Patrick Hayes is a teacher in Charleston, South Carolina, who is leading the fight to block test-based, value-added evaluations of teachers in that district. As many posts on this blog have iterated and reiterated, most researchers think that VAM is flawed and error-ridden. (Check out Audrey Amrein-Beardsley’s blog VAMboozled and Edward Haertel’s ETS lecture.)
Hayes read about the errors in the Mathematica study of VAM in D.C., and left the following comment:
“This is awful news for DC teachers. Down here in Charleston, it’s the greatest Christmas gift imaginable.
“We’re fighting VAM-based merit pay tooth and nail. Guess who our district hired to do the work?
“Here’s the only question I have: was this what Mathematica had in mind in 2010 when they said that VAM has a 36% error rate?
“http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104004/pdf/20104004.pdf
“Is that before or after they foul up the data?
“Tell you what, don’t ask Mathematica. I can tell you from personal experience: they REALLY don’t like talking about that study.
“I know it was before Arne Duncan handed out nearly a billion dollars in grant funding for value-added systems.
“When Mathematica published this, TIF grants were still comparatively small potatoes.
“Funny thing is, Arne’s the one who picked up the tab for that study. His name appears on page 3. Go figure.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Watched 1945’s Bells of St. Mary’s film a short while ago on TCM; Sister Benedict (Ingrid Bergman) and Father O’Malley (Bing Crosby) have an exchange regarding what is important in the nature of school education. Sixty eight years ago for those Envision Math wizards at Pearson. Maybe we need to dial “O” for O’Malley.
YES, DO READ the REPORT. Mathematicians KNOW VAM is BAD. So why don’t the deformers? Oh…forgot they no NADA, and they will make money. Cui bono at the cost of childhood and REAL learning? It’s that simple. The rest is a distraction.
Randi Weingarten’s response:
http://www.aft.org/newspubs/press/2013/122313.cfm
US Department of Education (USDE) policies for evaluating teachers that purport to be evidence-based are a lie. They are large-scale experiments with no compelling evidence to support them.
The policy of using scores produced by VAM and the SLO/SGO process for teachers of “untested subjects” can only be called unethical.
The cynical marketers of Arne’s Race to the Top teacher evaluation scheme are federally funded as the Reform Support Network. The marketers have no reservations about recommending states and districts have “teacher SWAT teams that can be deployed for teacher-to-teacher communication at key junctures of the implementation and redesign of evaluation systems“ to develop buy-in to the agenda. (2012b, December). Engaging educators: Toward a new grammar and framework for educator engagement. Author. Page 9. Retrieved from www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/implementation…/engaging-educators.pdf
A credible and fair evaluation system should not require SWAT teams, or the idiotic oak tree analogy to sell the idea that a “growth” measure is about authentic learning when “growth” is actually a measure of teacher productivity in a scheme known as stack ranking. If you don’t produce above average gains in test scores, you are ineffective. This practice, once used many large corporations, including Microsoft, is being dropped. It creates a hostile competitive work environment.
In a belated recognition that no compelling evidence supports the teacher evaluation policies it has foisted on states, USDE had decided to commission a study for the purpose of getting “rigorous” evidence on whether the evaluation systems called for in federal policy have their intended effects on teacher and leader performance and student achievement.
This five-year, $16 million study of Teacher and Leader Evaluation Systems will be completed in 2017, long after teachers and principals in almost every state have endured the requirements of evaluation systems known to be unreliable and ineffective as means to improve educational outcomes. Some will have lost their jobs.
If the economy were stronger I think teachers would be leaving in droves. If the legal system offered more protection for teacher speech and collective action, the levels of discontent would be far more visible than these rants in blog posts. See: American Institutes of Research. (2012, February 23). AIR selected to conduct study measuring the impact of teacher and leader evaluation systems on student learning and performance. Press Release. Retrieved from http://www.air.org/news/index.cfm?fa=viewContent&content_id=1755.
Time for AFT & NEA to come out directly, forcefully, with no ambiguity: VAM should not be used to “evaluate” educators. Period.