The U. S. Department of Education is forcing Maine to use junk science for teacher evaluations. The legislature enacted a teacher evaluation program, but it was not tough enough for the Feds, says Politico.
“MAINE UNDER THE MICROSCOPE: Education officials in the Pine Tree State are warning that Maine could lose its No Child Left Behind waiver if the state legislature doesn’t take swift action to strengthen its teacher evaluations. The department has aligned itself with the feds in insisting that students’ performance on state assessments be a significant factor in teacher ratings. But the legislature has sided with teachers unions in demanding a more flexible framework. Its rules do call for evaluations to include measures of student learning. But those measures don’t have to incorporate state test scores. Instead, local committees made up mostly of teachers can come up with their own metrics (within certain parameters), such as students with disabilities’ progress toward IEP goals.
– That’s not good enough, Assistant Secretary Deborah Delisle told Maine officials in a letter late last year. After multiple conversations with Delisle’s team, state officials have drafted a bill that they say would meet federal expectations standards and save Maine’s waiver. But it’s far from clear that the legislature will go along. In a recent blog post, state Rep. Brian Hubbell, a Democrat, wrote that federal concerns “may be addressed more productively simply by clarifying Maine’s process.” Delisle’s letter: http://politico.pro/1yHOZpf.
“- Even as debate unfolds in Congress about repealing NCLB, Maine officials say they’re determined to renew their waiver to ensure stability for schools. “It puts departments like ours in a frustrating position when we know what the feds expect and spend months and even years putting aligned systems in place, only to have our legislature – often under great pressure from the teachers union – insist on watering those down in the 11th hour,” department spokeswoman Samantha Warren said.”
“The U. S. Department of Education is forcing Maine to use junk science for teacher evaluations. The legislature enacted a teacher evaluation program, but it was not tough enough for the Feds, says Politico.
The politico article does not say “junk science.”
“… students’ performance on state assessments be a significant factor in teacher ratings….” = VAM (or something close enough) = junk science.
isn’t that like saying: “liquid form of two hydrogens and one oxygen needed for life”. . .the article does not say “water?”
Raj, are you TE?
No, He is a trolling troll. Just as annoying and misguided as TE.
Raj claims to be an engineer in contrast to TE who claims to be an economist.
But that may be a false scent trail to throw off the blood hounds.
I doubt they’re the same, unless he’s just really good at adopting different personas. TE was much more pedantic and had an excellent mastery of skills such as question dodging and deflection, always striking just the right seemingly congenial but actually rather smug tone. Raj isn’t quite in the same class.
Personal attacks are not appropriate.
That wasn’t an attack. Yes or no.
Linda: glad to see that you know how to use a Frenchman when an old dead Greek guy doesn’t fit the bill—
“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” [Ionesco]
Apparently there are inconvenient questions just as there are inconvenient facts.
Ok. Always glad to lend a hand.
Question: What is the meaning of life?
That’s a hard one. Really…
Question: [Linda’s].
That not a hard one. Rheeally, even in the most Johnsonally sort of ways…
😎
VAM is junk science as determined by the American Statistical Association. There is a whole body of research to support this assertion. http://www.amstat.org/policy/pdfs/ASA_VAM_Statement.pdf
See: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/08/11/the-holes-in-the-chetty-et-al-vam-study-as-seen-by-the-american-statistical-association/
The report that you ascribe to (amst.org) does not include the words “junk science.” The words “statistical science” are mentioned twice.
But Diane Ravitch says that she said it.
VAM is junk science. Even if Politico didn’t use the term they are in effect reporting that the Feds are forcing Maine to use junk science to evaluate teachers. It is very wrong.
Diane did not put the line in quotes as though it was an excerpt from Politico.
Raj,
I said “junk science.” I did not attribute it to Politico.
I just wanted to make sure that you said it.
Now that we have pummeled you into an amorphous blob, Raj, go read the research links provided on VAM. It is junk science. Doing a search on Diane’s blog will net you lots of useful links.
Raj,
This IS a personal attack against you because you troll, distract, and look for every molecule of insignificance to trip Diane Ravitch up or make her seem lacking credibility and validity.
As poorly as you have done this, and as much as you have failed at it, you are leaning increasingly in the direction of lying about the host, and for that reason alone, you are a fool, a fraud, and a con artist, but the biggest person you fool is yourself.
You should be shown the door from the blog.
But that is up to the host.
We have ar too important a job here than to give too much attention to a whiny, babyish, under-informed amateur who plays at being an adult and probably has never taught public school or deal with low income populations.
Do crawl back into the mausoleum you came from . . . .
Diane,
First of let me assure you that statistics is not a form of junk science.
The comments below by 2old2teach and Robert Rendo are obnoxious.
You need to do something about these personal attacks on your blog. Simplest thing you can do is to provide guidance to your followers about normal etiquette on the internet and advice them about their rights.
You may also cut me off if that is what you think is the right thing to do.
I herby humbly request you to do something and make this blog a collegiate discussion place where opinions are shared and facts are not created. Remember every one is entitled to his/her opinion but every one is not entitled to their own facts. (attributed to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York)
I apologize if you found my comment obnoxious. It was not intended to be. I repeat; the research on VAM is quite clear. I cannot believe that you have read it if you consider student test scores on standardized tests a valid way of rating teachers.
Raj, no one (including me) said that “statistics are junk science.” Statistics may be accurate or inaccurate. They may be used to solve problems or to identify the wrong problem. A case in point: using test scores to evaluate the quality of teachers is a misuse of statistics. This is not simply my opinion. Numerous professional organizations–including the American Statistical Association, the National Academy of Education, and the American Educational Research Association–have carefully, judiciously pointed out that statistics (the test scores attributed to specific teachers) should not be used to rate teacher quality because there are many factors that affect test scores that are beyond the control of the teacher. Those who teach special education may not see any test score gains at all, depending on the child’s disability; teachers of English language learners may see small gains, depending on the student’s ability to use the language in which the tests are written; teachers of gifted students may see no gains if their students are already at the ceiling and can’t get a higher score. And–since when did scores on standardized tests become the most important determinant of teacher quality or student learning? Who made Pearson and McGraw Hill the arbiters of success and failure, of the value of teaching and learning? Are there not more meaningful ways to demonstrate learning than selecting the right bubble?
If you wonder why you are the recipient of injudicious comments, it is because you make provocative and unsubstantiated claims. For example, the first line of your comment says, “First of all let me assure you that statistics is not a form of junk science.” That’s akin to saying that “numbers are not a form of junk science.” You put out a straw man, then are surprised when others react negatively.
I will repeat what I have written many times: VAM is a form of junk science. In saying this, I am echoing what was said by the scholarly organizations cited above: test scores are not a fair or accurate estimation of teacher quality. Typically, they are a reflection of the composition of the class. No teacher should be punished for choosing to teach the neediest students. Scores must be seen in context and, in my view, they should not be used for rewards or punishments for teachers, principals, or schools.
Raj, for lack of a better word, I’d be “happy” if you left the forum altogether. You contribute nothing but snide snarky comments and have and think you are an expert on all things education. You aim to correct others all the time, even when you are wrong, even when you are putting words into other’s mouths. I am not a teacher, I have no kids in school. i abhor what you stand for, since you stand with the fake rheeformers and are quick to cut others down, yet you can’t take the heat when it is thrown back at you, If you have nothing positive, or even truthful, to contribute, just go away. You will not be missed.
Raj – are you aware that the American Statistical Association has declared that evaluating teachers based on student test scores (i.e., VAM and the like) is junk science?
It has come to my attention that the owner of this blog has been sternly warned to correct herself, to wit:
“Diane, First of let me assure you that statistics is not a form of junk science.”
I have followed this blog since its first posting. That’s getting on to three years now. Not once has she asserted something remotely like “statistics is a form of junk science.”
Zero. Nada. Nil. Nothing. Doesn’t exist. Never did exist. In rheephormish [thank you, Bob Shepherd!] that would be termed a “grossly ineffective argument” because in plain English it is a “highly ineffective lie.”
In fact, she has promoted the view—with which I concur—that ethical and honest numbers & stats folks have contributed a lot to the movement to ensure a “better education for all.”
She has objected, and pointed/deferred to the expert opinion of many numbers/stats folks, that the use of standardized test scores for value-added modeling/measurement has turned out to be an inaccurate, unstable and misleading way of labeling, sorting and ranking teachers and schools.
In fact, as she has reminded us, there are numbers/stats folks that can examine the VAManiacal machinery and find it worse than lacking. Some of them have blogs: deutsch29, Bruce Baker, Audrey Amrein-Beardsley, and Jersey Jazzman, to name just a few—and I apologize to one and all for not being able to name everyone whose blogs I view and for not being able to put everyone first.
There are some commenters on this blog that I will find myself disagreeing with, strongly, either occasionally or often. But the way to influence people is to keep it honest. To get respect for one’s views, give respect. Each person is going to interpret the preceding somewhat differently, but simply making up something that is patently wrong just for the purpose of making a seemingly winning argument fatally undermines a person’s credibility.
Sometimes an old dead French guy will do in a pinch:
“Ridicule dishonors a man more than dishonor does.” [François de la Rochefoucauld]
I wonder what he would say about the toxic effect of self-ridicule?
Just my dos centavitos worth…
😎
Statistics themselves are not junk science – it includes long running specialties including medical science, political polling , and sampling of Data of all kind to find problems in large datasets And isolate variables.
VAM fits a stastistical model in only the crudest of ways since the inputs they account for are often arbitrary as is the weight given those factors.
A medical study would try to isolate people with particular illnesses or subsets that would overall bias numbers and then the stats are purely to help guide treatment – not reprimand doctors.
The stats measure, they do not fix. Those Doing the measuring have too great a access to bias and to being able to tip the result however they want by weighting.
Use of stats as they have been
Used in education is bad practice especially since it is VERY Hard to control for things in a given environment like the body – we haven’t figured out the world yet.
Anyone who purports otherwise is misusing science hence it becomes junk or pseudo. It sounds all fancy and objective and math-y, but if you are smart enough to dig in, you see exactly how the weights could be stacked to yield a particular outcome, or how the assumptions a study made are unreasonable.
M,
“The stats measure.”
NO! the stats “measure” nothing. They are a descriptive device to help explain some of our perceptions of reality, nothing more, nothing less. But measurements, NO!
Duane
Raj,
Statistics are never junk science, but as I don’t have time to spoon feed or bottle feed you real knowledge about statistics, I will summarize to you by saying that while they are never junk science, they WAY they are presented (full blown vs. omitted, complete vs. incomplete, whole vs. truncated) and the purposes they are used for do fall, often – especially in this epoch – somewhere on the spectrum of junk science.
Before you once again attempt to discredit the host of this blog, do think about focusing on your own critical though process and how you write it up on this blog.
You do seek credibility, don’t you?
You don’t need lessons on how to comport yourself like an educated person as much as you need them on how to behave socially and emotionally with the information you have and seek.
If you consider my counsel “obnoxious”. then I am fiercely proud to be obnoxious with someone like you . . . . . In fact, I will hold an “obnoxious pride” parade and you and I can be the grand marshals.
Are you in?
This is why the feds need to be OUT of education — and the state also. Notice that the state is AGAINST the “teacher’s unions”. The state legislature ? Not so much — you know, teachers vote — so do their friends.
As an 8 year teacher veteran, but one who had a previous career, I am just absolutely SHOCKED at how badly teachers are treated — and BY THE STATE ED DEPT. My previous profession was regulated — but by people who were professionals, not political hacks against the very people they are overseeing.
If this keeps up, what grown up will want the job of teacher ? It is hard to stomach now! (except then you see the kids, for me, and you think “got to disregard all the unprofessional stuff coming from our state and federal leaders”)….
And if they(Arne and company) take over Maine’s public system…Definitely no Dems elected for the foreseeable future and the birth of a new political party. On second thought…might not be so bad!
I hope all of you have already (or will today) contacted your two senators and one rep. to let them know you do not want them to re-authorize ESEA as proposed by Lamar Alexander. Congress is surprised there has not been a huge flood of complaints so far. This thing is flying under the radar. They want it signed into law by March.
It will put the federal government in charge of every school including charters, religious and private. The trick they are using is to change the definition of eligibility for Title I funds. It used to be for poor kids. Now they are saying it can include “educationally deprived” which they say means anyone who can’t pass the CC standards. Also the school used to have to have at least 40% of its population receiving free or reduced lunch, now that number is 0%. They want to be able to send the Title one funds with the child into any school. They call it “Choice.” It will actually create a situation where the cookie cutter charter schools teaching Common Core and testing for compliance on computers will be the only game in town because the neighborhood schools will close down due to lack of funding. Any school that accepts one penny of Title one funding is under the control of the federal government.
This is not a problem for Maine. This is a problem for all of us. Call congress!
I don’t understand. Diane — can you comment ? And in the vast majority of places in the US, there are NO charters, none whatsoever. How will this work in those places ?
We have got to get the standardized testing under control. As a parent, if we cannot get rid of the testing, then we (in my family) are “private school” bound — I would love to have some vouchers to help out with this. I realize that is not good for public schools.
But where is the accountability for the government ? The ham-handed way the feds have been managing our schools has done nothing but harm — for everyone, black, brown, white, EVERYONE.
MomintheMidwest: I understand your plight. There are times when I think the heavy demand for tests–which no one likes except the people mandating them–is intended to drive parents like you out of the public schools. As they collapse, there will be many opportunities to insert private enterprise.
This is horrifying because vouchers will only pay of part of a private school tuition.
If you seek an top notch, small class size private school, good luck in affording that part of the tuition that your voucher does not cover.
You advocacy should always be for your kids, of course, but do realize that advocating and demanding that their public schools have policies and funding that are reflective of YOUR values and YOUR tax dollars is the strongest medicine for you, your children, and society as a whole.
I dont’ mean to come off as lecturing, but I too understand your plight. You sound like an amazing parent.
Once a private school takes one penny of Title I funds or voucher money, they will have to be under the control of the federal government. They will have to use Common Core curriculum and give annual standardized tests. It is a way for the government to actually gain control of all schools whether public, charter, private, or religious.
You think vouchers will give you “choice.” They will actually give you NO CHOICE. It is a sham and a scam to allow these big charter operators to get a hold of tax dollars. Michael Milken, Robert Rubin, Rupert Murdoch all have their hand in the cookie jar and they want more and more and more. Arne and Obama aim to give them all they want. They probably own stock in these operations right now.
Now they want to use Title 1 funds to send it off to charters while the real poor, needy students in public schools will go without. This is a disgrace!
I think you can see how much interest in public schools there is in DC by the fact that they let NCLB languish for years, while Arne Duncan was governing by directive and experimenting on every public school in the country. That’s what a “waiver” is- it’s Duncan and his team rewriting federal education law by attaching conditions. Congress let that happen. They relinquished their role to the executive branch and (unsurprisingly) Duncan stepped into that vacuum to put in his narrow version of “reform”. The one thing Congress managed to do was get more federal funding for charters. Priorities!
They have no earthly idea how often schools are testing kids. That’s what the experts said at the hearing. The people who are focused like a laser on collecting data on kids somehow forgot to collect that one measure: “how many tests are these kids taking?”
Children First! Or a distant second. Whichever.
In Utah, they already use Title I funds for charter schools.
Don’t rule out retaliation and just plain ‘ol spite.
The Democrat candidate, Mike Michaud, wh ogot a lot of support from Obama, ran a lousy campaign and would not even comment on Common Core. The Independent, Eilliot Cutler, was a strong CC supporter. Only Paul LePage, the TP’er, was against CC and campaigned on getting Maine out of CC. LePage won by a large margin, and I suspect took a lot of Dems on the Common Core issue.
We have at least four bills for removing CC, end SBAC, end Performance- (or Outcomes-) Based Educiation, and provide strong privacy rights and protection. Still more bills are pending. The anti-CC movement here is across the political spectrum, and is helped by the fact that most of the Tea Party here is really concerned about education and are far more serious than the buffoons paraded on Fox and CNN.
The major papers here have been strongly pro-CC at the lead of the state major business players and the Chamber of Commerce. However, they are now being forced to come around to the issues as well.
Stay Tuned.
The thing that concerns me about LePage is that he was one of Jebbie’s Chiefs for Change. Now that the Common Core has become toxic, he’s backing away, but that in no way means he’s a force for good for the public schools.
It’s not that simple. LePage has admitted that he was duped by his first Commissioner of Education, Steve Bowen, and looking at the history of the legislation that enabled CC here, that’s a plausible claim IMHO. Also, LePage also pulled ME out of ALEC. The
And I never claimed that LePage “was a force for good in the public schools”. I wrote that he was the only candidate who campaigned on stopping CC.
In our present circumstances, when the Democrats have given up on being any “force for good”, you have to take your allied where you can find them. Holding your breath and stamping your feet will only allow the coporatists in the Obama administration to win. Right now, here in ME, the Republcians are the best bet to stop CC and save the public schools from total destruction. We’re working hard on the Democrats too, but they’re dragging their feet. Sorry, but that’s the realtiy here on the ground.
I’d rather work with LePage now and fight him later than wait for some sort of Democrat savior who will never show up. I can fight LePage tomorrow over school funding, once we have saved the schools from CC.
It’s time to get over the Democrats and the silly pidgeonhole politics that has frozen out some many voters. If you don’t act now, the corporatists in Washington win. So, hold your nose with one hand and hold out your hand in coooperation with the other.
“Junk Standards”
One man’s junk
Is another’s treasure
Physicist’s bunk
Is economist’s measure
TARGO!
VAM, like a financial derivative, is a poorly designed math product that does not work as intended. It causes chaos and destruction with little benefit to society. Thus, it should be scrapped immediately.
Au contraire. VAM works exactly as it was intended. As do financial derivatives. Your error is in thinking that either were ever intended for their stated function and that either were ever intended to be fair or honest.
Well said. This point is often disregarded.
We in Washington State lost our NCLB waiver. The world did not end. Maine’s legislators should stick to their principles and resist Duncan’s pressure tactics.
The NCLB waiver already changed the eligibility requirements for Title I funds. The re-authorization of ESEA will codify it and expand a voucher system (that is already in place in some states) to the entire nation.
A new bill introduced by Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., just before Obama’s address “would take about $24 billion – or about 41 percent – of current federal spending on elementary and secondary public schools, and allow states to decide whether to give the lowest-income families the money as individual scholarships to pay for private school tuition, or to attend a public school outside the child’s traditional neighborhood zone, or a charter school.” The bill would hand over “about $2,100 in federal money” for each eligible child, based on family income.
Nearly simultaneous to the Alexander bill, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., also introduced a new bill to “provide federally funded vouchers to children with disabilities, children living on military bases, and children living in impoverished areas,” according to Scott’s official website.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in his address stridently called for solutions from “the marketplace,” promoting his “economic freedom zones” that allow for “school choice” and give parents an “educational tax credit” because parents, “not the government,” know “what’s best” for kids.
The vouchers, by whatever name, are being sold to the American people as a way to “rescue” students – especially those who live in poverty or have disabilities – from “failing” public schools so they can attend a privately run school at the expense of taxpayers.
Said Alexander of his proposal in the pages of Education Week, “There would be no better way to help children move up from the back of the line than by allowing states to use federal dollars to create 11 million new opportunities to choose a better school.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/02/12/the-new-push-for-school-vouchers-at-state-federal-levels/
Milwaukee has had a voucher system in place for 14 years now so we should be able to take some lessons from there. It was reported that one school entertained the students with Monopoly while charter operators cashed tuition checks for $330,000 for no-show students. Another charter school operator closed the doors in the middle of the night and absconded to a gated community in Florida with $2 million. (This is known but the police have not followed the money or arrested anyone.)
ME might want to look at its neighboring states for guidance: VT didn’t even try for a waiver because it was contrary to their values and NH ended up with a watered down evaluation system that minimizes VAM because, well, they want to Live Free. Some delaying tactics might work as well: Arne’s overreach is going to reap the whirlwind in the coming weeks.
VAMdom science works great as a teacher-value VAMdomizer
“VAMdom Science”
The “science” of VAMdomization
Is really quite a thing
The value-randomization
Of teachers makes them sing