Audrey Beardsley Analyzes AERA Statement on VAM

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1. virginiasgp says:

   November 13, 2015 at 5:30 pm

   Diane, I agree with most of her latter points. As for the first couple (Duane, did you help her write those?), there is no portion of any teacher evaluation in the history of the world that could meet those prereqs. So Audrey’s solution seems to be before we ever evaluate any teacher, we must construct an irrefutable system that is 100% accurate. I guess that fits well into the minds of those who believe teachers should never be evaluated but since we know that many teachers are ineffective, keep dreaming.

   In any case, the CFR study was based on VAMs calculated with reliable but not bulletproof tests. Imagine the even more substantive results that follow if every single question on a test is perfectly aligned as Aubrey suggests?!

   Once again, let’s transparently state the limits of VAMs (error rates, cutoff points, etc.). But they ain’t going away folks!

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   • dianeravitch says:

     November 13, 2015 at 5:56 pm

     Virginia, VAMS are going the way of the Edsel. The new proposed ESEA removes any requirement to use it. It was an example of federal overreach

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     • virginiasgp says:

       November 14, 2015 at 3:32 pm

       “Proposed”… Is that like the “proposed” immigration bill of 2007? Exactly when do you expect its passage?

       Long live the VAM!

       P.S. Lots of activists like Beardsley make a living off VAM-bashing (“VAMboozled”). They might hate to see it go.

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     • dianeravitch says:

       November 14, 2015 at 4:16 pm

       Virginia,there are big bucks to be made promoting VAM, not questioning it. That’s what the billionaires want and they pay for it

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     • dianeravitch says:

       November 14, 2015 at 4:18 pm

       Virginia,

       Your ad hominem shot at Beardsley makes no sense. If she is “making big bucks” criticizing it and would “hate to see it go,” why does she work so hard to make it go away?

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     • virginiasgp says:

       November 14, 2015 at 4:25 pm

       Why do Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton fight so hard against “racial injustice”?

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     • dianeravitch says:

       November 15, 2015 at 12:26 pm

       Virginia, let me guess. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton fight against racial injustice because they want more of it? Weird reasoning

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   • Ed Detective says:

     November 13, 2015 at 7:27 pm

     Virginia, VAM is subjective. The “good” and bad” teachers are determined based on the value judgments of those who created the tests and the VAM formula. I’m sorry to tell you this (kind of), but you can’t separate human judgment from any kind of evaluation. You simply have a different set of people determining who the “good” on “bad” teachers are — but worse, on an arbitrary numeric scale.

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   • Ed Detective says:

     November 13, 2015 at 7:29 pm

     on –> or

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   • Robert Rendo, NBCT says:

     November 13, 2015 at 8:15 pm

     “But they ain’t going away folks!”

     Folks, don’t you wish Virginiasgp were going away?

     Really permanently?

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   • Robert Rendo, NBCT says:

     November 13, 2015 at 8:22 pm

     (Our favorite comment writer did not do as badly as one thought he could have . . . . )

     Viriginiasgp has been evaluated:

     Overall Rating: F-

     Critical Thinking Skills: F+

     Etiquette: D-

     Politics: F

     Research Skills: C+

     Narcissism: A+

     Stupidity: B

     Ability to Reason: F-

     Acumen in Making Cogent Arguments: D+

     Ease of Being an Insufferable Bore: A-

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   • Donna says:

     November 13, 2015 at 10:41 pm

     Thank you, Robert for your comments. I keep reminding myself not to feed the troll, but it does know how to inject itself. This troll gets thrown out where it goes. It gets a real kick out of itself. It even complains on other sites where its comments get deleted. And where it gets banned, it just regurgitates itself into something else and defends itself. Laughable.

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   • Robert Rendo, NBCT says:

     November 14, 2015 at 6:41 am

     Dear Donna,

     I wish not to feed the troll, but if his typing wrists were a “neck”, I’d like to stomp on it and crush the windpipe. Then, I’d photogprah the scene, and use it as a front cover design in a greeting card.

     I’d send it out to all the reformers for the holidays.

     Send the very best to those you love . . . .

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     • virginiasgp says:

       November 14, 2015 at 3:26 pm

       Now, now NBCT. If I were a student at the University of Missouri, I would likely be pleading for your words to be deemed “hate speech” and for you to be forever banned from an educational setting. Instead, Diane and I respect the reach of the 1st Amendment and your right to show your true colors.

       Merry Christmas btw.

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   • Duane Swacker says:

     November 14, 2015 at 10:36 am

     vsgp,

     “. . . there is no portion of any teacher evaluation in the history of the world that could meet those prereqs.”

     Exactly!

     And I used to discuss with my students the fact of all evaluations being subjective and that their evaluation-grades and such really don’t have any rationo-logical validity and that testing and grades are a game that we had to play. So if they did the work the grade would be there.

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   • Robert Rendo, NBCT says:

     November 14, 2015 at 7:33 pm

     Now, now Virginasgp . . .

     If you really cannot stand the rugby match, then have mommy put you up on the mechanical pony outside the supermarket and put in a quarter. Hopefully, you’ll survive that. If you fall off the horse and hurt your derriere where all your central nervous system is located, then you can be brought to the emergency room, where the neurologist can probe deeply inside to see if there has been any brain damage.

     The ultra-lame (as usual) attempt at labeling the realm of imagination, humor, and metaphors is was a failure to thwart free speech under the disguise of “hate talk”.

     But I don’t think you would really feel too much disturbance from failure because you are clearly used to it.

     And, BTW, my name is Robert Rendo, which I fully disclose on this blog, unlike you. Yes, one can probably find your name on some other site, but why bother.

     For the record, I don’t hate you at all, as you state.

     For the record, I despise you. But I am not about to stop you from being you. Just be yourself, Virginiasgp. The rest tends to take care of itself with pure Karma. I mean, really! How can one despise cockroaches when all they know is to spread germs and disease. It’s NOT their fault. I would hope you are as understanding of the species and variety, being in the same genus.

     I should assure you that I do have permanent social skills, and my comments are merely flights of fancy, not too unlike what some of the greatest novels and cinema have portrayed. Please don’t feel threatened by my objective horrification of you. You have GOT to be a little stronger than that.

     And I do not celebrate Christmas.

     But happy holidays, Virginia.

     Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus out there, and he is bringing you coal to fill your stocking . . . . Whatever you do, please exercise a little maturity and DON’T put the coal in your mouth. You will need room there to put your foot.

     If I celebrated Christmas, Santa would be bringing me a fancy solar panel . . . .

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2. Duane Swacker says:

   November 13, 2015 at 7:16 pm

   There is another post somewhere in the netherland, hopefully it shows up.

   vsgp,

   “I guess that fits well into the minds of those who believe teachers should never be evaluated but since we know that many teachers are ineffective, keep dreaming.”

   I’ve never met any teacher who thought that teachers shouldn’t be evaluated, so that’s a mighty big straw man you’ve constructed with that one.

   And no we don’t know that “many teachers are ineffective”. The vast majority are quite effective and those that aren’t almost always either weed themselves out in the first couple of years or are not given due process rights after the probationary period.

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3. Duane Swacker says:

   November 13, 2015 at 7:21 pm

   I’ll repost it:

   No, vsgp, I didn’t help write them Amrein-Beardsley has been at it longer than me. I suspect she doesn’t need my help.Your comment is awaiting moderation.

   ““VAM scores must only be derived from students’ scores on assessments that meet professional standards of reliability and validity for the purpose to be served…”

   and

   “. . . unless they are accompanied by evidence of reliability and validity as required by the AERA, APA, and NCME Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing” (p. 3).”

   Noel Wilson has already shown us the COMPLETE INVALIDITY of those student test scores in his never refuted nor rebutted 1997 dissertation “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error”. And he has shown that the “standards” as delineated in the AERA, APA, and NCME “Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing” are indeed themselves fundamentally conceptually (epistemological and ontological underpinnings) rationo-logically unsound and intellectually bankrupt in his essay review of those standards A Little Less than Valid: An Essay Review

   Considering what Wilson has proven, it only remains to reject any educational standardized testing* results for anything-VAM included.

   *by educational standardized testing I mean tests where there are right/wrong answers and the student ranked, separated and sorted according to the number of correct answers. I am not referring to student diagnostic tests where there are no right/wrong answers and that is used in aiding the diagnosis of a learning/emotional or other disability.

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4. Akademos says:

   November 13, 2015 at 10:36 pm

   VAM is the easy way out for weasels who don’t care to think of teachers or students as people.

   But the truth is tripping up these arrogant twits.

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5. SomeDAM Poet says:

   November 14, 2015 at 9:52 am

   “ECONOMAD”

   ECONOMAD am I
   My logic’s simply perfect
   I can not tell a lie
   I’ve got a short truth circuit

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6. retired teacher says:

   November 14, 2015 at 10:23 am

   VAM is a totally artificial construct. Millions of teachers faced evaluation before the existence of the notion of VAM, and millions of teachers produced outstanding results without the help of a computer model. VAM is a convenient destructive tool of privatization as it is based on false assumptions, and it is totally subjective despite giving the illusion of some type of mathematical objectivity. Through VAM the powers that be have all the rights, and the professional teacher has few.

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   • Mamie Krupczak Allegretti says:

     November 14, 2015 at 12:01 pm

     ALL of our systems of grading students are totally artificial constructs. We forget this.

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     • virginiasgp says:

       November 14, 2015 at 3:14 pm

       Will you take the red pill or the blue pill?

       I hate to break it to you but psychologists have been measuring IQ for decades now. It is real and can be measured. Diane even hosted a psychologist who participated in the Lederman case of NY’s SGP system. Why don’t you tell him he’s “confused” about measurement…

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   • SomeDAM Poet says:

     November 14, 2015 at 1:26 pm

     “VAMathturbation”

     Opinion claimed as fact
     Disguised by mathturbation
     The teacher VAM is that
     Reformer malformation

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7. Akademos says:

   November 14, 2015 at 12:02 pm

   http://nynow.org/post/delay-teacher-evaluations-reverses-cuomo-policy

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8. SomeDAM Poet says:

   November 14, 2015 at 9:08 pm

   “Poor Persecuted VAMs”

   The VAMs have no voice
   They haven’t a friend
   They haven’t a choice
   Don’t mean to offend

   The VAMs need protection
   To shield them from harm
   When just Audrey’s assess them
   And mean to disarm

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