the true needs of a child is never sophisticated.
You have a point Joanna.
Their policies haven’t failed — they have done what they were intended to do. You are simply confusing their goals with yours.
Exactly.
Now to get the AFT and NEA leadership to admit this, and publicly to distance themselves from it.
From all of it.
And from Bill Gates and Eli Broad and their foundations.
We need our unions to represent us, our children, our profession, our schools, our parents, our communities.
If not now, then yesterday.
Or they will put themselves out of the picture. And that would be too bad.
They DO NOT CARE!!! the ones in charge just got elected again! Only when a large majority of teachers start to show that they care and may vote for others running in elections will they care! Look at NY, for years special ed teachers have been complaining about how much time they spent either at school after hours or at home on the computer writing up IEP’s and Alternate Assessment data and some experimental programs (a few years ago D75 had Birgance Assessment online in 8 NYC schools). Most D75 teachers also have to make our their adapted lesson materials at home and on weekends. They spent hours and hours every school year on student data and no one in the UNION seemed to care because it was just spec ed teachers and they were not in the majority! THEN SESIS was adopted by the DOE and ALL the teachers were now spending hours and hours online on student Data! Then when All the teachers were complaining and there was a possibility that they might vote for some other union party they worked to get the pay that the teachers deserved for the extra work, but for SESIS only! The special ed teachers are still working more hours each year on student Data, but they are still in the minority!
Couldn’t agree with you more that the interventions proposed/implemented recently by federal government don’t seem to make sense. However, I disagree that there is no reason to improve education. Many children continue to struggle, and there are things we can do about this as educators. This doesn’t mean it’s our fault, but it does mean we can do better.
Also, I’m not sure you make tremendous sense when you say that schools are buildings, and they can’t fail. Do you really consider a school to be the physical infrastructure? Yes, that’s part of it, but schools are organizations of people. They absolutely can fail. I’m not sure how you can argue against that.
It’s one thing to say that American schools aren’t performing worse than other countries statistically. It’s a different thing to say we are doing as good as we need to be, and that we can’t fail.
“It’s one thing to say that American schools aren’t performing worse than other countries statistically. It’s a different thing to say we are doing as good as we need to be, and that we can’t fail.”
Straw-man argument.
No where in the related post does such a statement/sentiment/inference occur.
If so, glad to hear.
Who is the “we” in we can do better? What do you do to make teaching better? Be very specific.
Linda, when I say “we can do better,” a specific example would be learning how to better integrate assessment data into daily instruction. Some teachers do this well, others don’t – from my experiences.
What “assessment data?” Standardized tests? Then I never do that. Since the tests are secret, I have no idea what my students did or did not do well on, since I can’t see the test. So that “data” is irrelevant.
If you mean on in-class assessment, I don’t know a teacher who doesn’t do that every day. I ask a question and a bunch get it wrong? Oops! I guess I didn’t teach that well or it’s been too long since we went over that or whatever, and then I adjust my instruction.
No, not state tests. You wouldn’t have that data before the end of the year anyway.
No, I’m also not referring to casual use of data you refer to.
So, what ARE you referring to? Don’t leave me in the dark!
Louisiana Purchas, a specific example of integrating assessment data would be using CBM data to modify reading group composition over the course of the year. I also shouldn’t have dismissed your example of informal use of data – yes, that’s important, and many teachers do use those informal data to modify their instruction. My specific response to Linda, though, was referencing the use of more structured data. My experience has been that some teachers do this very well, but some do not. When I say, “We can do better,” I’m not implying that all teachers have a deficit in any one particular area. I’m referencing my experiences (across schools, districts, states, and grade levels) that I do see areas of skill deficits that could be addressed, whether through improvement of pre-service teacher education programs, individual teacher professional development, guidance/coaching by administrators or teacher mentors, etc.
So let me get this straight. 10 hour work days for 8 and 9 year-olds, not to mention their about to burn out teachers. I thought the 10 hour work day for children went out with the advent of unions in the last century. Oh that’s right.
When do they eat?
When schools are failing it is always the fault of administration at the top. The superintendent and board are #1 responsible. They set policy and allow the wrong things to happen usually to pork some friends or on ideological reasons which have no basis in fact like Gates, the “Broadfather” and Walton push in their rush for total control of money and people. Every time I have seen a trash school and they change those at the top to competent management they turn around real fast. The most important factor seems to be that they let the students know that they not the adults are the most important and they prove it to them. When the students know they are there to be used by the adults they revolt. The opposite happens when they know they are what is important. Teachers and administrators are still just employees hired to do a specific job which is to give their life to educating the next generation. It is the most important job we have in society when properly done. Without education there is no future especially in this technical overpopulated cut and slash world we now live in. If they are not at grade level in the beginning all studies show that there is failure coming and then all statistics show that they are most likely on their way into the criminal justice system which really costs money and societal harm. Is this stupid or what?
I think by using standardized tests to evaluate student knowledge we are measuring the wrong thing. The present assessment tools are like using a small straight cm ruler to measure something complex like the internal structure of a mouse. Where should you hold the ruler, how should you precisely define what your are measuring, and how can you read internal measurements from the outside? Let’s develop some standardized measurements of things that, when assessed and responded to, will help the education environment instead of tearing it apart. I propose developing standardized instruments and measuring things like: resources available in the classroom for instruction; class size at each grade level and classroom for every school; attendance at PTSA meetings, parental and community support at the school; school environment measurements like restroom cleanliness and functional sinks and toilets, campus sidewalks, landscaping and erosion; opportunities at each school for students to compete in academic activities like academic bowl, chess, science olympiad, envirothon, robotics, forensics and debate–things that can give children recognition and get them excited about their education. When these measuremts are taken and publicized for comparison, we can have a much better picture of what is wrong with our schools and specifics that can be done to provide meaningful support to our children. Then, funding can be used to support education instead of to destroy public schools: encouraging school parents and community to particape in education. After all, the success of education for our children is critical for our nation and the problem should not be ignored or denied because of budget constraints.
yes yes yes
Excellent post!
Thank you!
We need a way to weed out ineffective teachers and help those with potential. Test scores do nothing to identify teachers in need. This is why I like PAR. It’s a fair and balanced system and it gives teachers realistic mentoring. And, it still allows for due process rights.
Teachers in NYC were once a part of the hiring process till Randi agreed with Klein that our opinions and expertise on this subject don’t matter. We need to bring back this system as well as be a part of helping our school have the best teachers. PAR has been successful this, and it’s the best thing for the students as well. Thank you Montgomery County schools for your bravery in turning down RTTT teach-to-the tests evals in order to keep PAR.
This country’s educational policies are not only abusive, but also racist, classist, and reprehensible. We are racing nowhere and will end up in the trough…what the rich want. Horrors!
Of course Bill Gates is wrong! He is a marketer…that’s all.
Here’s an oldie-but-goodie about “failing schools.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/issues/97oct/fail.htm
I don’t know about anyone else here, but I actually think their is something off about Bill Gates. I think he has ego and control issues. He must be surrounded by sychophants who never tell him “no”. After years and years of media stories kissing his rear end and basically being given control over US ed. policy, it has to effect a person. I honestly think he is a little warped. Just my opinion. I just wish politicians would put him in check.
Asperger’s syndrome, too.
Really? We’re going to sink so low as to use Asperger’s Syndrome as a pejorative?
I pray that you’re not a teacher. And if you are, well, you are certainly making the case for why we need to weed some out.
Let’s weed out self appointed eduexperts who have never taught and know nothing about teaching and learning. I pray you’re not an evaluator.
“Integrate assessment data”…..you sound like a robot. Are you human?
I integrate a lot of factors: no breakfast, no backpack, no dad, no lunch money, arguments with peers, lack of confidence, depression, court dates, drugs, alcohol, overly medicated, tired, sad, and then joy, happiness, proud moments, friendships, field trips, achievements, awards, trophies, dance recitals, championships…….
INTEGRATE THAT DATA !
“Some teaches do this well, some don’t”……some do it instinctively once they know their kids and they don’t need your profit making eduscheme.
Precisely. I’d add that the sort of assessments data-obsessed people proffer are not only often vapid but also feckless in identifying exactly where students’ weaknesses lie. For instance, I’ve found that a number of my students struggle to identify and explain an author’s tone. It’s not because they don’t know what tone is. The problem is they aren’t strong readers and lack a robust vocabulary–I know this by their oral reading, writing, and responses to my questions. They can describe the tone in simpler passages but not ones at grade level or a bit beyond. So my approach has been to focus primarily on expanding their vocabulary. This has proven more effective than bludgeoning them with, say, Discovery Ed questions on tone.
eduscheme.
LOVE IT!
Boy, they are out in force on this post.
I wish they would just come out and tell us the what product or service they are hawking.
I have no product or service to sell. I only want great education delivered by happy, well paid, well respected professional teachers.
And I want those who really cannot succeed in the profession, even after all the help that can be offered to them has been given; I want them to leave the profession.
I also believe that society as a whole needs to play a greater role. Our schools are expected to be the single resource hub for almost every social issue that kids come in with. We cannot do it alone, and we certainly cannot do it with a budget that doesn’t support basic education to begin with.
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
Teachers assess on a daily basis. We really don’t need expensive quarterly assessments to tell us what skills need to be mastered. However, some students need more time, or remediation, to master a concept. Growth may not show up on a test score, but that doesn’t mean no progress was made. The best way to understand a student’s mindset is simply to ask him/her what part of a passage or math problem is confusing. The answer is usually an eye opener. But with all the constraints put upon us, including more and more students being enrolled in one class, conferencing becomes more difficult.
I see PBS is doing a series of Ted Talks on education with people like Gates. I do hope Diane was asked to participate, but I have a feeling this is another Education Nation agenda.
Teachers do not get to see the actual passages, only a printout of skills. It’s important to have the actual context. Maybe there were questions that were ambiguous. Pearson is known for that. But these tests are kept top secret. And if my job depends upon the results of these tests, I should be privy to the content. How many good teachers were evaluated negatively because of a talking pineapple?
EXACTLY! That’s what I’ve been telling my district, that is getting all excited about adding and additional district-wide test. How can I know what my students struggled on if I don’t see the questions?
schoolgal, you do have access to the content – the standards. The test questions (if designed appropriately) sample from that content. It’s the same as with kids in your class – you don’t give them the test answers before, but they know the content they are responsible for.
Of course, my comments are contingent upon appropriate expectations in terms of content. If a teacher is expected to teach 50 units of material, but can only realistically cover 25 units, that’s clearly a problem. However, in that case, the problem isn’t with the test, but with standards/amount of content expected.
As long as a teacher career is tied to this one test result, you bet I want to see that test and, more than likely a majority of students got the same question wrong. If the test is flawed, I need to know. Again, you miss the point that these tests have problems that do not show up on practice tests. This is why PAR is the best route. You sound like you are more interested in receiving RTTT funding and getting rid of good teachers by holding them responsible to one test!!! Thank goodness for superintendents who turned down RTTT funds in order to keep a fair and valid evaluation program.
Eded is Coleman.
As in Common Core?????
I see what you are saying – I misinterpreted. I thought you meant that you wanted to see the tests beforehand to know what you should teach, but I’m gathering that you meant you want to see the tests afterward since you are being evaluated with them.
On a related note, let’s not fight. I’m not sure it’s helpful to building consensus or understanding the situation to try to characterize my intentions as harmful. The truth about my beliefs is that I think evaluating teachers via state tests isn’t a good idea right now, and maybe not ever.
In the present, though, since it seems you are being evaluated by that one test, I agree that you should be given reasonable confidence by a third party evaluation that the test meets certain psychometrics, at a minimum. I also personally can’t think of a strong reason to not release the tests after they’ve been given since they won’t be reused in future years, but my experience with formal, standardized testing is that they typically aren’t released. That is the basis of my some of my other comments that it’s unfair to hold Pearson to a different standard with this particular test when other tests by Pearson and other companies are routinely not released.
My overall point is let’s stop playing conspiracy theory and work toward resolution. What we should demand is reasonable assurance through rigorous psychometric evaluation that a test meets certain standards. Obtaining “bootleg” copies and providing casual, off-the-cuff observations doesn’t really provide you with anything of real consequence.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but these tests were routinely made public before it became a factor in the evaluations here in NYS. It’s not a conspiracy theory, and for you to imply that means you are now taking the gloves off. And once again you refuse to acknowledge PAR as the better method of evaluations.
And I would just like to add parents also want to see these tests. Last year NJ parents were upset that the essay question asked students to tell a secret. Parents found that intrusive. Now these tests are forever to be hidden from the public–especially those by Pearson. Something is very wrong with these tests.
And in response to your concerns for the parents, I can understand how that they might find that question intrusive. I would add, though, that items such as this or the pineapple question last year can be problematic in that they become anecdotal evidence rather than more comprehensive evidence. So, while I understand parents may not like that question, that doesn’t provide me with real information about the academic or psychometric integrity of the assessment. Hopefully you can see that becoming bitter of test items is probably not a strategic approach to challenging it, except in the sense that it may make enough people angry that they might actually do something.
Where have I refused to acknowledge PAR as the best method, and why have I had the obligation to do so? You’re considering me not mentioning something as being a refusal? Do you consider your discussion style here as leading to shared understanding? Are you hoping that I understand your perspective, and if so do you think phrases such as “burst my bubble” or “refusal” will help me understand your perspective more?
More related to the content of your post, I see where you are coming from. I can understand your anger at the tests, and your desire to see them. Can you see my perspective about seeking a more comprehensive, systematic evaluation of the test and how that might be helpful?
No.
From today’s NYTimes…
Juan Brea, a president of the PTA at Public School 11, said test scores should not be the only consideration. His fourth-grade daughter is enrolled in a gifted program, but his first-grade daughter did not score high enough to be admitted.
“The test is so random,” he said. “Teachers are the ones who know what kids are capable of.”
He’s got that right.
So you’re saying that we should listen to the president of the PTA in determining which kids should be admitted into the gifted program? Are you aware of the definition of “gifted,” or how kids typically qualify?
Public schools are unnecessary for most children. They do not serve their stated purpose and are the wrong type of institution to serve a true public purpose
Is that purpose the education of the people in general? Then that would be served by the Lyceum.
Is that purpose the certification of workers under a formal system of employment? Then that would be served by a system of course exams specific to each formally specified position. The school is precisely the wrong venue for giving those exams, and publishing any grades or other forms of student assessment, because of the clear conflict of interest inherent in teacher grading.
Therefore, forcing minors to attend school is as is as unnecessary and abusive as requiring them to take comprehensive or generalized tests. There is no reason to perpetuate the public school system itself. We would be better served by a separate system of course exams, which any individual could take at any age, and federal funding of local Lyceum.
Before you start attacking MY skills, check in with the parents who send me the kids. I can only change those children just so much. I have to teach, deal with behavior that many times takes up MORE time than teaching, and try to bridge the gap that home environment and a poor gene pool made. You fix that, then come talk to me about my teaching abilities. When the parents are held accountable, then you can discuss my abilities to teach. I am tired of being blamed and held accountable for the whole life of these children when I only have them a short amount of time.
Finland does none of this. No teacher evaluation (Sahlberg, 2006). “External review of teachers’ performance was abolished in early 1990s” (from my reading notes). Who am I? A career teacher in Ontario now retired writing a PhD dissertation on teacher evaluation practices in Ontario 1990-2010. Of course it is not this simple. There is a different attitude toward teaching and teachers, a culture of respect you might say, as well as very high educational standards for teacher’s and teaching and learning are intensely collaborative processes. Finland has a long term policy vision and has been particularly
resistant to the “Global Education Reform Movement” (Sahlberg, 2010) of standardization, testing and ‘accountability’.
I can’t help but notice he avoids PAR as an alternative. Sorry, but bells and whistles are going off when someone won’t even consider a better method of evaluation because they are somehow personally tied to the test or to undermining public ed or unions.
I agree that federal policy is zombie!
1. Research shows that early childhood education is the most productive investment we can make in the future of our children and country. Why is it the first thing that is cut from schools?
2. Student to teacher ratio is a strong indicator of effective teaching. Why do we insist on investing in technology versus placing more mentors in the classroom?
3. School size is known to affect the quality of learning in a school; why do we keep building schools above 1,000 students?
4. Students need to develop close knit communities. Rather than changing their grouping every year, separating kindergarden buddies when they move to intermediate, again in junior high, also when they reach high school, and then the shotgun blast when they enter college.
5. Finally, the strength of the USA is based on the diversity of each community. Standardized testing is the antithesis of freedom, diversity and a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Let’s scrap it on the federal level.
You mean like the parents of NYC school children who were denied access to the gifted program because Pearson scored the test incorrectly. I can see where they would be bitter. Whatever your agenda is, I don’t really care.
We have a problem with education-school orthodoxy that goes back more than 100 years, but is now repackaged as 21st-century skills. We have a problem with powerful private interests that want to destroy teachers unions and take advantage of the huge, untapped market of education. We have a problem with over-expectations for schools in general. And we have a problem with school management…. See rest of artical here:http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2013/03/04/opinion/doc51355d38ad7f4888494152.txt
You know damn well the PTA president said “teachers” not parents!!!!!! You have no respect for teachers and their judgment!!! Everything is data-driven with you. Well, let me tell you something…..the data is not the most important aspect of a child’s development. The child emotional and social being should come first. But that’s getting harder to do with all the emphasis on academics even on the first day of school. Instead of getting to know one another, we have to do assessment after assessment. Parents are recognizing this and speaking up. I would rather get a student to a point where he wants to learn and participate and break through those barriers because that’s what will lead to his/her academic success. And PAR allows a teacher to do their job the way it’s supposed to be done without having scores hanging over our heads.
As for the gifted program, keep in mind I already told you Pearson made a huge error in scoring, yet their multi-million dollar contract had no clause for incompetence on their part. Some children aren’t great test takers, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t gifted. And many minority students are left out of this loop. Teachers recognize what a bubble sheet can’t. On the flip side, some children may have passed these tests only to start the new year not knowing the basics. That is why their previous report card grade did not match their passing scores. I am not going to give a student a high grade because he just happened to bubble in a right answer and scored a 3 instead of a 2, or another student a low grade because he was nervous and made careless errors and scored a high 3 instead of a 4, Meanwhile the student who “passed” is no longer eligible for special services even though he/she desperately needs it.
Just exactly what do you do again and what is your background in the field of education???
Just a quick note – “data driven” doesn’t, or shouldn’t exclude emotional and social well being. Nor the assessment of their progress in “loving to learn”.
And again – the overall assessment of a professional teacher is of far greater value to me than an individual mark or grade. Having said that, we still need to have a place in this for an ability to judge one child’s progress versus another child’s progress. It’s ugly, but this *is* a capitalist society, and judgements will be made once they get out of school. Students need to be able to function, and function well within the society that awaits them.
And no – I’m not a fan of what kind of society we have awaiting them.
Isn’t the point to get them ready for the world outside?? But testing and teaching to the test is not allowing for the teaching of real life skills. Not every student is ready or wants to work for a CEO. Some have dreams that are more creative in nature and many individuals who never graduated high school went on to marvelous careers.
We need to concentrate our efforts in the elementary and middle school grades by first having a manageable sized classroom and giving students more than just academics. How many art, music and gym programs are being cut just to pay for these million dollar test contracts????? We need to first instill a love of reading and learning, and with so many schools becoming test factories, children are bored and wind up hating school or coming home stressed. These tests should not determine everything about them especially if the results could lead to them not getting special services or not getting into an honors class when teachers know they qualify.
It’s like companies that only hire from Ivy League schools when there are just as many if not better applicants coming out of state schools. I am not saying don’t test them, I am just saying that the teacher is the better evaluator of the student.
btw, teachers who have gifted students score the lowest on VAM and can lose their jobs just on those statistics. And the best public schools with motivated parents and students also get low performance grades based on VAM. VAM can’t distinguish between high grades year after year. The formula just shows a low level of growth. That’s how crazy this has become.
And with that, we agree. I define success in a student as someone who is happy, loves to learn, knows what they need to know to stay on a path to success in whatever field they may choose, be that as an artist, a mathematician, a gymnast, a carpenter, a mechanic or a medical doctor.