Audrey Amrein Beardsley patiently waded through a report produced by the George W. Bush Institute in Texas and discovered an argument that the language of the Texas State Constitution leads inexorably to high-stakes testing and value-added-modeling for teachers. The key word is “efficiency,” you see, and Texas can’t have an “efficient” education system without measuring everything. Some people would argue that a system cannot be “efficient” unless it has adequate resources to accomplish its purposes. But no, the folks at the GWBI think that what the writers of the Constitution had in mind was measurement.
Beardsley writes:
The Texas Constitution requires that the state “establish and make suitable provision for the support and maintenance of an efficient system of public free schools,” as the “general diffusion of knowledge [is]…essential to the preservation of the liberties and rights of the people.” Following this notion, The George W. Bush Institute’s Education Reform Initiative recently released its first set of reports as part of its The Productivity for Results Series: “A Legal Lever for Enhancing Productivity.” The report was authored by an affiliate of The New Teacher Project (TNTP) – the non-profit organization founded by the controversial former Chancellor of Washington DC’s public schools Michelle Rhee; an unknown and apparently unaffiliated “education researcher” named Krishanu Sengupta; and Sandy Kress, the “key architect of No Child Left Behind [under the presidential leadership of George W. Bush] who later became a lobbyist for Pearson, the testing company” (see, for example, here).
Authors of this paper review the economic and education research (although if you look through the references the strong majority of pieces come from economics research, which makes sense as this is an economically driven venture) to identify characteristics that typify enterprises that are efficient. More specifically, the authors use the principles of x-efficiency set out in the work of the highly respected Henry Levin that require efficient organizations, in this case as (perhaps inappropriately) applied to schools, to have: 1) Clear objective outcomes with measurable outcomes; 2) Incentives that are linked to success on the objective function; 3) Efficient access to useful information for decisions; 4) Adaptability to meet changing conditions; and 5) Use of the most productive technology consistent with cost constraints.
The authors also advance another series of premises, as related to this view of x-efficiency and its application to education/schools in Texas: (1) that “if Texas is committed to diffusing knowledge efficiently, as mandated by the state constitution, it should ensure that the system for putting effective teachers in classrooms and effective materials in the hands of teachers and students is characterized by the principles that undergird an efficient enterprise, such as those of x-efficiency;” (2) this system must include value-added measurement systems (i.e., VAMs), as deemed throughout this paper as not only constitutional but also rational and in support of x-efficiency; (3) given “rational policies for teacher training, certification, evaluation, compensation, and dismissal are key to an efficient education system;” (4) “the extent to which teacher education programs prepare their teachers to achieve this goal should [also] be [an] important factor;” (5) “teacher evaluation systems [should also] be properly linked to incentives…[because]…in x-efficient enterprises, incentives are linked to success in the objective function of the organization;” (6) which is contradictory with current, less x-efficient teacher compensation systems that link incentives to time on the job, or tenure, rather than to “the success of the organization’s function; (6), in the end, “x-efficient organizations have efficient access to useful information for decisions, and by not linking teacher evaluations to student achievement, [education] systems [such as the one in Texas will] fail to provide the necessary information to improve or dismiss teachers.”
The two districts highlighted as being most x-efficient in Texas, and in this report include, to no surprise: “Houston [which] adds a value-added system to reward teachers, with student performance data counting for half of a teacher’s overall rating. HISD compares students’ academic growth year to year, under a commonly used system called EVAAS.” We’ve discussed not only this system but also its use in Houston often on this blog (see, for example, here, here, and here). Teachers in Houston who consistently perform poorly can be fired for “insufficient student academic growth as reflected by value added scores…In 2009, before EVAAS became a factor in terminations, 36 of 12,000 teachers were fired for performance reasons, or .3%, a number so low the Superintendent [Terry Grier] himself called the dismissal system into question. From 2004-2009, the district
fired or did not renew 365 teachers, 140 for “performance reasons,” including poor discipline management, excessive absences, and a lack of student progress. In 2011, 221 teacher contracts were not renewed, multiple for “significant lack of student progress attributable to the educator,” as well as “insufficient student academic growth reflected by [SAS EVAAS] value-added scores….In the 2011-12 school year, 54% of the district’s low-performing teachers were dismissed.” That’s “progress,” right?!?
The other exemplary district, according to the report, is Dallas. It may or may not be relevant that the superintendents who led these two districts are now gone (Mike Miles of Dallas) or on their way out the door (Terry Grier of Houston).
The current Texas State Constitution was adopted in 1876. Do you think the Founding Fathers of the Lone Star State gave a tinker’s dam about VAM? As a native Texan, I say no. Do you think those rough-and-ready guys could have passed a high-stakes test? Sorry, but I think they had plenty of smarts, but not the kind that the George W. Bush Institute treasures. My thought: Why not ask Sandy Kress and the other GWBI fellows to take the 11th grade math test?
The support for the “test” goes back even further, to the US Constitution (Article ii, Section 1), which actually makes reference to the “greatest“.
‘The Person having the greatest Number of [electoral] Votes shall be the President”
It’s common(Core) knowledge that the guys who were involved in the American revolution were into hiding coded messages. Thomas Paine, for example.
So that they would have done this in the Constitution is no real surprise.
“Great test”. Can’t get much more gung ho about the test than that
I couldn’t find a reference to VAM, per se, in the document but there were several clear references to “gains” so i think the case for VAM is pretty strong too
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures”
nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,
to be confronted with the witnesses against him
QED
Poet – Tee hee! as usual, a good one!
I’d like to think the Founding Fathers had “Common Sense” so they wouldn’t have wanted Common Core or VAM!
Well, Thomas Paine did indeed write Common Sense, but if you read it carefully and with a thought toward hidden messages (which Paine liked) , you discover this
“It hath been reported of the late Mr. Pelham (who tho’ an able minister was not without his faults) that on his being attacked in the House of Commons on the score that his measures were only of a temporary kind, replied, “THEY WILL LAST MY TIME.” Should a thought so fatal and unmanly possess the Colonies in the present contest, the name of ancestors will be remembered by future generations with detestation.”
…which not only contains the words “Common”, “core”, “score” and “measures” following one another in quick succession, but also makes it clear that the measures must not be “only of a temporary kind” — and hence must be copyrighted.
Poet, that is a hilarious rendering of the Constitution!
Efficiency Is Relative To Purpose —
What is the purpose of education, anyway?
On a related note —
https://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2015/09/22/dismantling-an-unstable-discipline-education-without-foundation/
From your link:
“There was no Golden Age of education as a profession or discipline, by the way; once again, something the study of the history of education reveals. ”
Confirmed by J.T. Gatto: Underground History of American Ed.
“School is a religion. Without understanding the holy mission aspect you’re certain to misperceive
what takes place as a result of human stupidity or venality or even class warfare. All are present in the equation, it’s just that none of these matter very much—even without them school would
move in the same direction. Dewey’s Pedagogic Creed statement of 1897 gives you a clue to the
zeitgeist:
Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper
social order and the securing of the right social growth. In this way the teacher is always the
prophet of the true God and the usherer in of the true kingdom of heaven.
What is “proper” social order? What does “right” social growth look like? If you don’t know
you’re like me, not like John Dewey who did, or the Rockefellers, his patrons, who did, too.
Somehow out of the industrial confusion which followed the Civil War, powerful men and
dreamers became certain what kind of social order America needed, one very like the British
system we had escaped a hundred years earlier. This realization didn’t arise as a product of public
debate as it should have in a democracy, but as a distillation of private discussion. Their ideas
contradicted the original American charter but that didn’t disturb them. They had a stupendous
goal in mind—the rationalization of everything. The end of unpredictable history; its
transformation into dependable order.”
If one would dismiss Gatto as a liar, and reject his observations,
could one also deny “the proof is in the pudding”?
I don’t know if you-all have seen this. It’s about the teacher measurement system in Newark:
RUSSAKOFF: Yes, it has. I mean, they spent millions – literally millions of dollars on a human resources consulting firm to, you know, get a new teachers evaluation system and teach everybody in the district – you know, principals, department heads, senior teachers – how to use it and how to use it to hold teachers accountable. And the state, which – and, you know, this was an initiative that came straight from the federal government. The Race to the Top that President Obama and Arne Duncan, the education secretary, put in place encouraged states to change their laws so the teacher evaluations were based increasingly on the student test scores – how students – whether students grew or not on their annual tests would determine whether teachers were rated effective or ineffective. And interestingly, I spent some time interviewing the measurement scientist who developed the system in New Jersey for measuring whether students grew or not from year to year on their standardized tests. And the state is using that measure of growth to say whether a teacher is effective or ineffective to some degree. And this measurement scientist said that the system was never intended to judge teachers….”
Maybe someone could ask Arne Duncan or President Obama about this measurement scientist who says the system was never intended to measure teachers, and ask them why RttT spent millions of dollars on these schemes- money that could have gone into classrooms.
http://www.npr.org/2015/09/21/442183080/assessing-the-100-million-upheaval-of-newarks-public-schools
Chiara: the part you cite is very near the end.
IMHO, the whole piece builds toward that section.
An absolutely devastating indictment of rheephorm. Literally, fraud foisted on the general public.
After justing finishing Amanda Ripley’s SMARTEST KIDS yesterday, I would ask viewers of this blog to read the entire piece linked by Chiara and then ask themselves—
If you take away the test scores and the uses and misuses to which they are subjected in order to wrap them up in a faux scientific objectivity free of frail human-judgement accuracy, the entire rheephorm enterprise—at least when it comes to justifying and explaining their policies and results—falls apart.
To use—or misuse—that famous bit by Gertrude Stein:
“There’s no there there.”
Just my dos centavitos worth…
😎
The most common measure of educational fiscal efficiency is cost per student. since charters get the same funding per student and then push out those they do not want to teach, they should have a higher cost per student (with some going to profits and not benefiting students at all) which indicates that charters are less efficient than traditional public schools.
Now those charters may claim that they need extra money to create “better results” but that is the same argument public schools have been making for years and the data do not support an effort-wide better performance for charters.
So, Texas is choosing a less efficient form of public education over a more efficient one. I wonder why that is? Can you spell crony capitalism, boys and girls?
All of the premises, principles, and priorities are strictly economic. The Texas constitution does not appear to require the education of all children, so the cost of educating all, versus some, must enter into the calculus for efficiency.
The logic seems to lead inexorably to reducing costs by screening students early and offen, excluding those who are underperforming and therefore preventing the full-throttle productivity of teachers. That cherry picking process would also make it easier to judge the productivity of each teacher relative to others via a reduction in the variability among students.
Because the cost of testing is high, and tests are the most efficient way to judge teacher and student productivity, the content of instuction must be no different from the content on the tests. Teaching to the test becomes one of the “best practices” for increasing the diffusion of knowledge in Texas.
The other path to increased efficiency (coupled with continuous improvement), is an annual triage, excluding from further education the students who are underperforming.
If VAM is the method of choice for evaluating teachers, eliminating the underperforming students will also function as a triage on ineffective teachers.
The entire system is made more efficient every year, by the inexorable processes of downsizing to eliminate inefficiencies.
The diffusion of knowledge is no longer a fuzzy whizzy idea. It is sharply focussed on getting the most bang for the buck…Texas style.
A term like “efficient” is open to interpretation. Efficiency does not make an action right or wrong, accurate or inaccurate. It could also be argued that something that is inaccurate is not efficient due to inaccuracies. Even the term “gains” is somewhat subjective as gains don’t always have to be mathematically based. We could argue these points all day and not “gain” anything. As a “right to be fired” state Texas can do as it pleases, and the people in charge know it. I notice the relatively small number of teachers fired in Texas seems to indicate that Texas VAM may be less punitive than the magic formula being used by New York since an exemplary teacher like Sheri Lederman is worried about her career. Maybe we’ll never know since the formulas are shrouded in secrecy. I find it amusing that Texans find a way to link VAM to the Constitution, the only document that has almost as much reverence as the Bible.
Genesis (from the Raj Chetty version of the Bible)
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without VAM, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be economists: and there was light.
And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the good teachers from the bad ones
And God called the light VAM, and the darkness he called “Principal Observations”
Thanks for the chance to inspire!
No, thank you!
You inspired me to investigate the very origins of VAM
To trace it to the VAMeval (or is VAMevil?) age, as it were.
Well, I sure wish Audrey had done her homework with the NM Teacher Evaluation System. In court yesterday, after excoriating the system and enumerating problems associated with using test scores to evaluate teachers, upon cross-examination by the State’s legal team, she admitted she had not researched said system, and then admitted there was a possibility it could work, given she had not seen it. How can a) the plaintiff’s lawyers not ensure she had at least looked at it, and then b) as a star witness didn’t even bother to investigate it fully? Groan…
There may be more going on than you can tell right now. The plaintiffs may have another expert who will testify specifically about the NM system. Beardsley may have been retained to testify more generally about VAM. A good expert will always be very clear about the scope of their testimony and the materials they reviewed and relied on to form their opinion. If Beardsley was only there to testify about VAM generally, plaintiffs do not want to have her reviewing materials she’s not prepared to testify about, and they definitely don’t want her to actually start testifying about those materials.
Thanks for that insight, FLERP!, as it speaks to my comment!
FLERP!: you added a necessary piece of info to the discussion.
Thank you.
😎
Sounds like a lawyering problem to me!
I am honored to be in the company of thoughtful people.
Great comments.
Thanks, for the post, Diane.