This editorial from the Tampa Bay Times was published in March, but I just discovered it and wanted to share it. Unlike the editorial writers in many other cities, the Tampa Bay Times went beyond the press releases and self-serving statements of public officials.
They pointed out that the ratings had a margin of error of 50%. “That means it is useless. Still, the state intends to base half of a teacher’s performance evaluation, and future pay, on this absurdity.
“As Tampa Bay Times staff writers Lisa Gartner and Cara Fitzpatrick reported, the state’s flawed system rates some of the region’s most honored teachers as low performers. Hillsborough County teacher of the year Patrick Boyko, a social studies teacher at Jefferson High School, scored a minus 10.23 percent, with a margin of error above 50 percent. Translation? His students scored 10 percent worse on the FCAT than typical children across the state even though the Florida Comprehensive Achievement Test measures students in reading, writing, mathematics and science, but not social studies. Of course, it mattered little since the margin of error larger than Boyko’s actual VAM score invalidated the whole process.”
“Even lawmakers had to acknowledge it wasn’t fair to judge teachers based on students’ performance in academic areas they do not teach. But how do you assign a numeral measurement to teachers who inspire and challenge children to read classic literature, explore scientific principles, create a piece of art, write a song, or run a 5K for the first time? In Florida, you would check to see how the kids did on their math FCAT. The system is so convoluted that one Hernando School District administrator correctly observed the highest rated teachers are likely the physical education staffers at A-rated schools.
“Like Florida’s controversial school grading system, these teacher evaluations, relying on the value-added model, are not credible and conflict with the school districts’ own performance standards. House Speaker Will Weatherford has said he wants to restore trust and integrity to the school grades, but he also champions a value-added concept for rating teachers — a model, he acknowledges, that is so complex he can’t explain it. Neither district administrators nor classroom teachers have confidence in this evaluation system. The Department of Education should toss its modeling and let districts devise an evaluation system for teachers that more accurately reflects the daily occurrences inside individual classrooms.”
If only other editorialists took the time to look at the VAM ratings, they too would conclude that this multimillion dollar exercise in number-crunching is Junk Science.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is the fundamental problem with VAM, in my opinion. Nobody understands it. You can’t credibly defend a system that you don’t understand, even if it’s 100% accurate. It will always create a crisis of confidence and a climate of fear, anger, and paranoia.
The problem is it isn’t “accurate.” You can’t “objectively” evaluate teachers’ performance anyway.
Another problem with VAM is that it is different from one area to the next. Most of the media and the talking heads treat VAM as if all the values/variables are the same from one place to the next, but they aren’t.
That’s arguably a symptom of the problem of the complexity and opacity of the model. Again, in my view, it doesn’t really matter how well the model works. If only statisticians understand it, it’s not a good basis for employment decisions.
Yep. Because they don’t really know they put wrong parameters into the formula. Math logic is linear. If parameter is inappropriate, you should be expected to get the outcome that makes no sense.
It is a system designed to demoralize teachers to an all time low. That is how I got my name – “Sad Teacher”
This is one of the many reasons why I left the profession 2 weeks ago. It now takes a teacher in Broward County 66 years to reach the top of the salary scale. Furthermore, the difference between step 16 and step 0 is about 5 grand. So in essence, a teacher working 48 years (which is near impossible) will only be making 5 grand more than a brand new teacher. Oh well you get what you pay for. I’m just happy I was able to get into a Physician Assistant Program in time to leave before the start of this year I was just beyond fed up with all the disrespect and bureaucracy within our educational system. The whole system really needs a total reset starting with eliminating all of those do nothing jobs at the administration level. It’s funny how teachers are accountable for every thing under the sun but the paper pushers downtown whom make all of the money are not accountable for a damn thing.
You nailed the problem in a nutshell: the way the system protects the “good old boys” on the inside. This goes on in most, if not all, school districts in America. These people, starting at the principal level, are almost impossible to get rid of thanks to principals and other lower-level managers having unions–a perversion of what unions are supposed to be about. They keep getting moved around when they screw up, and often “jobs” are created for them in the central office to hide them from the public. They should be fired instead, but it’s nearly impossible.
Teachers have total responsibility and little compensation and job security, while principals and other administrators have little responsibility and high compensation and ironclad job security.
Sorry to lose you The Real One. I have a friend that completed the program. She was an RN. She reports there is lots of money to be made. If I could figure something out, I would be right behind you. Best of luck!
I’ve never heard it stated quite as succinctly as that before but it’s true. No one can, nor should work 50 years to merely make 5 grand more than an incoming newbie. It shows complete lack of value for veteran teachers and their contributions. This lack of consistancy and continuity accounts for the lacking in our neigborhood children who attend those schools. Principals, teachers and staff used to educate generations of families from the neigborhood. Everyone knew what to expect, was held accountable not only by parents ( who may have been pupils of said school too), but by older siblings. If the standard was kept high, it was ensured to stay that way through community pride and belonging.
Today principals are transferred or punished by transfer every five years. The school system is a breeding ground for ambition and greed from the top down, leaving families and students with disjointed curriculum, rules and standards from year to year. It’s a business in every sense. Confusion and chaos rules.
Teachers are left mangled at the front lines. We live in a day of mistrust of authority and educators, and a collective distaste for correction and order. Orderliness and civility is the foundation of education. Since democracy is the ultimate goal, we need order to go forward.
No one can live with the freedoms and rights our founders intended while conducting a witch hunt through manufactored testing and manipulated data designed to hurt teachers.
Good luck with your newly chosen career path. I envy you. In fact I am very proud of you.
There are no bad teachers, just some badly wounded ones.
Leaving the profession can be done it’s just a scary endeavor because we are all slaves to debt. We work so hard just to obtain the basics in life. However, as a teacher your income is declining and it is happening at a very rapid rate due primarily to inflation as well as several other factors. I actually made more money my first year teaching at $34,000 than I did twelve years later at $41,000. We have been conditioned to be afraid of risks or the uncertain. What if I can’t pay the mortgage? What if I can’t find another job? I got tired of the what ifs and started to formulate an exit strategy. I began to research careers where I could help others while utilizing my skills and intelligence and I stumbled upon Physician Assistant. So I began to speak with Doctors to pick their brains about the profession of PA. The Doctors I spoke to really showed an appreciation for the work that PA’s do and it became evident that the career was the right choice for me. I began to take the prerequisites which were mostly science based but there was still that fear in my mind mostly financially based concerns about the uncertainty of not having a job. When I completed the required courses I began to apply to various programs. Thank God my undergraduate G.P.A. was high. You see who says a degree in education is useless! I was ultimately accepted into a PA program after a lengthy process which included interviews and anything else you could think of that could ultimately eliminate candidates. Fast forward to our first day back this year August 11, 2014 the dreaded pre-planning week. The night before I was so upset about having to go to work to have to sit in multiple training sessions and listen to someone whom has never been in a classroom tell me what I should be doing to accomplish my job. I began to discuss this with my wife when she told me “Why don’t you just quit”. I thought about it the whole night without getting much sleep. The next day I sat in my training and was about to commit to one more partial year of teaching when my Principal sealed her fate as well as mine. She started spouting off about how lucky we were to have a job and how if we don’t want our job there are thousands of people out there who do. It was just a blatant lack of appreciation for what we do day in and day out. Her tone was condescending and it really just pissed me off and as a result, it simply made my decision a lot easier. There was a department meeting shortly after and I skipped it in its entirety. In fact, I went out to lunch even though we are prohibited from doing so at my school and I ordered a Black Angus Burger and a beer. The funny thing is I don’t drink at all. I returned to work and walked straight into the Principals office. Her first comment was “Shouldn’t you be in a meeting right now”. Then she looked at my eyes and said “Oh no please don’t tell me you’re leaving?” To which I nodded yes. She knew I was planning a career change because I had been talking about it for years she just couldn’t believe I had mustered up the balls to do it. As the day went on I had other colleagues approach me and say how inspired they were about the way I quit and some even asked me for information about the PA program. My last day at work was a tough one. I went to my classroom and began to think of all of my former students, the moments I shared with them, the memories we built together and most importantly the everlasting friendships we forged and I began to tear up like a big baby. When I finally drove away from that parking lot later that day I knew I was leaving an old chapter behind in my life only to embark on a new one. I also cried as I drove away but I was happy just a little down that I wouldn’t be seeing my students day in and day out anymore. Nevertheless, I now feel like the weight of the world is lifted off of my shoulders; it is a liberation I can’t effectively describe but I know in my heart I made the right choice. School started for me today. However, instead of teaching the class this time I was reserved the role of student. I felt weird but at the same time it was exciting and fresh; a new start so to say. To those who are thinking about leaving teaching I say do what feels right but more importantly, don’t ever let fear hold you back from anything you desire because that is something you will regret for the rest of your lives and Lord knows we only live once.
So what else is new? When politicians usurp the role of educators the results should be obvious – and they are – to any intelligent person or groups of people. Unfortunately too many of our politicians seem lacking in the most basic abilities of reasoning.
There is a consequence of flawed evaluation that gets overlooked, but may be the most important. Flawed evaluation will label poor teachers as officially “good”.
Kids get a bad deal, and once labeled as “effective”, these teachers become even more entrenched.
So much for the “rooting out the bad teachers” justification.
What an excellent point, Peter. I have certainly seen this consequence in action during my career. When trying to evaluate teachers by some “objective” (usually numerical) system, the real qualitative aspects of what good educators do is lost. Even the most ineffective teachers can often display those “objective” indicators, when everybody in the building knows that those measures and indicators are meaningless. Teaching and learning must involve human interaction, and measuring these involves human judgement, more so that “bean counting”. Measuring the effectiveness of teachers might be likened to measuring “love” or “anger” with a yardstick. While some objective measures may provide useful information, those will never provide a complete or accurate evaluation of what teachers do.
az, one way I thInk about it all Is what would happen if we had a very flawed tool for evaluating airline pilot competence. Effective pilots wouldn’t appreciate being labeled ineffective. But labeling bad pilots as good has serious consequences.
In statistics, we call this stuff Type I and Type II errors.
No matter what evaluation scheme is put in by a school district, the principal still has all the power and no accountability. In many areas of the country, principals have unions, which should be illegal since they are management, NOT teachers. Until the obvious is dealt with, nothing is going to happen to improve the school workplace.
The rhetoric and selling of VAM—and its reality—are discussed in detail in Audrey Amrein-Beardsley’s RETHINKING VALUE-ADDED MODELS IN EDUCATION (2014). Among many other topics, she debunks the claim that VAM—particularly in practice, not just in theory—is easy enough to understand that teachers and administrators find it helpful and useful.
And consider this example from the Land of VAM, Tennessee, concerning the use of TVAAS [Tennessee Value Added Assessment System]. Legislative hearings. A decade ago. Expert testimony.
[start quote]
For example, Vernon Coffey, Director of Grainger Country Schools and former Tennessee Commissioner of Education, stated that he believed TVAAS to be as reliable and valid as SAT and ACT, while admitting that “I don’t understand all the numbers, but I’m not supposed to.”
[end quote]
He spoke, and speaks, for the vast majority of the edupreneurs and edufrauds and edubullies and educrats. When caught out, these “thought leaders” for self-styled “education reform” don’t have answers to basic questions because they are pushing a business plan that masquerades as an education model. Genuine teaching and learning aren’t on their radar; $tudent $ucce$$ is.
Mandates and exemptions and “choice not voice” are their rallying cries. Studied ignorance—raise your banners high!
What a sad and sorry bunch.
😎
Florida VAM direction: Flip a coin to determine teachers’ effectiveness, highly qualified status & their career in Educ. Most likely makes sense to all the non-education policy wonks littering our pedagogic landscape. There must be an APP for that.
Teacher Effectiveness CoinToss App.
Hallelujah, we have arrived!
One way to surely improve education is to massively intervene, revamp & improve Harvard Universities’ breeding ground for PoliSci & PublPolicy ¿Education? Graduates.
Assembly line of Gates/Duncan/Obama clone$.
Boy, it will be a heavy lift to get any of them to back off this because so much is riding on it.
First, they spent tens of millions of dollars on it and they’d have to explain to the public why they did that with a error rate that high. Second, they created all this contention and ill-will around it so it had better be worth what they paid in losing trust and cooperation from teachers. Third, some very high profile prestigious politicians have signed onto this (Bush II, Jeb Bush, Obama) and it will be like pulling teeth to get any of them to admit error. Fourth, most of Jeb Bush’s schemes for education on the cheap revolve around putting a number on what teachers “add” as far as value, because he’s selling giant classes and screens so he has to make the case at some point to parents that students won’t suffer with fewer teachers per child per school. I assume at some point someone will ask whether giant classes and low-cost aides to replace teachers will harm their children, and the response will be “if we have extra super duper teachers as measured by VAM we can jam 100 kids in there!”.
Just the sunk costs alone have to be made to seem worthwhile and probably will justify hanging onto it, and that’s without all of these other factors.
I suspect it just eventually peters out and is quietly shelved, and no one ever mentions how or why that happened, because that seems to happen all the time in this country.
Do you think they’re still using the measurement /bonus system they set up at the VA, for example? I don’t know, but I bet we no longer hear about how fabulous it is.
Florida testing schedule for one district. It’s pretty amazing:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/08/25/a-school-systems-stunning-standardized-test-schedule-for-2014-15/
Why can’t the state education authority explain teacher evaluation system?
Well, I think the reason is because VAMpire sucks their blood vessels on the brain so hard, so technically they don’t have the ability to think rationally on this.
Why can’t John King explain this? Read it (166 pages) and weep.
Click to access appr-field-guidance.pdf
Click to access appr-field-guidance.pdf
This should work.
Click to access appr-field-guidance.pdf
Here’s the Florida Student Growth Implementation Committee’s explanation of the teacher evaluation system:
I don’t know why anyone would have trouble explaining it.
Is it because they don’t know how to pronounce the words highlighted!?
The scientists at Los Alamos couldn’t figure out New Mexico’s VAM, which, btw, is modeling after Florida.
I think Lewis Carrol could explain it all. Especially the part where the measure that is supposed to tell us how effective a teacher is requires us to input the effect of the teacher? Down the rabbit hole we go.
Imagine if every cockamamie theory and practice dictated what doctors must do. If hospitals were run like schools patients would die..fast… and the poop would hit the fan.
The “essential schools movement/mode” or something like that name, from the 80s, I think, counted “school and classroom climate” as important indicators of growth. I am just saddened for the children. Especially the ones in these robotic, call and repeat classrooms. One size does not fit all for education. If we consider the idea of the “tutoring” model (probably better for elem. grades but important as kids age and encounter difficult subjects) where we look at each child to see where they are on the continuum of growth and try to give them opportunities to move forward and then think about mind-numbing classrooms full of ineffective practices of test prep, I believe we are wasting children’s precious time and alienating a lot of kids. We need vibrant and creative classrooms filled with best practices, administrators and superiors who engage in the hard work of the classroom and know how to model or at least support teacher growth. To think that VAM and testing tells the story is so obviously ridiculous I find myself shaking my head when I read this and then wringing my hands when I think it might continue. I taught for 40 years and enjoyed what I did. Had a high rating as a teacher on the traditional evaluations and where it counted: in the classroom and with the children, I did a fine job and cared. I shudder to think what my VAM scores would look like. I hope this does not zap the zeal and enthusiasm from young teachers and in turn, hurt our kids. The classroom is about relationships too and teachers, master teachers who have honed their craft are so much more than some meaningless, contemptible VAM score. And add to this the low salaries and poor working conditions….so much for “the 21st century” of progress and moving forward. The leaders in simpler times were more realistic and none of this bean counting nonsense was implemented. And then there is the poverty too many kids come to school from. VAM needs to go. It will not get us where we need to go or give us any guidance for how to get there. What a tragedy.
In 2014, a U.S. district judge ruled that evaluators in Florida are allowed to disregard a teacher’s job assignment in rating performance. The judge ruled that this practice is legal, even if it is unfair.
Here is more detail about the legal case and the absurdity of rating teachers in FLorida. http://feaweb.org/federal-judge-its-ridiculous-to-judge-teachers-by-test-scores-of-students-they-dont-have-but-its-legal-in-florida
My own Florida district has given us a double punch in the gut this year.
In addition to the insanely stupid state/federal VAM policy, the powers that be decided to adopt the Danielson abomination as our evaluation ‘tool’.
Yet they have removed all teacher decision making and ability to teach, handing us an embarrassment of a curricular ‘roadmap’ that argues our new reading series textbook/math textbook ARE the curriculum and we WILL follow the poorly written district plan without variation. The district roadmap, written by our newly-hired curriculum director, is an embarrassment and so clearly written by someone who hasn’t stood in front of a classroom in more than a dozen years that it should be shredded and burned. We had amazingly good curriculum maps before, written by experienced teams of teachers and those were thrown out in the name of raising schools grades and test scores.
Any other instructional decisions are made by a canned Internet program they purchased which will ‘diagnose’ our students, print out lesson plans for ‘remediating’ their shortcomings, and must also be followed ‘with fidelity’ and no variation.
In effect we will be Danielson-ed out of our jobs with constant walk-throughs that will supposedly evaluate us on our ‘effective planning ability’ and ‘delivery of classroom instruction’ but we have absolutely no say or input into making those plans or in delivering that instruction and when our kids are tested into infinity any follow up teaching is mandated teacher-proof — it must all be done directly from the teacher’s guides to the textbook series and from the teaching ‘reference guides’ from the online program.
I am so discouraged about this I don’t know what to do. It’s as if it is not enough that they are presiding over our destruction but they INSIST that we be made to actively participate ourselves in our own destruction in the most humiliating way possible.
How am I supposed to provide evidence of my effective planning and delivery of instruction? I guess I will just photo copy the teacher’s guides and district roadmap.
Here’s a question that I hope some one can answer for me: Because it is well-established that factors such as parental discord, hidden health issues, household financial problems, and myriad behavioral factors can heavily influence a student’s achievement in school and performance on standardized tests, then in accord with the Due Process rights that teachers have, can a teacher whose job is on the line because of students’ poor test scores request detailed information about students’ home life, parental relations, family finances, and other pertinent information? If so, that would raise such a political backlash against using test scores to evaluate teachers that use of test scores to evaluate teachers would be swiftly dumped.
Great idea, Scisne
Good point…you’re joking of course.
No joke.
I doubt that the teachers could obtain the records from the school for the purpose of contesting an performance evaluation in court or some other arbitatation. Here is why.
The records are protected under FERPA, about which you can learn more than you probably wanted to know at http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/parents.html
Laura,
Arne weakened FERPA for vendors. How about for teachers on trial?
A teacher, who is teaching a specific student, SWD or gen ed, has legal access to the student’s confidential information. I have advised teachers who were in unusual situations to access the files, take notes and keep copies of records which were available to them – while they were that student’s teacher. Not in violation at that time. I have assisted teachers who were attacked by students with long behavioral histories, and/or criminal histories, documented in their records to take notes and keep for ‘just in case’.
In fact, teachers should ‘arm’ themselves with all facts about students data possibly used against them. If admins block your access, they are in violation.
Double check latest w/ legal folks.
Know your Rights!
Just to emphasize, teachers should routinely access SWD files & gen ed std files, take notes and keep their notes confidential. Keep all parent correspondence, behavioral incidents,letters home, all documentation during the time YOU ARE THE STUDENT’S TEACHER. Often, discipline records are altered by admins to protect reputation of school – document your own info.
Most teachers hold on to those records for several years. I have been involved in legal cases for SWD which surfaced 9 years later, after a student was 1st placed in SpEd. Good record keeping is a MUST! SpEd cases pop up unexpectedly, last months, time consuming, and complete records have saved many cases.
Most certified SpEd teachers are familiar with tedious documentation and know to automatically do so – part of our training. GenEd teachers are not as familiar.
Now, all teachers are vulnerable from ALL SIDES. Life and Career changing or ending.
We can survive, but we must know our Rights, Responsibilities and when.in.doubt Document. Also, have your own tape recorder available, incase admins or parents take meetings. You have that right.
Reblogged this on peakmemory and commented:
“these teacher evaluations, relying on the value-added model, are not credible”