Carol Burris, principal of south side High School in Rockville Center, New York, writes here about the multiple flaws of test-based teacher evaluations.
At an Ed Trust celebration, Duncan told the crowd, “But we can’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good. We can’t let the utopian become the enemy of the excellent. And we can’t let rhetorical purity become the enemy of rigorous practice.” I do not have any idea what the third admonishment means, but I doubt Arne needs to fear that his rhetoric is pure.
So it came as no surprise that when he spoke of Tennessee’s teacher evaluation plan, Mr. Duncan praised the state for “not letting the perfect become the enemy of the good”. The teachers of Tennessee, however, are not seeing the new system as “the good”—they are, for the second time, suing the state because the system is, in their eyes, arbitrary and flawed. And it is.
When it comes to the new teacher evaluation systems, it is not a dispute between perfect and good. We are now forbidding the good to be the enemy of the lousy. The use of students’ scores is becoming more and more indefensible. In New York State, teachers despise APPR, and it is equally unpopular among principals who, for the most part, see it as a headache that does nothing to improve teacher performance. Teacher and principal scores, by district, were supposed to be released in the winter. It is the end of July and they have not appeared. That is not a surprise. If they were released, it would be an embarrassment, especially for districts that actually tried to engage in the Las Vegas pursuit of predicting student growth from pre-tests to post-tests. The New York State Education Department is stalling, and Governor Cuomo is letting it happen.
There was one state, Massachusetts, that created a plan that was more sensible than most. It did not use numbers, but rather was rubric based. It was phased in over time and applied to everyone, including central administrators. But now that the time has come to phase in the test scores, the trouble begins.
In his July 17 memo to Superintendents and Charter School leaders, Commissioner Mitchell Chester states he is pleased that the Bay State has not chosen “an algorithmic approach,” only to later explain in detail the algorithm by which teachers should be evaluated by test scores. To go further down the path of the lousy, he explains how the state will generate growth scores from PARCC exams for participating schools, and then attempt to show “growth” from the prior year student MCAS scores. Please say it isn’t so. That is not a growth measure. That is comparing students with similar scores on one test with each other the following year on an entirely different test. New York did the same thing last year. Can you do it? Of course you can—there is very little that you cannot do with numbers. It is easy to create a formula that is intimidating enough that eyes will glaze over. But that does not make it valid, reliable, fair or useful. It will be one more silly system that will result in a lawsuit, no doubt.
Chiefs for Change, including State Superintendents Huffman and Skandera, took the NEA and AFT to task for having the guts to back away from the test-based teacher evaluation systems they once supported. They accused them of ‘evading accountability’ like horse thieves running from the posse. They wanted union leaders to sit compliantly with hands folded, in the face of mounting evidence that the test-score evaluation systems are not working. These Chiefs for ‘change at any cost’, do not understand. True accountability means having the courage to speak the truth when facts come to light, even when it contradicts what you once supported. To keep one’s mouth shut as the lousy marches forward is wrong.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thank you Carol for another excellent clarification!
It is difficult to fathom that uniformed overseers think that a nonsensical evaluation system is “good”. You are correct: It is not “great” or “good”, but nonsense.
If Arne Duncan thinks the evaluationa system is even “good” let him be evaluated under the same logical inference, and then go ahead and try it out on his staff. Then we can really discuss the “good” of an oppressive, inaccurate and unhealthy way to “evaluate” our nation’s professional employees.
When will this farce end?
Actually, if American students’ test scores are as bad as Arne keeps proclaiming they are*, then I think that should be at least 50% of Arne’s evaluation. Goose, gander?
* Which I’ve never understood – he seems positively delighted to proclaim that American students are scoring poorly. He’s been Education Secretary for about 6 years now – doesn’t he think he’s had anything to do with those test scores?
Great point!
Is there any other profession that is evaluated to the extent that teachers are? I personally would like to take my iPad and go to:
1. patient exam rooms
2. conference rooms
3. law offices
4. administration meetings
5. CEO’s, CFO’s, COO’s meetings
6. school board meetings
The list can go on and on…
And evaluate them to see if they are doing they’re job!!
Nor does any other profession publicly post internal, private performance reviews for the purpose of blacklisting, humilitation, and character assassination.
When Duncan begins to ramble incoherently, he has let untenable become the ally of the absurd.
MathVale: as if we needed more proof…
Note Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s speech of April 30, 2013, to the AERA convention in which he hectors some of his fiercest critics about Campbell’s Conjecture, er, sorry for Chetty picking my terms, Campbell’s Law.
Link: http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/choosing-right-battles-remarks-and-conversation
It contains the following classic:
[start quote]
Most of the assessment done in schools today is after the fact. Some schools have an almost obsessive culture around testing, and that hurts their most vulnerable learners and narrows the curriculum. It’s heartbreaking to hear a child identify himself as “below basic” or “I’m a one out of four.”
[end quote]
If he needed to hector someone about Campbell’s Law he could have gone into the nearest bathroom, looked into the mirror, and scolded the face looking back at him.
Boo hoo on you!
😡
But then, as a very old, very dead and very Greek guy said:
“A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.” [Demosthenes]
Et tu, Arne?
😎
Arne says this nonsense frequently and what all his silly rhetoric really means is that the bad is the good-enough for him –and so it should be for everyone else, too. No, Arne, there isn’t any amount of whitewashing that will magically turn bad into good for the rest of us.
Test score “accountability” tied to teachers’ retention of their jobs is just another tool in the arsenal of the deformers. They are so adept at rhetoric, you may question yourself when they tell you your name is Bob, but it really is John! Up is down; down is up.
Thanks for this enlightening post Carol. I take issue with the premise that the purpose of the new teacher evaluations was and is to improve education.
The purpose was and is to de-professionalize teaching, destroy the teachers’ unions, and end the profession of professional teaching in order to introduce a basic competency workforce that is cheap and easily replaced.
Until we face that reality and begin speaking openly about it we are unnecessarily hobbling ourselves in the race for public opinion.
Implying or stating that our enemies mean well but are misguided only lends them more legitimacy and invites sympathy and attempts to enlighten them which will fail.
I think you’re right, but talking openly certainly isn’t a magic bullet either. When I try to explain these ideas to average Joe type people, I get accused of being a “conspiracy theorist” and/or any number of similar type perjoratives. Some people are willing to admit to some “unintended” consequences of educational “reform” policies, but few are willing to see the intentional assault on education (much less the assault on workers/the middle class/the poor more generally).
I agree with you Dienne but I would also argue that the reason this occurs is that teachers were too nice and accommodating for too long. We helped create this atmosphere. We seem to mostly always want to be seen as reasonable, easy to get along with, and accommodating and it is biting us in the rear.
I won’t apologize for being militant at this point. My teaching license, my career, my job, and my livelihood are on the line.
As a career Title I teacher I am facing total loss under current teacher evaluation law here in FL and I won’t use euphemisms or describe it as well-meaning but misdirected anymore.
ALEC and Jeb Bush knew exactly what would come of this flawed VAM scam evaluation system underpinned by Danielson and Marzano idiocy — that’s why they created it, funded it, forced it, and created false reach to support it. They are very good at what they do.
That would be ‘research’ not ‘reach’. Darned autocorrect! LOL
Reblogged this on iepsurvival for parents and teachers who work with special education students and commented:
It is so difficult to base teacher performance on test scores that teachers don’t even have access to until after the student has been promoted to the next grade. Typically, we get state results long after the student has left our classroom. It is also unfortunate that as a society we feel that it is necessary to form some sort of measurement that results in punishment/failure instead of inquiry and change. In my District, there is some forward movement for sharing weekly test/quiz scores among teachers with “timely” data and improving delivery processes based on data. I believe that this system of accountability will ultimately be more effective.
“And we can’t let rhetorical purity become the enemy of rigorous practice.” I do not have any idea what the third admonishment means. . .”
Student hopping up and down waving both arms: I do, I do!!!
It means one can’t allow logical and rational thought based on solid epistemology and ontology intrude into the Dunksters bought and paid for idiology (yes, idiology).
“. . . in the Las Vegas pursuit of predicting student growth from pre-tests to post-tests. . . ”
Now your talking Carol, now your talking!! TAGO!
I’m confused. I thought we shouldn’t let the putrid be the enemy of the rancid. Or is it the other way around?
Meanwhile Arne Duncan is continuing his punishment of Washngton State do refusing to force the use of standardized student test scores as part of our teacher evaluations, and our state Supe – Randy Dorn – licks Duncan’s boots and says he’ll make it happen this year.
Yeah….with any luck THAT won’t happen. A couple of key election outcomes like my area, Washington’s 28th LD, for example, and Arne will need a Rx to get through the rest of O’s term. I am hopeful because the Dem Legislators I know [in both the House and the Senate] will NOT link teacher evaluations to test scores…evah! Even better, a woman running for a House seat in my LD is Chair of our local school board AND she works as an Asst. AG. More news after the Aug. 5th primary results. I’m looking forward to Washington State continuing to be Bill Gates nightmare.
It is so clear to all of us what they are doing. De-professionalize the lifelong career of teaching into a low paying service industry…..They will pocket all of the money which once went to teacher salaries . . . and pay low wages to proctors who will oversee students online all day on programs developed by the billion dollar tech industry. Fewer colleges each year will award Bachelor’s degrees to teachers, forcing many colleges to shut down teacher programs all together. Once this is all accomplished, they will probably drastically reduce the amount of testing. Testing by PARCC was put in place to destroy the public schools, making the public think that schools were broken due to the extremely low test scores. I feel so badly for the younger teachers. It will be so hard for them, if not impossible, to reach retirement age in this fiasco of a mess.