This is an unusual political campaign. Matthew Fitzpatrick, an educator in Orange County, Florida, is running for a seat on the district school board on a platform opposed to the evaluation methods of Robert Marzano. Now, I have no views for or against Mr. Marzano since I am not a classroom teacher and I am not familiar with his method, but I have seen remarkable pushback on this blog from teachers. Since I too oppose the reduction of teaching to numerical measurements, I am sympathetic to his arguments.
He gives 40 reasons to oppose the Marzano method. I am posting only four of them. Read his post if you want to see the other 36.
My name is Matthew J. Fitzpatrick, and I am running for the District 7 Seat on the Orange County School Board. I am currently an Assistant Director at Orange Technical College, Westside Campus in Winter Garden. I’ve been in education for 23 years — 12 years as a teacher, and 11 years as a school and district administrator. In all my years of being involved in education, in my opinion, I have never seen a more demoralizing and destructive system than the OCPS implementation of the Marzano Teacher Evaluation system. I believe the Marzano system, more than anything else, is driving teachers out of education…and thus, OCPS has long lists of teacher vacancies. I believe this enough that I am willing to set aside my own administrative career and take a 50% pay cut in order to bring common sense back to the classroom. We must turn things around now.
Here are my first 40 Reasons to Replace the Marzano Teacher Evaluation System…splitting hairs on a system designed to split hairs on the art of teaching…
1. Dr. Marzano himself said on page 4 of his famous book, The Art and Science of Teaching, that, “It is certainly true that research provides us with guidance as to the nature of effective teaching, and yet I strongly believe that there is not (nor will there ever be) a formula for effective teaching.” If Dr. Robert J. Marzano says there is not a formula for effective instruction, who am I to argue with him? Why have we settle for a cookie-cutter approach to teaching?
2. Non-educators may not completely understand all of this “teacherese” jargon about teacher evaluations, but simply mention the name Marzano to an Orange County Public School teacher and take note of how they react…watch what happens to their face…feel the emotions of their words. Anything that causes such disdain among the very lifeblood of education–the teachers–surely is not good for education…no matter how much the sanitized research is quoted in support of it.
3. Where are the amazing results from using the “research-proven” Marzano strategies? Our District’s test scores and grades went down in many areas and schools. Why haven’t 6 years of Marzano transformed our District? If something is not delivering results, and at the same time it is driving great teachers out of the profession, we must make a data-driven decision and move in another direction…for the sake of our students and teachers.
4. Teaching should not be reduced to the numerical measurements of individual instructional strategies. Just as Mr. Keating (Robin Williams), in Dead Poets Society instructed his students to resist the armies of academics who want to reduce poetry to a passionless score that misses its true beauty and purpose, so, too, must students, parents, teachers and administrators stand against such a heartless, nitpicking view of the art of instruction. We must “Rip It Out” as an evaluation tool in our District.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Brilliant critique of Marzano as it is actually practiced by school districts.
Elect Matthew Fitzpatrick! He gets it! I can’t think of a teacher, parent, or student who would not want this man as an administrator in their schools. As a Board member he will bring an expertise that is often missing in that venue. I have no doubt I would still be teaching if he had been my supervisor not because he gave me a pass but because he gave the support I needed to grow as a teacher. I wish I lived in Orange County just so I could vote for him.
While I perused both Wong and Marzano and found plenty of common-sense recommendations, my overall reaction to these cookie-cutter approaches falls into two categories: my own teaching experience and my suspicions as to the underlying motivation for developing an approach for all to follow.
First: now that I am retired, I feel less reticent about tooting my own horn. Just a couple of anecdotes to illustrate my reputation: “Pat can teach anyone”, “My kid is a regular ditcher and goes to school only for your class”. And raising a Latin program from 11 kids in first year to 50 in first year in 3 years. OK. So the consensus is I can teach. Yet the things I did in the classroom generally violated so many nostrums issued by trainers. I won’t offer details but just imagine the out-of-control, disorganized, helter-skelter teacher everyone shields their eyes from….. that was me.
Secondly, and this flows from my self-description, the need for control seems to dominate the approach taken by so many teachers and administrators. That is a personality trait (as I suppose my fly-by-the=seat-of-my-pants approach is) and I have seen people get almost physically ill upon walking into my classroom. (My wife has the same reaction to my room at home). Do desks in a row and everything neatened up make some students feel more secure? Probably, but what about other students? And when do students learn what real organization is? One day an admin stepped into my class to ask for minutes from a meeting he had lost and I stepped over to my desk piled high with papers and books, reached into a folder, pulled out the minutes and, handing them over, turned to the class and said, “Now that’s being organized” Lesson delivered.
🙂
It is wonderful to see someone running for office on the fraud of teacher evaluation peretrated by the use of Marzano’s one-size-fits-all system. also intended to micromange the work of teachers.
Marzano’s sells his products as “scientific.” They are not, least of all his teacher evaluation system. Same for the competing product from Charlotte Danielson.
Studies of the reliability and validity of Marzano evaluation scheme–some of these large scale and with test scores in Florida–have focused on math and reading scores only and with “validity” claims based on correlations with VAM— statistical formulas that are supposed to generate estimates of how much a particular school or classroom teacher contributed to students’ standardized-test scores.
The use of value-added models (VAM) for the evaluation of educators should be stopped immediately. See this brief and free paper with reasons offered by an expert: “VAMs Are Never “Accurate, Reliable, and Valid” May, 2016 http://edr.sagepub.com/content/45/4/267.extract
Florida is leaving itself wide open for a class action law suit for the use of the Marzano scheme of micromanaging teachers. There is not one ounce of data to support its use for every grade and every subject and least of all in any connection with VAM or those SLOs (student learning objectives) foisted on teachers of “untested” subjects. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/05/10/judge-calls-evaluation-of-n-y-teacher-arbitrary-and-capricious-in-case-against-new-u-s-secretary-of-education/
Marzano has migrated his system of micromanaging teachers to an online format. You can see how he tries to sell teachers on ideas ripped from the pages of training manuals “commonly used throughout the military, healthcare, and business sectors” including the value of “Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). SOPS “are step-by-step instructions to achieve desired results on a consistent basis. Standardization creates clear expectations and predictable outcomes.“ Two types: procedural lists and flow charts” The diligent kid knows how to create SOPs for “self-mangement” as shown in this tutorial for teachers. https://soltreemrls3.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/marzanoresearch.com/media/pdf/presentations/iNACOL_Presentation_Post_2.pdf
Elect Matthew Fitzpatrick and expose the layers of fraud in Marzano evaluations.
LHC, As I read your first paragraph, I thought I saw the words “micromangle the work of teachers.” Which is an apt description of so many of these “accountability” and “data driven” tactics.
This year, my local NEA affiliate is going to “teach” teachers how to have all of the indicators in our Marzano evaluation. The goal is to show all 30 or so in one 20-minute observation. Charming, huh?
Especially charming when those hired to “evaluate” have NO TEACHING EXPERIENCE AT ALL
The problem is not with his [Marzano’s] strategies, but with how they are implemented-at least in my experience. The strategies themselves are very effective – but not for all learners in all situations. Too many people [read: administrators and politicians] treat them as a ‘magic bullet’ in the ongoing struggle to teacher-proof education. They then forcibly implement them without actually doing the legwork to understand the implications or the possible impact on the teachers and students. This is compounded by the fact that most of the time they don’t adequately train teachers on the strategies and WHY they work… instead they’re given a cookie cutter overview that belies the strategies themselves and left to figure it out on their own. Add to this that there is rarely any meaningful ongoing and in-class follow up or support, and it’s no wonder teachers get frustrated.
For clarity, I’m a 2nd grade teacher who has also taught at the college level for a highly rated school of education. The cognate for my PhD is in research methodology. I’ve seen all sides of this issue. I have no connection to or deep affinity for Marzano, but his strategies are (generally) effective when used as intended. In fact, if you look closely, you’ll find that most of his strategies are little more than repackaged best practices.
My point here is not to advocate for Marzano. Instead my point is to refocus the discussion. The problem is NOT the strategy -in this case the Marzano method, but it could equally be said of ANY other popular quick fix. The problem is that politicians and administrators continue to buy into the narrative that uniformity is possible and desirable in our schools. We need to change that narrative so the teachers are free to teach the standard-required content in the way that best matches the needs of their students. Of course that also requires teachers to do the hard work of staying current on research, understanding the communities in which they teach, and continually adapting how they teach… but that’s a different conversation about pay, training, deprofessionalization, etc.
Eric: You say “We need to change that narrative so the teachers are free to teach the standard-required content in the way that best matches the needs of their students.”
I disagree. The issues with Marzano are not just about how you teach. How you teach is part of what you are teaching, and why. The very idea that others have specified “standard-required content” severely constrains freedom of action.
I you believe that how you teach can be separated from the content—what you teach and why—then you believe in the principle “the ends justify the means.” If you can raise test scores by teaching to the test, then doing that is perfectly OK. I think that as unethical as high stakes testing with proctors and test security measures that seem to have been planned by CIA operatives.
I think the problem with Marzano IS the strategy and the end-game–nothing less than micro-managing the work of teachers. That includes putting constraints around the how, the what, and the why of teaching, and with spurious claims about scientifically determined “best practices.”
“Best practices” thinking is dangerous because it urges compliance on the “promise and premise” that consensus provides a warrant for doing something. The phrase in used is designed to forstall critical thinking and supress overt criticism. In case you missed this example of a medical “best practice” gone very wrong, read this: https://helix.northwestern.edu/article/thalidomide-tragedy-lessons-drug-safety-and-regulation
I think every teacher should critically examine anything marketed as a “best practice,” whether it comes from Robert Marzano, or Charlotte Danielson, or from William J. Slotnick. Slotnick has been foisting “student learning objectives” on teachers since 1999, claiming this managerial scheme is designed to “add science to the art of teaching.” There is no scientific evidence to support the efficacy of SLOs and variants.
You can add to the list of problematic sources of “best practices” a lot of legacy research from the What Works Clearing House and current reports from the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/practiceguide.aspx?sid=1
Unfortunately, these marginal studies from the IES have legs, and they marched into the following absurd and misleading rating system for judging teacher prep programs by the Education Trust http://www.nctq.org/dmsView/Learning_About_Learning_Executive_Summary
Teachers necessarily work for others. As such there will always be someone else determining what should or can be taught. It doesn’t matter whether those expectations are explicit formal standards or the implicit personal expectations of a student or that students’ parents, it is impossible to separate the verb ‘to teach’ from the expectation of desired content. Sometimes we can influence that content, sometimes not, but either way our job is to meet those expectations to the best of our abilities.
I’m not sure where you get the impression that it is not possible to separate how you teach from what you teach. There are, in theory anyway, an infinite number of possible ways to teach a specific piece of content. Obviously some are going to be more effective than others, but even limiting the list to those most likely to succeed leaves you with many choices. In my classroom I try to teach all of the standards 2-3 different ways so that I can not only reach more students, but also expose all students to different ways of thinking.
Regarding teaching to the test, effective teaching is always teaching to the test. Now to be clear, I’m NOT suggesting that teachers should do nothing more than have students drill for the end of year high stakes tests. What I mean is that teaching should always be intentional. Every lesson should have a desired outcome regardless of whether that outcome is being able to solve differential equations or being able to effectively socialize with others through a game. That desired outcome serves as the point of assessment: if students meet the desired outcome the lesson was successful, if not we need to try again. As such, an effective lesson is one that helps a student meet a predetermined desired outcome – in other words, teaching to the test.
With all due respect, it is clear that you do not understand the concept of best practices at all. A best practice is not a mandate as you seem to believe, but rather a statement of probability based on THE BEST INFORMATION CURRENTLY AVAILABLE. It is a recognition that, statistically, certain behaviors TEND to produce positive results with MOST (meaning more than half) people in MOST (meaning more than half) circumstances. Implicit in a best practice is the acceptance that it is not going to work for all people or in all situations. And while best practices, as a statistical function, tend to remain stable overall, they are not static. They change as new information becomes available- sometimes subtly, other times dramatically as in the example you provided. Newtonian physics is probably a better illustration, though, for most cases. There are many things for which Newtonian physics is not entirely accurate and others for which it is completely wrong, but it is sufficiently accurate for most people in most circumstances. The point is that best practices are not end points. They are starting points from which you should do your own research to find the best solution for your situation.
Again with due respect, you are unequivocally wrong in saying that there is no scientific evidence to support learning objectives. You may not agree with that evidence and you may challenge the research methodology used, but you cannot say that there is no evidence. There are countless replicated, published, and peer reviewed studies in education, psychology, sociology, biology, neuroscience, human development, and countless other areas that all support the value of learning objectives. In fact I can’t think of any scientific studies off hand that found anything negative about learning objectives.
Yes, there are biased sounces of information. But as I said originally, the fault is not the information but rather how it is implemented. There is nothing inherently wrong with the idea of teacher assessment or accountability. There is something wrong with the misuse of metrics like VAM (despite the objections of its creators) for that purpose.
Before making claims about research and science, I suggest you spend a few years producing and presenting your own research. It will give you a better understanding of the process that you so casually dismiss.
(Written on my phone… sorry if I missed any autocorrects!)
The problem with this comment is that it sounds coherent and reasonable but is based on expressions from management which are slippery and nobody knows what they are—especially in education: outcome, best practices, metric, etc. These expressions sound either too general to be meaningful, or they are irrelevant in education.
What’s the outcome of teaching?
Is there anything in the paragraph about best practices which is about “practice” in teaching let alone “best” practice? If yes, what is it?
What does a metric and the presumably accompanying measurement process have anything to do with teaching? What do you want to measure and with what?
These points are based solely on logic and research methodology which may influence “management”, but are not products of it. And, while the terms you list are certainly context dependent they are not vapid as you seem to suggest. I will agree, however, that they are frequently misused. Politicians and reformers in particular like to use the terms as if they refer to some concrete, immutable, non-negotiable absolute, but as I tried (and apparently failed) to express in my previous comments, they are not. Neither, though, are they too general. If anything, when used properly they are so heavily context dependent that they are not general enough.
With these terms, the quality of the answer depends on the parameters set when you ask the question. In response to your context-free question, the outcome of education is change – be it positive or negative, intentional or accidental, etc. Clearly that’s not especially helpful. In asking that question, though, you’ve accepted the very premise you intend to argue against – that there is some outcome of education such that all cases of education can be evaluated compared to that outcome in order to evaluate their effectiveness. You clearly don’t believe that, and rightly so. The term ‘outcome’ is more meaningfully applied to the context of a specific educational act (e.g., “what was the outcome of this (specific) lesson?”). The context provides a specific point of analysis, and in conjuction with a pre-established ‘desired outcome’ it enables an evaluation of the lesson’s effectiveness. The less specific the context provided, the less meaningful the term becomes.
Best practices are similarly context dependent. If you ask, “What are the best practices for teaching?” you will get a vacuous response because there are very few behaviors that are universally effective. However, if you ask, “What instructional strategies tend to be most effective for developing phonemic awareness in English language learners?”, you’ll get a much more specific and meaningful response. As I said, though, this response should simply serve as the starting point of your own reflection rather than serving as a magical solution.
Regarding metrics and measurements, the decision about what to measure how is up the the person doing the measuring. I mean that seriously, not intending to be flippant. It’s simply a basic fact of research. The more important concern is how accurately the metrics and measurements reflect the reality of whatever is being measured.
How does this relate to teaching? In a perfect world, all of these these things should work together. I as the teacher (preferably in conjunction with my students) identify a specific desired outcome (my students want to be able to do X). I then select the criteria for meeting that desired outcome and the metrics that will be used to measure performance. Next I consider what my students already know, what they still need to learn, and what special circumstances might help or hinder their progress. Finally I develop a lesson specifically designed to help my specific students reach the desired outcome, conduct the lesson, and then use the metrics to evaluate how well we met our instructional goals. Why would I teach content that doesn’t benefit (or at least interest) my students? Why would I use strategies that don’t meet my students’ particular needs? If I don’t set objectives and select metrics, how will I know whether my students are learning what I want then to learn?
Back to my original point. The problem is not any specific strategy, tool, metric, etc. None (or at least very few) of them are inherently good or bad. The problem is how they’re talked about and used. We must stop letting non educators frame the conversation about education because they don’t understand the complexities of teaching or the limitations on how the data we have available can be used accurately.
All of the cookie-cutter rubrics have a common flaw: no means for evaluating content area competency.
Robert Marzano, has something in common with many of our current education thought leaders: ZERO years of teaching experience. How did his resume ever get past the waste basket?
Agreed! I can’t find any evidence of him ever having been a teacher. Can anybody else?
I love how in reason number 25 he muses on how a teacher would have enough board space to teach material if s/he were to teach 2 preps! HA! I taught 5 PREPS (different classes) and 6 classes for much of my career!
I teach in Orange County and cannot think of a bigger wrecking ball to our system than Marzano. The latest most egregious aspect is the growing inequality between teachers and administrators as administrators have unprecedented power. Not only have teacher voices been silenced by the tyranny brought about by our subjective “evaluators” who impose their way and style of teaching upon us, but we no longer have any control over what levels we teach within our subjects.
Nearly every teacher over 40 at my high school was reassigned to low level classes this fall while all the newbies were given the highest level classes, as well as leadership positions. No reasons for the switches were given by administrators whatsoever. And they had nothing to do with our Marzano ratings. The result is a huge number of age discrimination lawsuits currently being filed.
Bottom line is Marzano is a coercive bully system that is literally removing genuine teaching from the classroom. Why? Because young teachers and online programs are a lot cheaper than experienced teachers and holistic strategies that create face-to-face learning environments.
From the article “24. The Marzano system can be compared to my golf game. Neither are very good. Whenever i go to hit the golf ball, I have several things running through my mind: what club should I use, how far over should I wrap my right thumb over the club, how far up on the grip should I hold the club, how tightly should I hold the club, how close should I stand to the ball, how much should I bend over the ball, how far up or back on the ball should I stand, how far back should I take my backswing, how much should I keep my arms bent or straight, how well should I follow-through, and how upset will I get at where my ball ends up. There’s so much to think about. ”
Indeed, there is only one generally acceptable advice to teaching anything
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
The emotional element is essential to learning—barely anything lasts without it. Jim Valvano was right when he said we should all laugh, cry and think everyday. Marzano and his ilk present a dry, depressing, spiritless—and in the long run-quite ineffective pedagogy.
You can read his Candidate Survey here: https://theoptoutfloridanetwork.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/orangecountyschoolboard-district7matthewj-fitzpatrick.pdf
Amen!!!! The very best teachers are running as far and as fast as they can away from a profession that they love. Then everyone is paying the price, students and educators. We need to have the ability to be trusted to do what’s right for our students and teach them they way they learn best.
Y Marzano? Before OCPS, I worked at 2 school districts where I was highly effective or innovative but at OCPS, I have been made to feel that I am a shitty teacher. WTH? I support whoever is willing to let me teach how I was teaching before OCPS. My students have made learning gains in all my 11 years of teaching and Matzano has not taken away my joy of teaching so I am a fabulous teacher and no evaluation method used will take that away from me.
Marzano is not the issue so much as the way we use it is. And that’s a problem.
As a former teacher of students who are blind and visually impaired, I quite teaching in Orange County last year because Marzano sucked all the creativity and joy out of teaching. I was a TVI for 20 years, 16 of them with OCPS and even though I know that what I did made a difference in so many students’ lives, the last 5 years have been more and more miserable. Thousands of excellent teachers Have quit or retired in the past 5 years for this very reason. Someone has to help our students!
I have no problem with the Marzano model. I think that these indicators are helpful for teachers – especially new teachers – to develop units and lesson plans. My problem is the VAM (value added model) that the state imposed on the school districts. This is not Marzano. I have been a teacher for 25 years and the Marzano model is one of the best teaching tools I have seen. The blame goes to assessment. Let the local school boards and teachers create their own assessment.