The Oklahoma legislature passed a law eliminating student test scores as part of teacher evaluation. Hawaii did the same last week. Bit by bit, the most ill-advised, costly, and demoralizing part of Race to the Top is being rejected by the states. It has no research base. Researchers find that measuring teachers by their student scores is unreliable, unstable, and varies by the composition of the class. Its biggest contribution to American education has been to drive out good teachers and create s teacher shortage.
House leaders unanimously passed a bill Wednesday that eliminates the requirement to use student academic growth in Oklahoma’s teacher evaluation system.
House Bill 2957, which is estimated to save Oklahoma school districts millions of dollars and the Oklahoma State Department of Education more than $500,000, has been sent to the governor’s desk for signature.
“Amid this difficult budget year when public education has faced a variety of challenges, House Bill 2957 is a true bright spot of this year’s legislative session,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister said. “By giving districts the option of removing the quantitative portion of teacher evaluations, we not only increase local control but lift outcomes by supporting our teachers while strengthening their professional development and growth in the classroom.”
Also praising the bill for its return to local decision-making was Rep. Michael Rogers,R-Broken Arrow, HB 2957’s House author.
“This legislation will return flexibility back to the districts on their evaluations while developing an individualized professional development program that will help all of our teachers and administrators,” he said.
HB 2957 removes the controversial and mandated Value-Added Measures – which tie a teacher’s performance rating to student test scores — from OSDE’s Teacher and Leader Effectiveness evaluation system and effectively eliminates the requirement that evaluation scores be used to terminate teachers. These quantitative evaluation tools will become optional for districts upon the governor’s signature.
Sen. John Ford, R-Bartlesville, who co-authored the bill, said the legislation has been long overdue.
“After gathering input from a variety of stakeholders through a lengthy and thoughtful review process, we feel that HB 2957 promotes increased reflection and professional growth for teachers and leaders,” Ford said. “Now is the time to support the teachers in Oklahoma’s public education system by focusing on an evaluation system that places professional development first.”
Farewell and good riddance!
– See more at: http://m.examiner-enterprise.com/news/local-news/lawmakers-pass-teacher-evaluation-changes#sthash.xJo33ldE.dpuf
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It has been a very poorly tbought out means of evaluation, mostly because the approach, vocabulary, developmental expectations were thrust upon everyone without considering any alternative way to evaluate.
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Oh, teachers should stop being so “emotional”:
“This is a complicated and emotional issue for teachers, and it just got more emotional in the past 10 days with a series of articles on teacher quality published by the Los Angeles Times.
Essentially, the Times took seven years of student test data and developed what is called a “value-added” analysis to show which third- through fifth-grade teachers are making the biggest gains. The results are about to be posted on the newspaper’s website in a searchable database by teacher name – taking transparency to a whole new level.”
Interesting choice of words there by the Obama Administration. Do they describe any other huge group of people as “emotional”? I think Duncan is “emotional”. I think he’s madly in love with his own theories and too invested to admit error.
As per usual, he presents his theory as The Truth so there’s that rigorous critical thinking we’ve all become accustomed to. They have The Truth. Like a religion. Boy, can’t argue with assertions of “truth” unless you’re a liar, right?
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/unleash-data-teachers-u-s-secretary-education-asks-hide-article-1.200867
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NO!
“. . . he’s NOT madly in love with his own theories and too invested to admit error.”
To give the Dunkster credit for having his own theories is like saying a newborn has proven that E does not equal M times C squared. How can the Dunkster be in error when all he has done is repeat talking points when the string was pulled–it’s a matter of agency-ha ha! (think he would understand that concept?)
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Reblogged this on Mister Journalism: "Reading, Sharing, Discussing, Learning" and commented:
The Oklahoma legislature passed a law eliminating student test scores as part of teacher evaluation. Hawaii did the same last week. Bit by bit, the most ill-advised, costly, and demoralizing part of Race to the Top is being rejected by the states. It has no research base. Researchers find that measuring teachers by their student scores is unreliable, unstable, and varies by the composition of the class.
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This is one of the legitimate positive signs (though I should probably read the article to make sure; there are often loopholes). I think there are more (predictable by those in the trenches but) unintended consequences due to VAM than any other policy position from The Reform Movement (not coincidentally, it’s also the position they’re most emotionally attached to). Looking forward to more states following…and still looking for elected officials to lose their positions over education policy.
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They’re just trying to extricate themselves gracefully from a dumb idea they spent too much money on, in a way that doesn’t lead to accountability for swallowing it whole in the first place.
Give it 5 years. It’ll be down the ‘ol memory hole 🙂
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Let’s not forget that even if VAM and/or Student Growth is taken out of the picture we still need to fight the whole concept of “high stakes” testing. Students should not have a test decide whether or not they are able to graduate or advance. It should be based on their achievements over a long period of time and not testing. I think that those in politics tend to think that we think like them and if what is affecting us is taken off the board then we’ll be compliant about those things that don’t affect us any more. We need to make sure our students are no longer under the “rigor” and “punish” mode of education. I’ve noticed in the years since NLCB that by the time students get to high school they are very jaded towards education. I firmly believe that they are getting more and more bitter towards education largely because of all the time and stress placed on the “test”. Education needs to be about learning and exploring. I believe that if we could do away totally with grades that students would learn more because they wouldn’t be “punished” for not learning.
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“It should be based on their achievements over a long period of time and not testing.”
NO!, It should NOT “be based on their achievement” at all. Edudeformer and privateer talk through and through.
I never gave a damn about “student achievement” which implies a certain specific goal attainment preferably specified by those “measurable standards” (sic and shabby thinking). I cared about each student learning as much as he/she cared to learn, even sometimes “helping” the student see “what’s in it for him/her” whenever it was necessary. But I never crossed into “demanding” that a student learn anything. That was/is his/her choice.
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VAM has been “slammed” — quoting The Washington Post — by the very people who know the most about data measurement: The American Statistical Association (ASA). So every teacher who is unfavorably evaluated on the basis of students’ standardized test scores should vigorously oppose the evaluation, citing the ASA’s authoritative, detailed, seven-page VAM-slam “Statement on Using Value-Added Models for Educational Assessment” as the basis to have public employment boards and courts toss out any test-based Value Added Model (VAM) unfavorable evaluation.
Moreover, a copy of the VAM-slam ASA Statement should be posted on the union bulletin board at every school site throughout our nation and should be explained to every teacher by their union at individual site faculty meetings so that teachers are aware of what it says about how invalid it is to use standardized test results to evaluate teachers.
Even the anti-public school, anti-union Washington Post newspaper said this about the ASA Statement: “You can be certain that members of the American Statistical Association, the largest organization in the United States representing statisticians and related professionals, know a thing or two about data and measurement. The ASA just slammed the high-stakes ‘value-added method’ (VAM) of evaluating teachers that has been increasingly embraced in states as part of school-reform efforts. VAM purports to be able to take student standardized test scores and measure the ‘value’ a teacher adds to student learning through complicated formulas that can supposedly factor out all of the other influences and emerge with a valid assessment of how effective a particular teacher has been. THESE FORMULAS CAN’T ACTUALLY DO THIS (emphasis added) with sufficient reliability and validity, but school reformers have pushed this approach and now most states use VAM as part of teacher evaluations.”
The ASA Statement points out the following and many other failings of testing-based VAM:
> “VAMs typically measure correlation, not causation: Effects – positive or negative – attributed to a teacher may actually be caused by other factors that are not captured in the model.”
> “Most VAM studies find that teachers account for about 1% to 14% of the variability in test scores, and that the majority of opportunities for quality improvement are found in the system-level conditions.”
“System-level conditions” include everything from overcrowded and underfunded classrooms to district-and site-level management of the schools and to student poverty.
Fight back! Never, never, never give up!
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Data is good but not for the sake of data. For years kids were tested and results sent home to parents.,I’m 60 years old and I participated in state testing. What good that has came from this talk is that now people are looking at data. Comparing teacher strategies and teachers are talking more and learning from each other. What is not good is the penalty aspect of VAM. I challenged my middle school kids to raise the average of their home room classes in math and reading with the classes challenging other classes. One student raised his math score 30 points. Did he learn more this year than last? No but he wanted his class to win. His teacher might have suffered from his score and other like him last year as if she was a poor teacher when this year his teacher would have been rewarded. All along it was the students decision and had nothing to do with his teachers. He has been learning but sees no purpose in this huge amount of tests. Let’s not stop collecting and analyzing data but let’s understand our students are not machines.
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Tests are not a reliable way to gauge teachers. Any teacher, any educator will tell you that the use of test scores will never be able to account for the realities of life in any given day and the factors that influence student learning outside of the classroom.
http://viewpointseo.com/oklahoma-city-seo/
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