Here is one of the dumbest ideas of the 24-hour news cycle. In education these days, there are many dumb ideas advanced on a daily basis, so it is hard to pick just one as the dumbest. But this is it.
Officials at the New York State Education Department are considering using SAT scores and the results of AP tests to evaluate high school teachers.
Since these scores, like all standardized test scores, are highly correlated with family income, those who teach in affluent districts will get the highest ratings, and those who teach students who live in poverty will get low ratings.
But also, the idea violates the basic rule of testing: Tests should be used only for the purpose for which they were designed. Neither the SAT nor the AP exams were designed to evaluate teachers.
Will the new leadership of the New York Board of Regents let a runaway officialdom at the State Education Department to push through this harebrained proposal?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Why stop at high school teachers? Trace those kids’ teachers all the way back to kindergarten and dock them too. Clearly if Johnny doesn’t pass his SAT, it must be because his kindergarten teacher didn’t get him college and career ready!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Dumb, dumber, and dumbest awards! Remember that Florida uses teachers’ SAT scores from their high school years to award them bonuses during their second year of teaching. It can be a problem for them if they happen to teach at a low performing school. It can be a problem for other teachers whose SATs are good but not great and yet their students thrive.
LikeLike
Ah, the hidden elitism/racism. With just a little thought, however, it doesn’t seem so hidden at all…
LikeLike
Officialdom or officialdumb? You hit all the salient objections here. I would add though that it seems to me a if an AP teacher’s students consistently score lower on that AP (compared to other AP scores in the same school), maybe that teacher should not be teaching AP.
LikeLike
I’m not so sure. I did very well in AP Calculus but didn’t pass the AP exam. It was full of stuff we’d never covered. However, since I didn’t get the college credit, I had to take Calculus again in college and it was exactly what we had covered in high school. Once again, I did very well in the class. I’m not sorry I took the AP class, but it forever tainted my view of the AP exams.
LikeLike
Not necessarily. Even within the same school, you’ll be surprised to find huge gaps between the students, their motivation, interest, and level.
For example, my colleague and I both taught Honors Geometry courses and my students always outperformed hers. It wasn’t that I taught more, “better”, or used different materials (we used the same ones). We ended up agreeing that it was the composition of our students. Talking with our students’ former teachers, we came to realize that, somehow, more of the motivated and studious students were enrolled in my course than in hers. Additionally, her students tended to miss more days and turn in fewer assignments than mine.
Just some food for thought…obviously there are many other variables in my experience above at play, but I wouldn’t be so quick to blame the teacher, even if logical, like the situation you presented. 😎.
LikeLike
And then I read your post and realized you said, “…consistently…”. Agreed. If one teacher’s results are consistently and notably lower than another teacher’s, that’d be a safe assumption to make 😎.
LikeLike
In my district, AP is “self selected.” That means ANY kid can take AP. If we were forced to use AP tests for evaluation, teachers in my district wouldn’t stand a chance.
LikeLike
The AP exams have become money makers.
You are right – everyone is encouraged to take AP courses (high schools are ranked by the number of students enrolled in Advanced Placement classes) even if the majority of students fail to get a high enough score to receive college credit.
In the olden days, AP was for the motivated, capable students, now it’s lumped into the-one-size-fits-all mentality.
LikeLike
They are violating the “First Rules of Holes” .
STOP DIGGING!
LikeLike
Like I keep ‘splaining you guys, it’s not the smarts or stupids of the evaluation method they care about — that is just sleight of invisible hand — it is the locus of who controls the assignment of values that they’re trying trying to capture.
LikeLike
This kind of ignorant malevolence has corporate fingerprints all over it.
LikeLike
It’s time to recognize the College Board for what it really is, a FOR PROFIT COMPANY.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Blame Baby Delivery doctors for the designated Apgar scores. Huge difference between Apgar score of 7 – 9…
Grade the urban hospitals with “F” for high poverty births.
Why not rate teachers on their FICO scores?
Why not rate us in the tire pressure in our tires?
Why not rate our bust size?
Smokers or Non-Smokers?
Apple or PC user?
Why not rate years of experience & salary – Oh, descrimination done already!
Race, Age & Gender? Done!
Evaluate teachers for POVERTY? Done!
➡️➡️ Desperation & obsession to punish all for America’s poor children, who did not choose rich parents at birth.
Anyone working on helping unborn children choose wealthy birth parents?
Where are the UNETHICAL Selective Breeding specialists when we need them?
LikeLike
Florida already uses the AP Exam for the teachers’ Value Added Model score for Teacher Evaluations.
LikeLike
Well, here’s the first test for Regents Chancellor Betty Rosa.
If she’s approves this beyond-the-beyonds nonsense, then we can probably assume she too has been captured by so-called reform.
LikeLike
Why should any student. at any age, ever have to feel that they are in any way responsible for their teacher’s job?
Should a third grader ever have to worry that her favorite teacher might get fired if he doesn’t score well on a single day test/
Should a middle school student ever think that they can get their least favorite teacher fired if they purposefully tank that one standardized test? And the guilt?
Does a high school junior really need extra pressure when taking their SAT? Pressure to score well AND the responsibility of helping their teacher stay employed?
These psychological burdens that will inevitably be carried by some students, should never, ever have to be their cross to bear.
LikeLike
To try to attempt an answer to the posed question:
Yes, it’s within the realm of possibility that the “new” Board of Regents will sign off on this idea.
Why? The new head of the Board has no unequivocal statements regarding teacher evaluations/VAM. Therefore, in the absence of any strong, stated position, anything is possible. I know that Rosa’s elevation to head the BoR was seen by many on our side as a victory, but when there are no robust statements against teacher evals and VAM, then one must conclude that there is no robust position.
Rosa is strong on standing opposed to certain types of testing. That’s good.
I remain unconvinced on her strength with the other fronts we are fighting over.
LikeLike
I think you will find that Betty Rosa is a champion of good educational practice. I suspect this latest bad idea was never reviewed or approved by the Regents.
LikeLike
Maybe they should have spent less time scolding opt out parents and more time at least giving students tools that work for this 9 hour task:
“But the shift to computer-based testing has been riddled with technical glitches that have spanned many testing companies and states, including those that have adopted Common Core and those using other new academic standards.
Stressed-out students have found they sometimes can’t log on to their exams or are left to panic when their answers suddenly disappear. Frustrated teachers have had to come up with last-minute lesson plans when testing fails. School systems — and even entire states — have had to abandon testing altogether because of Internet hiccups thousands of miles away.
The balky tests also raise a broader question: Can the exams — which are supposed to offer an objective view of student achievement — produce the kind of valid, reliable results that are necessary for a fair judgment of the performance of schools, teachers and students?”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/technical-glitches-plague-computer-based-standardized-tests-nationwide/2016/04/13/21178c7e-019c-11e6-9203-7b8670959b88_story.html?postshare=5961460639229236&tid=ss_tw
Is this “putting students first”?
LikeLike
Rather putting corporate profits first, and conducting a well-funded PR campaign to sell that as caring about students.
LikeLiked by 1 person
AP? Really?!
CB’sAnnual AP course audit/ledger: Tracking AP teachers has been going on since 2006/7. Each Instructor must have their syllabus approved by CB. This process allows the school to use the AP trademark on handbooks, transcripts etc. Gates funds this ongoing audit, a collaboration between David T Conley, EPIC (college and career readiness, SBAC committee member etc) and Collegeboard. AP test scores are already produced by student, teacher, course, school…
More bang?
AP courses exist in history,science, art and language— not just limited to math & ELA as the consortia tests are.
Yet, Advanced Placement courses are BEYOND what CCSS lays out. So these students are already above grade level.
So what are they really going for here?!
LikeLike
Student test scores were never meant to indicate the “effectiveness” of a teacher. In NYS, teachers who have SLOs based on Regents exams are evaluated by their students’ test scores. There is no moratorium on that. I still have yet to hear anyone define SPECIFICALLY the qualities and deeds of a “great” teacher. I hear all these terms thrown around – excellence, great, success, college and career ready, etc, but I have not heard one cogent definition of any of them. It’s absolute BLATHERSKITE! To answer NYS Parent above, it goes the other way, too. Students know that their performance can make or break a teacher and some use it as a weapon. What is happening to this world? Teachers now have all the responsibility and students have none whatsoever.
LikeLike
I searched the NYSED website today, and could not find the memorandum to which the Chalkbeat report refers. Can someone supply the direct link to the NYSED document?
LikeLike
They just don’t stop. This is why the opt out movement needs to continue. We need legislation that requires tests be used solely for the purpose they were intended and normed for.
LikeLike
The SAT’s predict with 14% – 22% accuracy first year student success in college. In other words, bupkas. But students who take the SAT’s (or AP’s) are heading to college – that’s why they sit for the test. All kids aren’t going to college and so all kids don’t take the test. The SAT and AP scores used to evaluate teachers would then have to be a subset of only the students who tested. Doesn’t seem much different from imputing a score to the foreign language or Art teacher based on the scores kids get on the Math or ELA PARCC.
The proposal is to take results from a test that doesn’t do what it claims to do and use it for a purpose for which it was never intended to evaluate people in their professional capacity.
Sound like a Monty Python skit.
LikeLike
Aren’t these scores the private property of the individuals who paid to take the exams? Can State Ed confiscate private property to use for evaluative purposes?
LikeLike
Um…. No. There is a matter of the fine print. Think about how banks share your info with their partners….
LikeLike
And NYS continues to lead the pack backwards. Just as the national mainstream begins to awake to the fact that corporate exhortations of yore for ALL students to get college degrees has resulted in 25% more students attempting (most of that cohort failing) to acquire 4-yr degrees, while simultaneously student college debt has ballooned out of control & college-grads (including STEMS) are under-employed, & vo-tech programs have nearly disappeared & there’s 1-1/2generations missing from trades (filled in the interim by immigrants)– NYS proposes to double-down on college for all– suggests one can’t even graduate hs w/o proving to be college-ready.
LikeLike
On one hand, the Board of Regents is looking at alternative pathways for graduation for New York students, some of whom traditionally have had difficulty passing Regents exams. These are high school subject-area tests that have existed for over 100 years, but only in the last 20 years has there been a move for all students to pass them as a graduation requirement. And many students have difficulty passing at least one of the required ones, usually the challenging Global Studies exam. So it is counter-intuitive and confusing that NYSED has dreamed up the SAT/AP scheme. Does this mean the state is looking to gut the Regents exam system, a system in which groups of teachers went to Albany and wrote the exams and are archived online with answer keys for all to see once the tests are given? Or are they looking to double down on testing high school students? And, if so, for what purpose? Or do I smell Gates money? Or College Board money? It is well known that Commissioner Elia received bonuses for the number of students in her district taking AP exams when she was superintendent in Hillsborough County, FL, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see that connection continue.
LikeLike
Using the AP exams to evaluate teachers and school districts is the worst idea ever. It makes the high school discourage average students from taking the AP exams (through self-study) in order to increase their rankings.
LikeLike