Reader Chiara has a great idea. It will turn professors against VAM:
She writes:
“I’m wondering if there’s ever been any discussion of ranking teachers by student test scores in higher ed.
“It would obviously be more difficult to do, but one could use the tests that are used for graduate schools, right? How much “value” did undergrad professors add?
If you back this approach in K-12 why wouldn’t you back it in higher ed?”
Let us see the VAM scores for Raj Chetty, Jonah Rockoff, John Friedman, Thomas Kane, and all the other professors who endorse VAM. Be sure their ratings are posted in public. And while we are at it, all professors who testified against teacher tenure should give up their own tenure, On principle.
Goose and gander.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
That would be awesome. I know my professors in my PhD program were solidly for all of the ed deform stuff going on. I warned them at the time that once they finished with us in K-12, they’d be next. Although some of higher ed has definitely felt this – mostly those in colleges of education – a good many more are still completely in favor of the fake “accountability” being forced on K-12 and blame us for “not preparing students for college” even though not a one of them ever discusses what they’ve done to make college ready for these students… So to have them all face what we face, even just for a time, would be good. Maybe then they can see how their instruction is distorted to match up with a meaningless set of standards created by those not involved in higher ed. Maybe then they can face the pressure K-12 educators face when forced to give standardized tests that do not represent the learning nor the developmental abilities of the students being taught. Maybe when they are faced with losing tenure – such as those at the University of Wisconsin are now experiencing – they will understand how important it is for K-12 to be able to have the freedom to speak up, to advocate for students, to know that their job is not on the line year after year depending on test scores and/or the whim of a capricious or mendacious administrator.
Perhaps it is a case of misery loves company, but I’d consider it more of a “lived experience”, and just maybe they need to live it to understand it.
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It would be a marvelous opportunity for Pearson, et al to expand Common Core and standardized testing into the post secondary market. All higher education could march to the beat of the same drummer. New Jersey state colleges and universities have taken the first steps in standardizing course content and texts. For example, English 101 professors will be able to chose from a predetermined array of readings. Soon people will be standardized in keeping with the totalitarian dream. As Leo Lionni wrote many moons ago, “Fish is fish.”
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Pearson is already pretty well-placed in the higher-ed market. Last I heard, they were looking at a learning management system takeover/purchase so they could streamline online content delivery at the higher ed level, considering their mish-mash of delivery systems at the K-12 level is a crock. But right now they are focusing on global takeover of K-12, so higher ed is not (yet) their main focus.
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At Philanthropy Roundtable, under the K-12 tab, there’s a post written by an employee of a Gates-funded organization and Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute… excerpt from the post, “…reformers…declare ‘We’ve got to blow up the ed schools.’ ”
Then, the post continues with a description of how to take over the schools with plutocratic influence. The title, “Don’t Surrender the Academy” and, the content, implies, the richest 0.1% own American universities and can “blow them up”. It’s how predators view prey.
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It is somewhat a similar phenomenon with the opt out movement. Higher education is a hall mark of entry into the middle class and higher. When education reform policies get applied to the middle class or upper class, suddenly they don’t seem to make sense. The opt-out movement was never a big deal in lower income schools. In fact the narrative was, “we’re implementing these reforms for your own good.” But when more affluent communities have to swallow the medicine, then suddenly pushback.
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I agree with that to a certain extent but it was also the explosion in testing and the (frankly) nutty, obsessive focus on test scores.
We have a total of one public school headline in our local paper once a year and it is test scores. Big banner with rankings. The measure changes every year so no one has any idea what these rankings mean, but everyone repeats them.
It became simply a lie to continue to say the scores were ‘one indicator” or they were looking at “the whole school”. No, they were not and every parent could see that.
Remember the pre-test pep rallies that have now become unfashionable? We had those here up until 2 years ago. No one even bothered to hide that it was 100% about that one score.
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Chiara: I agree with that to a certain extent but it was also the explosion in testing and the (frankly) nutty, obsessive focus on test scores.
Yes, but the consequences of what one is supposed to do with those test scores if they don’t work out right. We’re supposed to fire “bad teachers” and close under-performing schools. And allow private interests (who have little understanding of the community) to come in and better run things, allegedly.
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Chetty’s VAM score should be based on his court case “win” record.
Looks like he just went from “highly effective” (Vergara round 1) to “grossly ineffective” (Vergara round 2)
And with regard to whether we should wait for a Vergara round 3, I’m pretty sure Chetty himself would suggest that he be fired sooner rather than later.
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A Corrective Action Plan should be devised post haste.
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Good one, Diane. They are frauds.
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This is a harsh essay but if you-all haven’t read it, you should. It’s by a college professor who went to fancy public schools:
“In my childhood world, grown ups basically saw teachers as failures and fuck-ups. “Those who can’t do, teach” goes the old saw. But where that traditionally bespoke a suspicion of fancy ideas that didn’t produce anything concrete, in my fancy suburb, it meant something else. Teachers had opted out of the capitalist game; they weren’t in this world for money. There could be only one reason for that: they were losers. They were dimwitted, unambitious, complacent, unimaginative, and risk-averse. They were middle class”
“Like my teachers, I have chosen a career in education and don’t make a lot of money. Unlike them, I’m a professor. I’m continuously astonished at the pass that gets me among the people I grew up with. Had I chosen to be a high-school teacher, I’d be just another loser. But tenured professors are different. Especially if we teach in elite schools (which I don’t.) We’re more talented, more refined, more ambitious—more like them.”
This is actually not true where I live, but I live in a place where only 25% of people have a college degree and teachers are in that group.
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The first irony is that it is significantly easier to teach college students than it is to teach K-12. And it is easiest of all to teach at elite colleges like Harvard and Yale
The second irony is that the profoundly ignorant* regularly misquote the old saw** to bash teachers who are much smarter than they are.
*People like Arne Duncan who don’t even know what they don’t know.
** As KarzyTA has noted, the saying has been corrupted from Aristotle’s original statement: “Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach”
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“We support the public call for a moratorium on high-stakes testing broadly, and in particular, on the use of scientifically discredited assessment instruments (like the current SBAC,PARCC, and Pearson instruments) and on faulty methods of analysis (like value-added modeling of test scores for high-stakes decision making). “
115 university-based researchers in California endorsed this statement!!!!
Click to access 1e0c79_f53992db63314ed5aa4f5c3c29e0e434.pdf
My question is-
Where are the rest of the States’ Universities speaking out????
When will Politicians start listening???
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Yes, let’s follow this to the earliest most rediculous point of educational entry.
However, these corporate profiteers could care less, because they are truly not into the human element, or the logic, but for them it is ALL ABOUT THE $$$.
Who the HELL are these people?
Who gave them the right to govern from their wonkily point of view?
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Something like this has been put out there as a way to rate teacher education programs. Use the scores of the students of the teachers from each teacher training program to analyze the value added by the different higher ed schools.
It sounds like a joke when I write it down, but no.
Ruth Wunderlich
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That is the edTPA, owned (of course) by Pearson. A panel of 3 professors from Georgia presented a workshop on the topic of “ed reform” penetrating its way into higher ed on Sunday. They called it “The Perfect Storm of High Stakes Education Reform”.
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The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed. have posted articles about Gates’ incursions into the realm of university management. The author of a post, at Gates’ Impatient Opportunists, posed a question about, how do we guarantee the best professors are teaching .
I nominate recipients of the Aspen Faculty Pioneer Awards (in particular, those at the public, University of Virginia), for review by the citizens of our democracy. David Koch and Madelyn Albright are board members of the Aspen Institute.
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Linda, this is really just chilling. These folks are all incesstuously connected and dedicated to the ideal of taking money from the children of our nation and re-writing our lives so they can advance their agenda. Especially frightening is the following:
“These new Fellows will aim to not only identify the issues affecting public education, but to institute change by pursuing leadership opportunities such as district leadership, service on school boards and non-profits serving urban school-age children, and in the realm of higher education.”
I copied and pasted the whole page because it is truly an amazing “mission” these people are on.
FELLOW PROFILE
Kimberly Smith
Position: Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Organization: Pahara Institute
Initiative: Henry Crown Fellowship Program (HCFP)
Class: AGLN-Pahara Aspen Education Fellowship
Sector: Non-Profit
Location: Napa CA UNITED STATES
BIOGRAPHY
Kim Smith is Founder and CEO of the Pahara Institute. She is widely recognized as an innovative and entrepreneurial leader in education, and was featured in Newsweek’s report on the “Women of the 21st Century” as “”the kind of woman who will shape America’s new century.”” Immediately prior to the Pahara Institute, Kim was co-founder of Bellwether Education Partners, a nonprofit organization working to improve educational outcomes for low-income students. Earlier in her career, she served as a founding team member at Teach For America, created and led an AmeriCorps program for community-based leaders in education, managed a business start-up, and completed a brief stint in early online learning at Silicon Graphics. After completing her MBA at Stanford University, she co-founded and led NewSchools Venture Fund, a philanthropic organization focused on transforming public education through social entrepreneurship, where she helped to catalyze a new, bipartisan, cross-sector community of entrepreneurial change agents for public education. Kim has helped to incubate numerous education and social change organizations and has served on a range of boards, which currently include those of Bellwether, NewSchools, and Rocketship Education, and she has authored or co-authored a number of publications about innovation and social entrepreneurial change in education. She is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she lives with her husband and two daughters. She is a 2002 Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
LEADERSHIP PROJECT: PAHARA FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM
Joanna Rees and Kim Smith recognize that there is a problem in our public-education system there seems to be a shortage of hybrid minded leaders interested in transforming urban public education to better serve low-income children. They are therefore instituting a Crown-like program, which will cultivate values-based leaders who specifically aim to address leadership issues in public education. These new Fellows will aim to not only identify the issues affecting public education, but to institute change by pursuing leadership opportunities such as district leadership, service on school boards and non-profits serving urban school-age children, and in the realm of higher education. Initially, Joanna and Kim intend to collaborate with select Aspen Institute Board members and Henry Crown Fellows to line up initial funding for the program and gain knowledge from their collective experiences with the public service sector.
http://agln.aspeninstitute.org/fellows/kimberly-smith
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Accrediting groups, like NCATE and Middle States Commission on Higher Learning, have a responsibility to convene their members to address the plutocratic incursion into universities. Otherwise, the schools’ dependence makes them no different that oligarch-funded think tanks, trade associations and, any cyberspace/bricks and mortar place that ideologues create.
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NCATE accredited the Relay “Graduate School of Education”
It has no one on its “faculty” with more than a master’s degree. No one conducting research or scholarship. Charter teachers teaching aspiring charter teachers, emphasizing how to raise test scores.
What’s with NCATE?
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UMass and other schools, post their accrediting, as if it reflects a superior brand. They sweat the big and small stuff… churning out reports to prepare for site visits, praising themselves when the review goes well. Purpose?
If I wanted to convey an image, that my university was more than a oligarch-funded think tank, or industry trade vehicle, I wouldn’t boast about accreditation, that happens to be shared with colleges that don’t even hide their domination by the interests of the richest 0.1%.
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Christine~ do you have more info related to the Georgia workshop?
3 Profs & universities?
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Yes:
Sheryl Croft, Emory University
Mari Ann Roberts, Clayton State University (She mentioned that she recently lost her post because she refused to use edTPA.)
Vera Stenhouse, Georgia State University
I though I had written down their contact information, but I can’t find it. There’s information on the Bizzabo app from the conference, if you attended. Also, I did live tweet during their session, not that there’s much information, but their pictures are there, if that’s helpful.
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This is for HA Hurley
There are multiple locations of the Perfect Storm paper / presentation. Try this and look for others.
http://www.academia.edu/19692195/The_Perfect_Storm_of_Education_Reform_High-Stakes_Testing_and_Teacher_Evaluation
This is for Diane on NCATE.
Thanks to Arne Duncan and strings attached to Teach Grants, NCATE has no role in teacher accreditation. Since 2013, the only accrediting body for teacher education is CAEP —The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation. “Legacy standards” from other groups are no longer used for accreditation. USDE has the exclusive power to approve accreditors of teacher prep programs insofar as the programs implicate grants to students.
The CAEP standards perfectly reflect everything inane and corrupting about the Duncan oversight of an agency thoroughly captured by the money and influence of Bill Gates.
The CAEP standards for teacher prep programs are filled with reform-speak about continuous improvement, and evidence-based this and that.
The term ”provider” replaces and defeats any concept of scholarship as a component of teacher education. It is also intended to disassociate teacher preparation from higher education. The word “provider” allows for on-line, for-profit, and other “providers” to gain the same status as university-based programs as a “provider” of teacher education. This language comports with the recently financed Gates initiatives in teacher education including the Gates Foundation’s support for the infamous Relay Graduate School of Education with non-nonsense Doug Lemov discipline. (In medical matters, the phrase “health care provider” includes everything from an MD to an insurer of medical care.)
Teachers who graduate are now called “completers.” The CAEP standards rely on 110 uses of the term “impact” to describe what teacher education and teachers are supposed to do to their students’ growth….and what beginning teachers are supposed to do to their students’ growth. If you impact a living thing still in development and growing, who are likely to damage or kill it. Participants in writing, editing and approving the CAEP accreditation standards think it is perfectly acceptable to pontificate about “impacting student growth”.
I have commented more than once about the god-awful reformy managerial language in the CAEP standards. All of the writers, editors, approvers of the standards are slaves to a vision of education not really worthy of the name. They are using rhetoric to affirm the unconscionable corporate view of job performance.
CAEP is actually intended to make teacher education programs eligible for the same sort of school ratings that Gates, Walton and other foundations and corporations have funded at greatschools.org.
Here is CAEP’s Standard 1.4 for teacher education: “Providers ensure that completers demonstrate skills and commitment that afford all P-12 students access to rigorous college-and career-ready standards (e.g., Next Generation Science Standards, National Career Readiness Certificate, Common Core State Standards).”http://caepnet.org/accreditation/standards/standard1/
These new accrediting standards are in perfect alignment with the Gates and ESSA agenda that programs for teacher prep have a value-added component. In order to determine if the teacher prep program is “effective,” every program must also track the performance of their graduates on the job,
Here is the relevant accreditation standard with VAMs, SLOs, and all of the “ impact measures” thought to be essential for judging quality. The influence of all of the Gates-funded forays into teacher education, are evident, including specifics from the infamous Measures of Effective Teaching project funded by Gates and conjured by economists.
4.1 REQUIRED COMPONENT The provider documents, using multiple measures, that program completers contribute to an expected level of student-learning growth. Multiple measures shall include all available growth measures (including value-added measures, student-growth percentiles, and student learning and development objectives) required by the state for its teachers and available to educator preparation providers, other state-supported P-12 impact measures, and any other measures employed by the provider.
Indicators of Teaching Effectiveness
4.2 REQUIRED COMPONENT The provider demonstrates, through structured and validated observation instruments and/or student surveys, that completers effectively apply the professional knowledge, skills, and dispositions that the preparation experiences were designed to achieve. (Satisfaction of employers)
4.3 REQUIRED COMPONENT The provider demonstrates, using measures that result in valid and reliable data and including employment milestones such as promotion and retention, that employers are satisfied with the completers’ preparation for their assigned responsibilities in working with P-12 students.
4.4 REQUIRED COMPONENT The provider demonstrates, using measures that result in valid and reliable data, that program completers perceive their preparation as relevant to the responsibilities they confront on the job, and that the preparation was effective. (Satisfaction of Completers)
Standard 5.4 bears on “continuous improvement.”
“Measures of completer impact, including available outcome data on P-12 student growth, are summarized, externally benchmarked, analyzed, shared widely, and acted upon in decision-making related to programs, resource allocation, and future direction.”
from http://caepnet.org/standards
Up next will be jargon-filled standards like this for the whole enterprise of higher education, probably with the student loan scandals cited as a reason for more complete “measures of effectiveness” of each and every program, calculated by the salaries paid to graduates of art history versus computer science, and so on. This, of course, is already happening and with much resistance from higher education faculty, especially in the arts and humanities.
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Laura-
“NCATE has no role in teacher accreditation? ” I’m curious. What do they do, that has significance?
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Perfect!
Thank you, Christine.
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Revision Last sentence of previous post by me: This, of course, is already happening and WITHOUT much resistance from higher education faculty, especially in the arts and humanities.
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The foxes found the hen house and slayed all within.
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Linda, see the CAEP website under history.the see how NCATE explains its participation in CAEP standards.
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