A study commissioned by the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents found that the state’s educator evaluation system is flawed in multiple ways and does not produce reliable ratings.
The state’s formula gave less credit to teachers serving disadvantaged students, judged some teachers on the performance of too few students, failed to measure key variables such as student
mobility and did not clearly signal how schools can assist teachers or students, the study found.
“Our fears were realized,” said Harrison Superintendent Louis Wool, who was president of the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents when the study was started in the spring. “The first round of assessments did not accurately measure the value of teachers whose students are in poverty, in special education or speak limited English. We are concerned that we have spent countless hours and millions and millions of dollars to produce results that are not comparable across the state and do not inform teacher practice or student learning.”
Perhaps it is studies like this that have caused Bill Gates to declare that we won’t know if “this stuff” works for at least a decade. But by the time the decade is over, how many careers will have been destroyed, how many lives ruined by the hunches of Bill Gates and Arne Duncan?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Fire everyone who pushed this on educators!!!
How do you fire Bill Gates? He dangled the $100 million in front of my county (Hillsborough, FL) and the superintendent signed us all up to be his guinea pigs. Don’t get me wrong– things weren’t all roses before that; Florida wasn’t ranked 47th in the country for nothing. Now we just get to occupy this alternate reality of survival of the fittest, seeing who can last through the insanity until the money runs out…
“Florida wasn’t ranked 47th. . .”
AAAAHHH, Americans love their rankings, “Weeze numba ONE”
May we all rank ourselves forever and ever AMEN!
Infrigginsanity to go alone with fantasy!
Identifying which teachers are “less effective” is not the aim of any credible teacher evaluation system. On the contrary, a credible system should identify least effective classroom environments. If we can identify which environments are least conducive for highly effective instructional practices, then we can begin problem solving effectively. Conversely, if we choose to ignore the correlation between student performance and chronic high poverty, then we are avoiding an important issue that is plaguing our high poverty neighborhood public schools. http://ow.ly/pZnNL
You know those situations where a spouse or a good friend or a child are completely convinced of something. . . Like that they won’t need bug spray on a hike. And you don’t argue, but you quietly pack the big spray. And sure enough they end up needing it. I think that is what needs to happen here. Principals need to keep a separate rubric (more realistic, humanistic, etc) and evaluate each teacher with it and keep it in a separate file so there will be another set if documentation on the classroom performance of the teachers. Then when this whole mess clears, there is something to operate with in order to keep going and avoid mass confusion at our children’s expense.
As best we can, those of us who can affect a functioning system that will beget further functioning systems when reformer efforts unravel, must do so. This is one of those “render unto Caesar” situations. We have to function as if we are being held up as hostages, because in a way we are. Chance favors the prepared mind. This is the time to prepare for the real efforts at education that we know will last beyond the “experiment”we now find ourselves in. Time to pack the bug spray despite all claims that the new world order contains no bugs. In fact, I think it contains more of them.
Even worse….how many students will have their education destroyed by frightened teachers who desperately try to save their careers by pumping up test scores.
That’s what it will all biol down to, Carol. Nothing more, nothing less. it is not illegal to try and boost test scores by narrowing curriculum, reducing instruction, and increasing test prep.
It is immoral, but not illegal.
There go about 2 generations whose cognitive brain wiring and intellectual and social development will have been blown to smithereens. And the ESL populations in New York State are even at a greater disadvantage in the sense that they are THE most over-tested population among the school co-horts. They are not permitted to opt out of the NYSESLAT and have to take BOTH the NYSESLAT and ELA. They used to ahve to pass both in high school to graduate; I don’t know yet if that rule as changed . . . . .
Robert,
I don’t think that it is “immoral”, however it defintely is unethical.
Duane
Indeed, Duane. Unethical. But when an entire national education establishment buys into a LEGAL but unethical approach . . . then what? I don’t yet know whether my granddaughter in 6th grade NEEDS to be saved from educational “abuse” in her school, but if she does, and her mother doesn’t think so, where do I go? (Well, George has actually pointed me at the right place.) All very frustrating.
No estoy de accuerdo, Duane.
Giving a narrowed curriculum and developmentally inappropriate time frames in which to master a much higher range of skills demoralizes students rather than challenges them.
It creates frustration and doubts about self esteem. It labels falsely and punishes harshly. It mischaracterizes students, parenting, and teachers. It extinguishes curiosity, creativity, and denies the human need to do things well on a scale that is in proportion to our physicality and psyches. It rushes critical thinking and thinking outside the box. This has long term effects of reducing people’s autonomy, their ability toe be empathetic, their social and economic mobility, and their notion of social justice.
Brain wiring makes the creature . . . . we do as we think, we do if we think, we do poorly as a result of not thinking, and we are what we believe.
Such a belief system has not too much to look forward to.
It is, sin dudo, immoral . . . .
The question is why does a well educated smart guy like Bill Gates not recognize the flaws in rating teachers by student performance? And why do Gates and other folks pushing for “reforms” avoid conversation about basic stuff – how do we know what teachers are doing best, what are the most effective ways for helping poor (economically poor and poor performing) students and what are the best pedagogical practices?
Unfortunately, the answer appears to be that this is cultural, that folks in the circles he travels in tend to have a perspective that fosters these attitudes. I sure wish he would participate in conversations like this instead of using cash to bully folks into following his ideas.
I may be too cynical by half but I believe that Gates and the rest of those who pushed this ridiculous VAM evaluation knew perfectly well that it would drive the majority of experienced teachers out of the profession — that is a feature to them, not a bug.
The entire reform enterprise has, from its origins many years ago, had destruction of the teachers’ unions as one of its primary goals. That is what animates Jeb Bush, Eli Broad, the Waltons, and so many others who have funded this attack. They spent years spreading the lie that there were legions of horrible teachers locked into the nations classrooms and protected by intransigent unions and the unions themselves started parroting those lies and going along to get along — just listen to Randi Weingarten and Dennis Van Roekel on any given day.
After nearly a generation of degrading, devaluing, and despising teachers and their unions is it any wonder that they were so successful in putting in place an evaluation system that guarantees the end of the unions and professionalism for the profession?
In the meantime, let’s evaluate Gates on his basis in reality and Walton on his benefit to communities.
Stop doing business with these people. Start with two and send a message to the others. No more Exxon-Mobile or Wallmart! Start today and spread the word and eventually we will hurt them where it gets their attention- in their profits and angers their stockholders. Thank you.
[The state’s formula gave less credit to teachers serving disadvantaged students, judged some teachers on the performance of too few students, failed to measure key variables such as student mobility and did not clearly signal how schools can assist teachers or students, the study found.]
NYC has ignored student mobility as a factor impacting learning documented way back to 1959. I’m not sure NYS measures mobility — they may measure stability. Mobility & stability are not the same. They (NY state) didn’t measure mobility the last time I looked. NYC did measure mobility at that time.
In any event the report says mobility was not considered in the formula.
“Moving Forward: Helping New York’s high mobility students to succeed” http://www.educationnewyork.com/pdfs/EDNYstudentmobility.pdf
My position on data sharing has become more cautious since this paper was written.
Don’t get the “if” it works. Junk science is just that.
Reblogged this on CNY Teacher.
Our South Bronx middle school has been re- formed by co-location with a charter that simply changed their name after bankruptcy and a selective school that was asked to leave their site. Add in the infamous OTC issue Annenburg studied in high schools ( but a clear factor in recent years for us).
In one class alone last year my students experienced pregnancy, child care of a toddler, drug use issues, incarceration, incarceration of family members, sexual abuse, physical abuse, homelessness, gang issues, hearing loss, cardiac issues, being hit by by an ambulance (!), changing guardians/ parents and a foster home, 80% f-Ell 5% Ell rates, ieps (as well as unidentified/parent refusal to identify ), being robbed in home and on street, parental addictions, sibling addictions/ gang activity/ as well as the more ordinary challenges of immigration, functionally illiterate parents (language or skill related) and few if any high school graduate role models in immediate world. Oh and they ranged in age from 13-17.
They were educated thirty two per class and all of whom were identified by the city as at risk to fail and required to take Black line masters tests prior to release of results. Many of those kids did not fail despite this, but too many did in too many classes. Kids whose parents occasionally come to beat up another kid for such offenses as accidentally spilling milk at lunch. They are shown what is important every day of their lives in the dangerous hallways/pathways in towering housing projects and the streets that surround them. If the schools located amongst the verdant, peaceful streets of the Hudson Valley face this evaluation disparity, imagine a teacher facing evaluation in Mott Haven.
Thank you to The Lower Hudson Valley School Superintendents for supporting teachers.
Test results that affect jobs (!) must differentiate for the reality that teachers experience.
“Test results that affect jobs (!) must differentiate for the reality that teachers experience.”
NO! Test results don’t differentiate anything of logical validity. Using tests results to “differentiate for the reality that teachers experience” is like asking a whale to differentiate the distance between the galaxies. Can’t happen. By thinking that they can you fall into the edudeformers trap. Bust out of that thinking.
(not that I don’t commiserate with you on the many factors that effect a student’s learning as you stated)
Wayne,
Your right, of course. I am so inured to the irrational as unassailable that I misspoke. I guess I was temporarily blinded by the 22 points of light. None of this harmful, ridiculous, brain constricting reality should continue for any teacher or student.
Duane.. I mean. Sorry
These evaluations helped nothing at our school. They sowed the seeds of discord between staff and administrators. They labeled excellent teachers as mediocre ones, based on an arbitrary formula. And they were easily manipulated.
When the AFT and NYSUT had huge clout and say in the VERY beginning of this reform in APPR and RttT, they should have put their foot down and non-negotiably refused to tie test scores of any kind to employability. . . . This is pure junk science and destructive to the the teaching and learning process. Not to mention, this is generally not done in private or charter schools in NY state.
But the unions gave into it completely upon the backs of their teacher consttuents and membership. . . . and ultimately upon the backs of millions of students and their families.
The unions, with the exception of the CTU under Karen Lewis, are in a sense, a worse enemy than the reformers because they have turned against the very community they are designated to protect.
It’s like an auto-immune disease.
People like Randi Weingarten and those deferring to her leadership should face the harshest, possible allowable legal consequences permitted by law, including but not limited to lawsuits by members against the unions.
A veritable feast for attorneys, but why not . . . . .
Class action suits, anyone? They will show up on the menu sooner or later.
I heard through a reliable grapevine that as far as NYSUT was concerned it was Richard Iannuzzi who made the call, overriding almost all underlings who objected to the APPR evaluation system.
NYSUT should have told Cuomo to send the $700 million back to the feds. Its amazing how this mess involving millions of students and teachers and parents can be traced back to a small handful og arrogant and corrupt individuals. Here in NY the list is short: Cuomo, King, Tisch, and Iahnnuzzi. may God have mercy on THEIR souls.
ROB
This is such an excellent point. The very people charged to protect teachers – sold them out.
What? Members of the party suing the party leadership? Fuhgedaboudit. When all the socialists in education are gone, then real education will begin again.
What is “real” education? Define it please!
HU,
What is “real” education? Define it please!
Actually, exactly the same kind of education that I have heard you say you give your students. If you are a socialist, i.e. a believer in government ownership of enterprises, then by my definition, you can’t be a good teacher, but if you are a great teacher, as I believe you to be, then by definition you can’t be a real socialist, because you would not be in favor of more and more government control of anything.
OOOOPPSS!
It needs to be asked twice, at least.
Ahhhhh . . .. those Harlanesque strands of logic. . . . . il n’y a pas de logique; c’est ridicule, comme d’habitude. Toujours la lupe blanc est-il.
We were absolutely betrayed by our unions – and in more states than NY. We need to TRY to find a way to take them back. Despite my anger and sense of betrayal, I absolutely believe in the power of unions. And before anyone gets busy and comments “you are your union – you need to get involved” – I am. I have been. Locally, regionally and on a state level. I will continue to be. But for good reason, a lot of union members don’t feel like their voice matters. We need to continue to push back against people like Dennis Van Roekel and Randi Weingarten and their appeasement policiies. Someone tell me where in history appeasement as a policy has worked? ‘Cause every example I can think of where it was tried ended very, very, very badly.
I absolutely believe in collectivism and unions, but only when unions behave like unions. The NEA and AFT are abysmal and pernicious. Yes, Ellen, we need to reinvent our unions. Infighting has produced Karen Lewis. Thank goodness . . . .
Infighting has also thankfully produced MORE, a caucus within the UFT.
There is hope, but with that hope comes a decade of intense, acute organizing, boycotting, demonstrating, protesting and hounding elected officials . . . .
Yet again: Don’t confuse me with the facts, my minds already made up – especially where money is concerned.
Our Public School System and the Edmund Fitzgerald have one thing in common, but hopefully that is all they have in common! We now have a National Public School System called Common Core which was implemented without any research showing it is going to work or any Pilot testing done to even give us an idea of how it may turn out in regard to student success or improvement in outcomes. This is what they have in common as the naval architect, Raymond Ramsey, a member of the design team for the Edmond Fitzgerald stated later. “The Fitzgerald’s long ship design was developed without the benefit of Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation Principals” and he indicated that the Fitzgerald was NOT seaworthy at the time the ship sank to the bottom of one of the Great Lakes! Is this the Goal behind the Common Core, to sink the Public School System so we privatize ALL schools for Greater Corporate Profits. Let us hope this is not the second thing the schools have in common with the Edmond Fitzgerald! Anyway,
I thought this all started with TIMMS and comparing how we are doing with
Finland, Singapore, or Germany? Do any of you know how many tests are given to students in countries like Finland or Germany? I talked with some students and teachers from those countries and found out. Finish students do not take a single standardized test. I wonder how they evaluate their teachers? Germany limits the number of tests each semester to three for high school students. These tests include classroom tests and any type of “standardized” test, so if a teacher gives three unit tests a semester, the maximum has been reached and no “standardized” test could be given. The students and teachers said most of their work is judged by their class participation, both oral and written. They also indicated they get graphing calculators issued with their math textbooks and are expected to use them when needed including during a Test. When are we going to start to do what these successful countries do for our students? Please. Learn from a Real International Education Expert.
Finland’s Pasi Sahlberg is one of the world’s leading experts on school reform and the author of the best-selling “Finnish Lessons: What Can the World Learn About Educational Change in Finland?” In this piece he writes about whether the emphasis that American school reformers put on “teacher effectiveness” is really the best approach to improving student achievement.
He is director general of Finland’s Centre for International Mobility and Cooperation and has served the Finnish government in various positions and worked for the World Bank in Washington D.C. He has also been an adviser for numerous governments internationally about education policies and reforms, and is an adjunct professor of education at the University of Helsinki and University of Oulu. He can be reached atpasi.sahlberg@cimo.fi.
By Pasi Sahlberg
Many governments are under political and economic pressure to turn around their school systems for higher rankings in the international league tables. Education reforms often promise quick fixes within one political term. Canada, South Korea, Singapore and Finland are commonly used models for the nations that hope to improve teaching and learning in their schools. In search of a silver bullet, reformers now turn their eyes on teachers, believing that if only they could attract “the best and the brightest” into the teaching profession, the quality of education would improve.
“Teacher effectiveness” is a commonly used term that refers to how much student performance on standardized tests is determined by the teacher. This concept hence applies only to those teachers who teach subjects on which students are tested. Teacher effectiveness plays a particular role in education policies of nations where alternative pathways exist to the teaching profession.
In the United States, for example, there are more than 1,500 different teacher-preparation programs. The range in quality is wide. In Singapore and Finland only one academically rigorous teacher education program is available for those who desire to become teachers. Likewise, neither Canada nor South Korea has fast-track options into teaching, such as Teach for America or Teach First in Europe. Teacher quality in high-performing countries is a result of careful quality control at entry into teaching rather than measuring teacher effectiveness in service.
In recent years the “no excuses”’ argument has been particularly persistent in the education debate. There are those who argue that poverty is only an excuse not to insist that all schools should reach higher standards. Solution: better teachers. Then there are those who claim that schools and teachers alone cannot overcome the negative impact that poverty causes in many children’s learning in school. Solution: Elevate children out of poverty by other public policies.
For me the latter is right. In the United States today, 23 percent of children live in poor homes. In Finland, the same way to calculate child poverty would show that figure to be almost five times smaller. The United States ranked in the bottom four in the recent United Nations review on child well-being. Among 29 wealthy countries, the United States landed second from the last in child poverty and held a similarly poor position in “child life satisfaction.” Teachers alone, regardless of how effective they are, will not be able to overcome the challenges that poor children bring with them to schools everyday.
Finland is not a fan of standardization in education. However, teacher education in Finland is carefully standardized. All teachers must earn a master’s degree at one of the country’s research universities. Competition to get into these teacher education programs is tough; only “the best and the brightest” are accepted. As a consequence, teaching is regarded as an esteemed profession, on par with medicine, law or engineering. There is another “teacher quality” checkpoint at graduation from School of Education in Finland. Students are not allowed to earn degrees to teach unless they demonstrate that they possess knowledge, skills and morals necessary to be a successful teacher.
But education policies in Finland concentrate more on school effectiveness than on teacher effectiveness. This indicates that what schools are expected to do is an effort of everyone in a school, working together, rather than teachers working individually.
In many under-performing nations, I notice, three fallacies of teacher effectiveness prevail.
The first belief is that “the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.” This statement became known in education policies through the influential McKinsey & Company report titled “How the world’s best performing school systems come out on top”. Although the report takes a broader view on enhancing the status of teachers by better pay and careful recruitment this statement implies that the quality of an education system is defined by its teachers. By doing this, the report assumes that teachers work independently from one another. But teachers in most schools today, in the United States and elsewhere, work as teams when the end result of their work is their joint effort.
The role of an individual teacher in a school is like a player on a football team: all teachers are vital, but the culture of the school is even more important for the quality of the school. Team sports offer numerous examples of teams that have performed beyond expectations because of leadership, commitment and spirit. Take the U.S. ice hockey team in the 1980 Winter Olympics, when a team of college kids beat both Soviets and Finland in the final round and won the gold medal. The quality of Team USA certainly exceeded the quality of its players. So can an education system.I
The second fallacy is that “the most important single factor in improving quality of education is teachers.” This is the driving principle of former D.C. schools chancellor Michele Rhee and many other “reformers” today. This false belief is central to the “no excuses” school of thought. If a teacher was the most important single factor in improving quality of education, then the power of a school would indeed be stronger than children’s family background or peer influences in explaining student achievement in school.
Research on what explains students’ measured performance in school remains mixed. A commonly used conclusion is that 10% to 20% of the variance in measured student achievement belongs to the classroom, i.e., teachers and teaching, and a similar amount is attributable to schools, i.e., school climate, facilities and leadership. In other words, up to two-thirds of what explains student achievement is beyond the control of schools, i.e., family background and motivation to learn.
Over thirty years of systematic research on school effectiveness and school improvement reveals a number of characteristics that are typical of more effective schools. Most scholars agree that effective leadership is among the most important characteristics of effective schools, equally important to effective teaching. Effective leadership includes leader qualities, such as being firm and purposeful, having shared vision and goals, promoting teamwork and collegiality and frequent personal monitoring and feedback. Several other characteristics of more effective schools include features that are also linked to the culture of the school and leadership: Maintaining focus on learning, producing a positive school climate, setting high expectations for all, developing staff skills, and involving parents. In other words, school leadership matters as much as teacher quality.
The third fallacy is that “If any children had three or four great teachers in a row,they would soar academically, regardless of their racial or economic background, while those who have a sequence of weak teachers will fall further and further behind”. This theoretical assumption is included in influential policy recommendations, for instance in “Essential Elements of Teacher Policy in ESEA: Effectiveness, Fairness and Evaluation” by the Center for American Progress to the U.S. Congress. Teaching is measured by the growth of student test scores on standardized exams.
This assumption presents a view that education reform alone could overcome the powerful influence of family and social environment mentioned earlier. It insists that schools should get rid of low-performing teachers and then only hire great ones. This fallacy has the most practical difficulties. The first one is about what it means to be a great teacher. Even if this were clear, it would be difficult to know exactly who is a great teacher at the time of recruitment. The second one is, that becoming a great teacher normally takes five to ten years of systematic practice. And determining the reliably of ‘effectiveness’ of any teacher would require at least five years of reliable data. This would be practically impossible.
Everybody agrees that the quality of teaching in contributing to learning outcomes is beyond question. It is therefore understandable that teacher quality is often cited as the most important in-school variable influencing student achievement. But just having better teachers in schools will not automatically improve students’ learning outcomes.
Lessons from high-performing school systems, including Finland, suggest that we must reconsider how we think about teaching as a profession and what is the role of the school in our society.
First, standardization should focus more on teacher education and less on teaching and learning in schools. Singapore, Canada and Finland all set high standards for their teacher-preparation programs in academic universities. There is no Teach for Finland or other alternative pathways into teaching that wouldn’t include thoroughly studying theories of pedagogy and undergo clinical practice. These countries set the priority to have strict quality control before anybody will be allowed to teach – or even study teaching! This is why in these countries teacher effectiveness and teacher evaluation are not such controversial topics as they are in the U.S. today.
Second, the toxic use of accountability for schools should be abandoned. Current practices in many countries that judge the quality of teachers by counting their students’ measured achievement only is in many ways inaccurate and unfair. It is inaccurate because most schools’ goals are broader than good performance in a few academic subjects. It is unfair because most of the variation of student achievement in standardized tests can be explained by out-of-school factors. Most teachers understand that what students learn in school is because the whole school has made an effort, not just some individual teachers. In the education systems that are high in international rankings, teachers feel that they are empowered by their leaders and their fellow teachers. In Finland, half of surveyed teachers responded that they would consider leaving their job if their performance would be determined by their student’s standardized test results.
Third, other school policies must be changed before teaching becomes attractive to more young talents. In many countries where teachers fight for their rights, their main demand is not more money but better working conditions in schools. Again, experiences from those countries that do well in international rankings suggest that teachers should have autonomy in planning their work, freedom to run their lessons the way that leads to best results, and authority to influence the assessment of the outcomes of their work. Schools should also be trusted in these key areas of the teaching profession.
To finish up, let’s do one theoretical experiment. We transport highly trained Finnish teachers to work in, say, Indiana in the United States (and Indiana teachers would go to Finland). After five years–assuming that the Finnish teachers showed up fluent in English and that education policies in Indiana would continue as planned–we would check whether these teachers have been able to improve test scores in state-mandated student assessments.
I argue that if there were any gains in student achievement they would be marginal. Why? Education policies in Indiana and many other states in the United States create a context for teaching that limits (Finnish) teachers to use their skills, wisdom and shared knowledge for the good of their students’ learning. Actually, I have met some experienced Finnish-trained teachers in the United States who confirm this hypothesis. Based on what I have heard from them, it is also probable that many of those transported Finnish teachers would be already doing something else than teach by the end of their fifth year – quite like their American peers.
Conversely, the teachers from Indiana working in Finland–assuming they showed up fluent in Finnish–stand to flourish on account of the freedom to teach without the constraints of standardized curricula and the pressure of standardized testing; strong leadership from principals who know the classroom from years of experience as teachers; a professional culture of collaboration; and support from homes unchallenged by poverty.
Do you honestly think our educational problem is the curriculum and standards are not rigorous enough for our current students?Please go to your local school and talk with the teachers or read some of the students comments on facebook. If you live in an area of higher socioeconomic means, then your school is performing above average due to many factors such as parent support for learning and checking to see that their children are completing their homework or immediatley getting the help they need. Parents of students who attend “good” schools do not want endless tests that are meaningless to their childrens future and a huge waist of resources that should be used to improve the school learning environment by purchasing needed technology and up to date instructional materials. Maybe the new standards could be helpful, but teachers have a shorter, more limited amount of time to cover more curriculum than before due to earlier testing periods and more testing. Futhermore, how are students held accountable for doing their best on these tests? Is the test result used to help calculate the students grade or do they need a proficient score to earn a diploma or get accepted for college or … If the test has no student accountability component why would they even care about doing well. I would focus on preparing for my immediate class grade to improve my GPA and SAT exams or preparing for a big game or musical performance. I could use this test as a way of getting back at a teacher who is asking me to do more than I want to do because I have other interests. Are only math, science, and English teachers being judged by these tests or is there a test to judge a PE teacher or Art/Music teacher or Elective teachers? I wonder how long it will be before we find no one willing to interview for a math teaching position at a low performing school. I do not see how spending ALL this money on testing is changing anything except creating a National Curriculum and telling low performing schools that they continue to be low performing schools and they need to replace their teachers with better ones. It seems like I have been hearing this same argument for the past 50 years. Yes, I am a senior citizen who cares about real changes that will improve educational opportunities for the students who need an environment that is conducive to learning. Why are we spending money we do not have on schools that are already achieving and trying to have a one size fits all system because this is not why Americans create so many new things and come up with so many new ideas. If we are trying compete with Finland and Singapore, then we need to make serious structural systemic changes to our schools and do what they do or do not do in their schools. NO more football programs or other sports in our high schools and most electives would also have to be eliminated. I am a Finlander, but we live in a much different country in America and we have very different values. When the well-educated parents of public school children start to understand that a large part of schooling has changed from learning and developing critical thinking to preparing students to do well on a test that most people never have time to analyze and use as a resource to improve the educational experience for children, then they will either place their children in a school where real learning is the priority or they will get involved in changing our new system of schooling. I cannot call this system a system for learning because time and testing are not and should never be factors in a learning environment that promotes creativity and critical thinking (testing without student accountability is meaningless). These two goals are what made America great and created jobs, and they do not happen in a specific amount of time because each of us is unique and we do things at different rates. And futhermore, testing has never been shown to improve either of these factors unless the tests are used to diagnose student deficiencies in their prerequisite knowledge needed to expand their understanding using this knowledge. Even then, most school systems do not give teachers adequate time to analyze the testing data so it an exercise in wasting valuable learning time. Critical thinking and creativity are factors that need to be encouraged and nurtured from Pre-K on. To flourish, they need a stress free environment so students can open up their thoughts and dream up new ideas. It seems ironic that many of the people who were allowed to be raised in this type of environment, open, creative, and stress free, are the same people who are now paying for and pushing for a more controlled and structured environment, but not for their own children? What about Bill Gates and Mark Zutterburg? Are these the experts on College Readiness? Really! So we want college students who drop out after a year or two? Really!!!
Thank you for reading and pray for your grandchildren’s future. I know We have been praying for ours way before our friends in Utah asked us to pray and if praying is not your thing, then get actively involved in some other way. Maybe we should all start by READING the new common core standards and MORE IMPORTANTLY LOOK AT THE NEW TESTING QUESTIONS starting in grade 3 and see how many of the 11th grade questions you can answer. This may be an eye opener? REMEMBER, the tests will drive the curriculum and what is and is not taught and how it is taught. The tests will determine the level of difficulty and the amount of time available to teach and learn all concepts and not the students rate for understanding of the curriculum. This means if the student is a “late starter or late bloomer”, then you would be better to place them in a Private School that does not expect ALL students to learn at the exact same pace. Please God Bless America now more than ever or whatever your belief system, someone better be looking out for our children and grandchildren’s future.
Reblogged this on peakmemory and commented:
More evidence of the flawed nature of current teacher evaluations. See http://boingboing.net/2013/10/11/american-educations-use-of.html#more-261369
for more details
Any educational system (or school, or classroom) is only as strong as its weakest link.
In poor inner city schools located in neighborhoods ravaged by crime, drugs, and fear, surrounded by homes where neglect and abuse or general family dysfunction are the norm – state standards are not the weakest link. Curriculum is not the weakest link. Teachers are not the weakest link.
Yet, it is the goal of CCSS to fix these “failing schools”. We use state standards and testing and teacher evaluations based on state standards and testing. And we will somehow be surprised when they fail.
Exactly – why doesn’t anyone make sure those kids can get to school safely, be fed and have supplies? The lack of this sounds like racism is a real factor – despite the huge number of kids of all races who face these problems.
Ironically enough NCLB was created to “fix” the failing schools. Ten years of data show us that standardized testing had zero impact.. Yet what do the powers that be decde the next round of reform requires?
More tests. Harder tests. Doubling down on a failed policy. It took the genius of Bill Gates and David Coleman to get this so wrong?
Ultimately, the test results reflect either the poverty level of the school or the percentage of special education students and non-English speaking students such as immigrants and refugees .
So what is the validity of these tests?
King was threatening to close low performing school in Buffalo, NY. These schools had a large percentage of foreign students. He arranged for the high school students to attend BOCES – a vocational education program. The pictures in the Buffalo News accurately showed that these were young adults from foreign countries who didn’t know enough English to pass the assessments, many Arab or Asian students. Heaven knows how those teachers are going to teach technical skills to youth with limited English.