When Campbell Brown’s Vergara-style trial moves to New York City, its star witnesses should testify for the defense, not the plaintiffs, argues Gary Rubinstein of New York City. Tom Kane of Harvard testified in Los Angeles that teachers in New York City were not maldistributed, as they were in Los Angeles. Another star witness for the Los Angeles was Raj Chetty.
Rubinstein reviewed their testimony, and concluded that their testimony could be used by the defense in New York City.
He wrote:
“Also a major witness was Raj Chetty who published a big paper about how students who had teachers with higher value-added scores made more money in life. These conclusions have been challenged pretty convincingly, but still even the President paraphrased the paper in one of his State of The Union addresses.
“So now there will be a Vergara-like trial in New York City. The prosecution has some very heavy hitters. For the defense, I don’t know. The defendants are people like John King. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the defendants hope to lose the trial and maybe won’t get the best representation to go against a dream team rivaling the OJ Simpson lawyers.
“But the New York trial, with competent defense attorneys, should be much easier to win. First of all, New York has a three year tenure process, which is something that was argued would be a reasonable amount of time, even by the prosecutors, during the Vergara case…..
“Later on, Kane explains to the defense that Chetty also did not find that ‘ineffective’ teachers were disproportionately assigned to poor students.
Q AND WITH RESPECT TO THIS MALDISTRIBUTION OF EFFECTIVE TEACHERS, PROFESSOR CHETTY DID NOT FIND THIS MALDISTRIBUTION IN THE NEW YORK CITY SCHOOLS; CORRECT?
A THAT’S MY READING OF HIS RESULTS, YES.
So it seems that this would make Kane and Chetty pretty bad witnesses for the New York case. Perhaps they will get other witnesses, or they will get Kane and Chetty and hope that the defense doesn’t have (or doesn’t care to do) what it takes to go up against the big hired pro-bono guns. If only I had gone to law school, like I had originally planned, rather than do TFA, I’m sure I could win this case.”
But the biggest problem the prosecutors are going to have is that in the Vergara case, Kane had said in his testimony that poor kids in Los Angeles had a disproportionate percent of ineffective teachers, according to his research. To show how bad it was, he compared it to New York where this same phenomenon did not occur.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
That would be fantastic. And if he refuses compel him or have him labeled as a hostile witness.
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after what I saw on msnbc yesterday….I have doubts that anything factual, or research based, or with any semblance of basic fairness will matter. I hope we find out things to alter my present depressed perceptions.
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I don’t think it matters that Mr. Rubenstein isn’t a lawyer. The US Secretary of Education isn’t a lawyer either and he endorsed and promoted the California trial court decision. We’ll have to assume he gave it a “close reading” and his endorsement was very “thoughtful”
He’s a fast reader, I guess!
“But the New York trial, with competent defense attorneys, should be much easier to win. First of all, New York has a three year tenure process, which is something that was argued would be a reasonable amount of time, even by the prosecutors, during the Vergara case…..
Anyone who believed they weren’t going to move the goalposts is naive. Of course they did.
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I’m not a lawyer and I have no special insight as to how the suit will proceed, but I suspect the plaintiffs would focus more on the amount of time, money, and manpower it requires to terminate a teacher for pedagogical incompetence; whether or not poorly rated teachers are concentrated in schools serving at-risk kids; whether or not the decisions made by hearing officers are fair, etc. They could call administrators to the stand who will testify that they had worked with pedagogically incompetent teachers, but the personal effort required to remove them is so great that in the end it would be worse for the school than keeping the teacher.
If they did want to challenge some aspect of the tenure-granting process, it might be the fact that the system very hopefully assumes that teachers’ attitudes and abilities will hardly ever change after receiving it.
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NY teachers are required to have a master’s degree. Newer teachers are required to have ongoing professional development (175 hours) as well to maintain certification. Is that also the case in California? That and three years of teaching before tenure surely is worth something toward providing a high quality teacher in every classroom. Unless, of course, you are counting TFA, which needed federal legislation to be considered highly qualified with only 5 weeks of training.
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Raj Chetty and Thomas Kane are, to use the inimitable style of the former, among the “Michael Jordans” of the numbers/stats people massaging and torturing figures to make the “worse appear the better cause.”
*With all apologies to Michael Jordan who knew the real—not rheeal—value of teamwork and cooperation in order to create win-win situations.”
If they can’t keep their stories straight, well, turn about is fair play. And a good example of what actual research looks like.
The Nobel-Prize-in-his-own-mind Dr. Chetty can’t bring himself to even email Dr. Audrey Amrein-Beardsley in order to discover—like an undiscovered continent, apparently, of many centuries ago—that Campbell’s Law isn’t Campbell’s Conjecture—
But Gary Rubinstein, no Nobel Prize in his future just a lowly HS math teacher that actually educates students, takes the time to actually read the testimony of Chetty and Kane and makes some solid points.
Maybe the Nobel Prize isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? Perhaps the candidates-in-their-minds would do well to read one of two of those very old, very dead, and very Greek guys:
“How vain, without the merit, is the name.” [Homer]
😎
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Chetty may believe he is going to win a “Nobel” in economics, but unfortunately for him, There is no “Nobel Prize in Economics”
“The Economics Prize has nestled itself in and is awarded as if it were a Nobel Prize. But it’s a PR coup by economists to improve their reputation” — Peter Nobel , Alfred Nobel’s great great nephew
“Junk is Junk”
Junk is junk, it doesn’t change
No matter how it’s used
No matter how it’s rearranged
The stuff should be refused
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Some DAM,
Perhaps you are correct that good and poor teaching has no lasting impact on students. That would certainly have some important public policy implications.
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TE,
You have made a very basic mistake in logic by assuming that discounting the work of Chetty is tantamount to claiming that “good and poor teaching has [sic] no lasting impact on students”
Chetty’s study used VAMs which are based on student standardized test scores. You have merely assumed that student test scores are a valid measure of everything that makes a teacher good or bad and potentially has a lasting impact on students
Despite what you may believe, rejecting Chetty’s work is not equivalent to claiming that “good and poor teaching have [I fixed it for you] no lasting impact on students”
Now that you have had your error in logic pointed out to you, please stop spreading your false claim, (which I see you also made below: “Perhaps your* right that it does not have a lasting impact.”)
*”you’re” is the contraction for “you are’, not “your”.
It’s your right to make a false claim (and to use “your” where “you’re” should be used), but that doesn’t mean you’re right (which you aren’t)
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Some DAM,
Actually I don’t assume that VAM is an accurate measure of everything a teacher does, as I have said before it is at best a rough measure (I believe Chetty has said the same thing). What is impressive about this work is that even with these rough measures of teacher quality, rough measures of good outcomes, we can see the echoes of good teaching in the sea of other things that impact students for many years after the student has left the classroom.
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TE
You completely avoided the issue:
As I pointed out above (and you completely ignored)
“You have made a very basic mistake in logic by assuming that discounting the work of Chetty is tantamount to claiming that “good and poor teaching has [sic] no lasting impact on students”
Anyone can see that.
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Some DAM,
You can of course believe anything you want. Discounting Chetty’s work is discounting evidence that your belief that good teaching matters is correct.
Without this kind of analysis, what eve dunce do you have that good teaching matters? How would you convince an open minded sceptic?
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Let’s try that again. How can you find any evidence that good teaching has long term impact on students without doing something very much like the Chetty study?
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It’s actually not a matter of my ‘believing anything”. Your logic error is obvious.
And what I believe about good/bad teaching has no bearing whatsoever on the invalidity of conclusions of Chetty et al and the unwarranted, misguided policies that it is being used to support (throwing out tenure, firing teachers based on VAMs, merit pay based on VAMs)
But nice attempt there at the end to divert the focus from your logic error and from Chetty et al.
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Some Dam,
It is a matter of justified belief, not belief.
How would you get evidence that good teaching has positive long term impacts on students? It seems to me that you need to identify strong teachers and weak teachers, identify good long term outcomes and poor long term outcomes, and try to connect the teaching to the outcome. Do you have another way to find eve dense to support your belief?
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A technical point – there were no “prosecutors” because Vergara was not a criminal trial but a civil lawsuit. Those bringing such cases are identified as plaintiffs, while those against whom the case is brought are technically respondents but are also referred to as defendants.
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Why do I feel like I am being prosecuted for the crime of Wanting to Teach.
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…because you are. How dare you.
Were you a TFA, you’d be welcomed in the reform world.
Were you a 1%er, you’d be funding the reform world.
Were you a sycophant or a sociopath, you’d be Michelle Rhee, the old face of reform.
If you had no educational background whatsoever, like a puppet with the President’s hand up your arse moving your mouth as the reform words and phrases spill out, you would be Arne Duncan.
Alas, you are but a teacher, and you will be duly punished until you are unemployed or unemployable.
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The beatings will continue until morale improves.
😡
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KrazyTA,
That was mean. And so dripping with the trurh. . . .
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I meant “truth” . . . .
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Let me get this right: the plaintiffs sue in an effort to remove the right of teachers to receive due process and other things they have fought for and are entitled to.
And so, they set it up to sue PEOPLE WHO DON’T TEACH, WHO ARE FRIENDLY WITH THEM, SHARE THEIR VIEWS, WON’T SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES OF A LOSS AND HAVE EVERY MOTIVATION TO INTENTIONALLY LOSE THIS CASE!
How is this legal and how do they get away with this?
And how do we point this out to the media and the public even well before the beginning of this teacher-hating show trial?
Rather than play the “Woe is me and take pity on me” card, it’s time to marshall our forces and punch back even harder than the bullies who threw the first, unprovoked punch.
People tend to pity victims—not respect them. If all of the people who detest the growing movement towards privatization in NY banded together and hired a team of Super Lawyers who strongly agree—and finding them in NYC shouldn’t be a problem—then we can actually hoist this gang of miscreants, charlatans and Privatizers on their own petard.
Enough with the fatalism; it’s time to inject a little bit of the spirit of Vince Lombardi—and go out in the second half and make them sorry that they ever took the field!
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The union(s) will intervene.
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A New York trial would indeed help to unmask and discredit the Chetty study.
But it shouldn’t take a trial. Common sense alone should have sufficed. A bit of critical reflection would have sealed the deal.
So, the big question is this: Where did the corporate-reformer types (take your pick – Rhee, Kopp, Klein, Brown, Duncan…) attain their educations, and aren’t they living proof that we need a very different model of public education than the one they prescribe?
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If Chetty is testifying for the defense, I would think that the defense would think him a credible witness and want his testimony to be believed. Do you think that his finding that ineffective teachers are not disproportionally assigned to poor students in New York City is false?
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Chetty’s correlational study purports to show a direct causal link between (mostly) elementary grade teachers, their students’ test scores, and student lifetime earnings.
On the face of it alone, it’s a flimsy allegation.
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Democracy,
At its most fundamental level, Chetty’s research showed that good teaching has a lasting impact on students. Perhaps your right that it does not have a lasting impact.
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democracy–Agree, it’s a flimsy allegation. It is still debatable whether students test scores have the ability to distinguish true differences in teacher performance.
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Always,
You can read the paper and reproduce the statistical tests if you like. No doubt changes in scores are a rough measure, but it does predict future good outcomes of students.
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TE–you guarantee that it represents true differences in teacher performance and not random statistical noise.
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Always,
In any statistical study there is always a chance that what we see is actually the result of a random series of events. That is what confidence intervals are all about. If I flipped a coin a thousand times and it came up heads each time I could not tell you with certainty that the coin is not fair because it is possible, though unlikely, that a fair coin could land on heads one thousand consecutive times.
Do you doubt that good and bad teaching has long term impacts on students?
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@TE:
Chetty’s research had absolutely nothing to do with good teaching. That’s a real s-t-r-e-t-c-h on your part, and on Chetty’s study.
Chetty looked at test scores…of fairly young kids…and in the end, the “difference” in lifetime earnings amounted to about $5 a week.
Chetty and his co-authors offered up this statement in their executive summary:
“parents whose children will earn around $40,000 in their late 20s should be willing to pay $10,000 to switch from a below-average to an above-average teacher for one grade, based on the expected increase in their child’s lifetime earnings”
The “expected increase” in lifetime earnings is about $8333. Does it make sense for parents to spend $10,000 in current funds to ensure that their children can make an extra $8,333 over a life-time?
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That makes so little sense that I’m skeptical that Chetty actually claimed it makes sense.
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Democracy,
What measure of outcomes would you prefer? How about the increased likelihood of going to college or the decreased likelihood of becoming a teen age mother?
What do you think the long term impact of good teaching to be?
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TE
Is it possible to doubt Chetty’s results, and/or how he achieved those results, and/or how those results should be interpreted, yet still think teachers matter?
I ask this question because your numerous and repetitive replies concerning Chetty et al seem to be a response that automatically assumes the negation of that possibility in others. Why?
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TheMorrigan,
The problem is that Chetty’s study shows that good teaching matters. What basis do you have to think that good teaching matters if you reject the validity of studies that show that it matters?
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@ FLERP:
Oh ye of little faith.
Here’s the exact quote:
“parents should be willing to pay roughly 25% of their child’s income at age 28 to switch their child from a below-average (25th percentile) to an above-average (75th percentile) teacher. For example, parents whose children will earn around $40,000 in their late 20s should be willing to pay $10,000 to switch from a below-average to an above-average teacher for one grade, based purely on the present value of the increase in their child’s lifetime earnings. ”
Just Google this and you can download it:
Executive Summary of National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper No. 17699, December 2011
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It’s true, I am a Doubting Thomas.
Yes, I see that quote, but does Chetty say that the expected lifetime earnings increase for the children whose parents should be willing to pay $10,000 is $8,333? That’s the part I’m having trouble believing.
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I looked at the paper. I’d rather not get into the weeds on this thing, because I am not a statistician or an economist, or even particularly smart, but it looks like you (or whoever your source for the $8,333-ish figure is) may be treating what Chetty expressed in terms of discounted present value as the future value. Chetty writes that the mean *present value* gain in the lifetime earnings per classroom is approximately $250,000, based on a total earnings gain of $1.4 billion, discounted back to present value using a 5 percent interest rate. He also writes that the *undiscounted* earnings gain for one student is approximately $50,000. (Which means he’s assuming a class size of 28, as $1.4m divided by $50k = 28.) See pages 3 and 4 of the full study.
I’m not Rainman, but with a 5% discount rate, $10,000 seems like it’s in the general ballpark of the present value of $50,000 in 30-40 years.
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TE,
You really didn’t answer either of my questions.
Why?
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TheMorrigan,
Sorry for not explicitly answering your questions. Yes it is possible that you might believe good teaching matters, but it will be very difficult to show someone else that good teaching matters without doing something very much like Chetty did. If you want to convince a skeptic, you will need a) some measure of teaching that distinguishes good teaching from poor teaching and b) some measure of the things that “matter”. You would next need to do the hard work of separating all the other things beside teaching that “matter” to see if you can point to a link between good teaching and the things that matter.
Second question. If you want to be able to credibly claim that society should devote a large amount of resource to developing strong teachers, you need to be able to convince skeptics that developing strong teachers is a better way to use these resources than intensive parenting classes or any other use of those resources.
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@ TE:
Let me reiterate and re-emphasize this point: Chetty did NOT study good teaching. It’s simply an error of epic proportions to say that he did.
It seems to me that it’s way past time to stop the competition nonsense in public education and abandon high-stakes standardized testing.
Let’s build more time into the school day for teachers to plan lessons, to consult with each other, and to assess (informally) student development and learning.
Let us also make a genuine concerted effort to alleviate the pernicious effects of poverty.
And let’s stop spending so much doggone money on technological gadgetry that has little impact on achievement.
I’d say a good measure of public schooling will reflect this comment by John Dewey: “What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children.”
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Democracy,
That is correct that Chetty did not study good teaching, but did study what should be the outcome of good teaching: student learning. If good teaching and student learning are not related than we really should reallocate resources away from trying to find strong teachers and look for the things that are related to student learning.
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democracy, if you believe the that “best and wisest” send their kids to elite private schools, I’ll remind you that these schools are not unionized, do not offer their teachers tenure, and have on staff a considerable number of teachers (usually 15-25%) who have only a bachelor’s degree and no formal training in education. Often these are younger teachers who will eventually choose a different field as a career.
If you believe that the “best and wisest” send their kids to high-performing public schools, I’ll remind you that far more often than not, such schools are located in ruthlessly hypersegregated suburbs or neighborhoods, with an ugly history behind how they got–and stay–that way. Any attempts to reform zoning laws or create affordable housing are bitterly contested. These schools are far more exclusionary than public charter, public exam, and, arguably, even the elite private schools.
The best and the brightest, the upper middle class, and even a whole bunch of middle class and working-class people seem to share a powerful disinclination to have their own child’s school educate its fair share of at-risk children. It might be better to extend choice to families who don’t have the means and/or the right skin color to move into a more successful district, and to focus less on what the best and brightest are doing and more on making each school and classroom as good as it can be.
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“The best and the brightest, the upper middle class, and even a whole bunch of middle class and working-class people seem to share a powerful disinclination to have their own child’s school educate its fair share of at-risk children.”
I share that disinclination.
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Tim,
I have wondered about elite private schools and tenure. Here is a thought. Unlike charter schools, they have very little teacher turnover. They also don’t have TFA since TFA are supposed to go to struggling schools, not Exeter or Deerfield Academy. Why so little turnover? Why do so many teachers remain for 30 or 40 years? They have neither unions nor tenure. What they do have is respect. If X Academy dared to fire Ms. Y, the beloved teacher of Shakespeare, parents would be outraged. The teachers do not live with the Sword of Damocles over their heads.
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What’s the turnover in elite private schools? Do we know?
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TE
If it is possible, then why do you always fall on this fallacious sword then when dealing with your blog opponents?
None of the other posters here have explicitly stated that they are attempting to complete a study to show that good teachers matter. Why do you assume that they are?
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Tim,
I also think the act of choosing a school is important in how you view the faculty in that school. Another reason is probably scale. There are over one hundred thousand people employed in the New York City public school system. It is hard to feel a personal connection to that large an organization, and hard to run that large an organization without becoming rigid and bureaucratic.
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@ FLERP:
Really, this isn’t very hard. Take Chetty’s figure of $250,000 per classroom that an effective teacher allegedly generates (which is, by the way, hogwash), and divide by 30 kids per classroom and you get the $8333. Go ahead, make it 25 kids, and you get $10,000. So, is it realistic to believe that an outlay of $10,000 to fetch $10,000 decades down the road is a prudent investment of that cash?
C’mon.
@ Tim: Are you confusing me with someone else?
I’ve not said anything here about the “best and brightest” sending their kids to “elite” private schools. Although, I’d be willing to bet that there are indeed plenty of people who considerer themselves to be the “best and brightest” who do – in fact – send their kids to “elite private schools. And I’d also wager that many of the corporate “reformers” think of themselves as the “best and brightest” and send their kids to “elite” private schools – while they pile accountability on public schools and mislead the public about tax cuts, and corporate welfare and global competitiveness.
I’ll repeat what I said to Teaching Economist: a good measure of genuine reform is when, as Dewey put it, “What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all of its children.”
In other words, we should strive for a system of public education that guarantees a high-quality learning experience for all kids, and despite the rhetoric, that is not the Common Core (which is being pushed hard by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, and a host of corporate “reformers”).
To say it another way, real reform means recognizing and addressing with structure and practice and policy the fundamental belief that, as Aristotle noted, all citizens are part of “the state” (the community, the nation, the body politic) and “the care of each part is inseparable from the care of the whole.”
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Democracy, I also don’t think it’s very difficult. Either I wasn’t clear (often the case) or you didn’t really read what I wrote. You’re ignoring the present-value discount. The question isn’t whether “[i]t’s a prudent outlay of $10,000 to fetch $10,000 decades down the road is a prudent investment.” (It’s not, unless you live in a zero- or negative-inflation environment.). The question is whether it’s a prudent outlay of $10,000 to fetch *$50,000* decades down the road. And the answer to that question may be YES, depending on your appetite for risk. That’s basically what a 30-year Treasury bond is. *Please* tell me that you considered this, that you understand this, and that you agree with this, so I don’t go jump in the Hudson. My life is in your hands.
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Democracy,
I suspect the wisest parent or grandparent wants their children to attend schools like PS 29 and PS 321 in New York City. The interesting problem is how to get every school down to 10% eligible for free and reduced price lunch and have the percentage of ELL students in the single digits.
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I garbled your quote re “prudent outlay,” don’t hold it against me.
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Also, please understand that I don’t vouch for his calculation of future earnings, or the reliability of VAM, or anything else in his study. I’m simply saying that Chetty is not saying that an effective teacher (or whatever his benchmark is) generates $250,000 of future earnings per classroom. He’s saying they generate $1.4 million of future earnings per classroom. And I am trying to explain that it may be perfectly sensible to pay $10,000 today for a future payout with a net-present value of $10,000. And I can’t believe I’ve typed this many words about this. I must be truly desperate for some sign that people can admit when they’re wrong.
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TE—Since you asked, I believe the lawsuit is nonsense. How are you defining good teaching and long term impacts? Speaking from personal experience my brother, sister and I had many of the same teachers. I have advanced degrees and more college credits than my siblings. In terms of salary — my brother has a six figure salary , I have a teacher’s salary, and my sister makes minimum wage. There are so many life choices that effect long term impacts— Career choice, employment,unemployment, location, connections, networking, life style choices,work ethic, higher ed, etc.
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Always,
Indeed you need to have a large sample set to try and even out the choices all make. The study defined good teaching as teaching that resulted in relatively large amounts learned as defined by changes in standardized test scores and good outcomes as higher earnings, higher probability of attending college, and lower probability of having a child as a teen for female students.
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Anecdotal, I know…. but my 26 year old daughter is now as successful in her professional life as she was as a student. She had many good teachers, a few teachers that were great, for her, and one teacher (2nd grade) that should have been relieved of her job. It was unfortunate that she had the one ‘bad’ teacher when she was 7 years old. It was not, however, devastating to her educational career or her professional career.
Everyone knows that this witch hunt against teachers has very little to do with what is best for children and every thing to do with politics and power. The Chambers of Commerce, and Business Round Tables (ALEC) do not want any unions to survive. They want to dictate what education looks like and they especially do not want intelligent women (teachers) to possess the political power to say no to them.
School Choice is not really a choice for a majority of parents within any given community. Parents with financial resources have always had the choice to send their children to private schools and there used to be religious based schools that were reasonably priced for middle class and working class parents to send their children to, if they so chose. And of course there is always homeschooling.
Public monies should be used in a transparent fashion for a public service. When public monies are given, receipts for expenditures need to be within the public domain.
Charter and religious schools, in too many cases, are not held fiscally accountable through government oversight and therefor pose too great a risk with far too little of a return to tax payers who are footing the bill.
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Re: earnings. It is NOT a teacher’s fault that – companies aren’t hiring and many college students right now are un or under employed?
Or that companies are weeding out the more expensive employees in favor of part-time/no benefits needed/cheaper employees.
Teachers aren’t responsible for America’s shipping jobs to cheaper labor in other countries.
If it is a teacher’s fault that citizens don’t reach their highest potential, then is it a teacher’s fault that a 15 y.o. gets pregnant and goes on welfare?
It is a teacher’s fault that kids join gangs and fall out of school?
It is a teacher’s fault that kids do drugs and don’t fulfill their potential?
It is a teacher’s fault that “Dr.” Carter is a liar and a thief?
It is a teacher’s fault that certain charter operators left and right are absconding with and misappropriating public tax dollars?
Is it a teacher’s fault for every ill in a child’s life that, eventually, keeps them impoverished?
On the opposite side, it wasn’t teachers who created Barbra Streisand’s, Celine Dion, Christina Aguilaira’s, Frank Sinatra’s, Michael Buble’s amazing voices and talent; that was organic.
It wasn’t a teacher who fostered any athletic ability in any major league athletes; that was innate ability, likely supportive parents, and athletic coaches – not classroom teachers.
Please, God, don’t tell me that teachers are responsible for the thing that is Michelle Rhee – or Wendy Kopp, and that is why they are so psychopathically successful in their narcissistic pursuits to destroy education. That, is pure greed I would think. Certainly, teachers were not responsible for molding Billy Gates, Eli Broad, the Koch brothers, that was borne of family money, wealth and greed. Teachers didn’t mold the greedy wall street thieves.
I don’t buy that teachers are responsible for earnings incomes, or lack thereof. To blame teachers for all the ills of society is just too easy a fake argument for the reformers.
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Donna,
Society spends a great deal on teachers and training teachers. If the quality of teachers is not important, it seems to me that we should devote those resources to something that is important, perhaps better medical care for infants.
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Someone has to teach those future pediatric health care professionals.
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Tell that to Campbell Brown, or Eric Hanushek, or Jeb Bush….
I believe you, Donna. There are many, however, who do not subscribe to the beliefs that you express. Others want some kind of simple solution that magically “transforms” education.
It makes you wonder…where did these folks receive their educations, especially their “higher” educations?
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Good to see the Vergara verdict validated here.
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I didn’t know Viagra was on trial.
So it must be that Viagra validated the Vergara vy a duck verdict.
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Studies that use test scores to measure teacher quality, then insist we can improve teacher quality by raising test scores are like my puppy chasing its tail. The researchers get no where fast, but it is comical to watch.
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MathVale,
I think you have jumbled several things together here. First, I don’t think anyone believes that higher test scores for students causes improvements in teacher quality. Some do believe that higher teacher quality will result in students learning more in a year and that will be reflected in larger changes in test scores. Second, the original study used data from 1989-2009 for New York Public Schools, a period when I believe test scores played no role in teacher evaluation. I think it is very reasonable to take the views that the research in the paper is valid but that teacher response to making test score changes part of the evaluation process will be so distorting that changes in test scores can not be used as part of teacher evaluation.
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