Standardized tests produce results normed on a bell curve. The students who cluster in the bottom half of the bell curves are predominantly poor, children with disabilities, and children of color. The bell curve, by design, never closes. That is why it is fundamentally wrong to rank students, teachers, and schools by a measure that favors the most affluent.
Secretary of Education John King is releasing regulations that will punish education programs if their graduates teach students whose scores are low. “Reformers” are supposed to be aware of the power of incentives, but not Secretary King. He thinks he can scare education programs to focus more on raising test scores. More likely is that teachers will get the message to avoid teaching in schools that enroll students who are impoverished, and that their preparation programs will encourage them to steer clear of the neediest children.
This is the report that appeared this morning in politico education (http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=70112e1be3cf7964cb8f83700178acc6d2452a022573f96620522e9d5cbe9274):
TEACHER PREP RULES OUT TODAY: The Obama administration unveiled its long-delayed final regulations governing teacher preparation programs today. The rule preserves much of the administration’s original proposal from 2014, and requires states to develop a rating system for teacher-preparation programs.
– The rule will also eventually punish low-performing programs by cutting off their access to federal TEACH grants that help students pay for teacher training.
– The final rule retains a particularly-controversial component, which holds teacher-preparation programs accountable, in part, for how their graduates perform as teachers, based upon their students’ academic success. However, states will have flexibility in determining how to measure student learning.
– Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, sharply criticized the regulations, saying in a statement that although the department “has made minor tweaks, the flawed framework remains the same.”
– Weingarten said it was “ludicrous to propose evaluating teacher preparation programs based on the performance of the students taught by a program’s graduates.” And she said the rules ultimately punish teacher prep programs that send graduates into the highest-need schools.
– Chris Minnich, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said in a statement that the group was “pleased the department listened to feedback and made these regulations stronger.”
– Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, said she’s impressed with how much the department kept with its original intent, “which was to insert far greater accountability for program quality.” She added that the effectiveness of the rule “very much depends on states doing their bit to hold programs accountable for quality.”
– “I told people they would never see the light of day,” Walsh said of the rules. “I’m happy to be wrong.”
– Education Secretary John B. King Jr. will be speaking about teacher preparation at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education today. Watch the USC event live, starting at 1 p.m. ET, here.
– Read the regulations here
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Here’s a clue from the most populous state in the union. If Community Colleges are finding that high school grades correlate better with college success than placement tests, and that students who have good grades, but would otherwise be held back based on test results do better if they are allowed to sign up for college-level courses that the tests say they are not ready for, could it be that the tests themselves are flawed predictors of college readiness? http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/10/08/grim-dropout-stats-force-california-colleges-to-rethink-remedial-education/
My many years of working with low-income students led me to recognize that a student’s attendance and grades during her/his last two years of high school were the best predictor of a subsequent college success.
John King was a complete and utter disaster as the New York Education Commissioner. He was, and is, hated (that’s no exaggeration) by his customers: Parents and Teachers. Why the brilliant President Obama picked him up and put him in charge of the entire Country’s education policy is so far beyond rational that it makes me distrust everything else he has done so well. What was he thinking? Is he that in thrall to Arne Duncan? Or, just blind loyalty to reward King’s blind loyalty to the Common Test Core and Teacher Bashing?
He is really trying to kill every teacher education program in the country. Who in their right mind would want to have their program evaluated by the results of students 3 states away that they have never heard of or met?
It takes a person with a “special kind of stupid” to develop a plan like that.
Hillary will continue this- When will the Nation’s teachers revolt?
I would like to think it would be soon but most educators are sheeple. They go where they are told and do what they are told. They are more concerned about keeping their jobs and paycheck then standing up for what is right.
many, many outspoken STAND UP AND FIGHT BACK teachers have lost their jobs over the past decade
That is why it must be done by a majority instead of a minority. When a few stand and fight they become easy targets. When we all stand together then we will finally have a chance.
Sadly, with every year (and it’s been more than a decade now) of slowly but surely losing our district’s most experienced and most vocal fighters inside lowest-income schools, there are few teachers left who might grasp HOW to fight back. I wrote about this phenomenon in a section of my book which I titled ANCHORS AWAY: I tried to expose how old-school, vocal teachers who have long served to anchor both schools and communities have been intentionally targeted for removal as our city’s low-income neighborhoods were slated for a viciously invasive re-gentrification.
I would like nothing more than to have a “National” teacher sick day on August 28th extending through Labor day. Nothing like millions of children not at school to get some parents to act.
These people have to be the stupidest systems designers in the history of the earth. It rewards teaching programs that send teachers to affluent high performing schools. If a program was designed to widen the achievement gap, this is it.
I wish we could just Tivo* the rest of Obama’s term, so Hilary can replace this idiot (Sec. King) with someone who has a freakin clue.
(*fast-forward a cable show, using a hand remote)
She actually favors keeping him on and agrees with most of these policies
So does that mean we are better off voting for the guy with the bong in the back room or the tree hugger?
That’s the first I’ve heard of that.
Old Teacher,
I know of zero evidence that Hillary will keep John King on. If you have any, please share it.
John King’s infinite degrees of separation?
I gather these are not proposed regs subject to comment (unlike the regs proposed to implement ESSA)? Not planning to read all 700pp (!), but opening paras call these “final”… If “final”, anyone know whether there was a round of comments by legislators?
I mean, how is that (mandated regs w/o input from states) even (a) possible (b) enforceable?
(a) As to possible, who died & made King king? Why aren’t HEA reg changes subject to input/ debate? If this is how DOEd operates, why not abolish it as the TP’ers suggest?
(b) As to enforceable, are there any monies to be withheld as sanction aside from the paltry 4$k/yr TEACH grants? Are teachers’ colleges so dependent on fed funds that they must buy in?
Also: how do these regs make any sense v-à-v ESSA which puts measurement of student achievement back in state hands? W/n a few yrs, we may once again have wide diversity among state stds & assessments, which would make enforcement of these regs wildly unequal [in terms of impact on school depending on where its grads take positions– the regs already build in wild unequality in terms of the SES of school pops where grads teach] ??
I down loaded the regulations. They are final, include some discussion of comments, but the parts that matter are concentrated in “definitions.”end-of-course Here you go on the definition of “student growth.”
Student growth: The change in student achievement between two or more points in time, using a student’s scores on the State’s assessments under section 1111(b)(2) of the ESEA or other measures of student learning and performance, such as
student results on pre-tests and end- of-course tests;
objective performance-based assessments;
student learning objectives;
student performance on English language proficiency assessments; and
other measures that are rigorous, comparable across schools, and consistent with State guidelines.
Teacher evaluation measure: A teacher’s performance level based on an LEA’s teacher evaluation system that differentiates teachers on a regular basis using
at least three performance levels and
multiple valid measures in assessing teacher performance.
For purposes of this definition, multiple valid measures must include data on
student growth for all students (including English learners and students with disabilities) and
other measures of professional practice (such as observations based on rigorous teacher performance standards, teacher portfolios, and student and parent surveys).
There is no real difference between ESSA as interpreted by these regulations and the last iteration of regulations in NCLB.
The persistent reference to student learning objectives (SLOs) and gains between pretests and same year end-of-course tests reflect a profound misunderstanding of teaching, learning, curriculum organization across and within a year, the difference between what may be explored but individuals and subgroups or the whole class and what may be treated as a matter of “mastery” (especially of easy to test content/skill-sets).
The explicit and implicit assumptions about education are wrong from the get go. The process can be followed but it will mean more of the same invalid stack ratings that have prevailed since 2001.
Student Learning Objectives–SLOs–are not valid. Recent research from the American Institutes of Research confirms that there is no evidence of gains in student achievement or basis for claims of validity for every grade and subject where those convoluted writing exercises are required.
Thanks for answering, Laura. So apparently there was a round of comments? I missed that. I still am planning to include these HEA regs in my message to state rep [a NJ Republican Congressman] expressing my outrage that the Secy’s propsed ESSA regs go completely against the grain of ESSA & if followed, will merely double down on the failed NCLB/ RTTT paradigm.
I am so glad you speak out against the SLO programs. In my neck of the woods (hi-RE tax long-excellent NJ school district), Marzano has caused havoc/ narrowed/ directed curriculum time that must be added to the onerous Common Core/ PARCC. SLO adds for teachers a 40-pp form-fill-in explanation of goals in Sept, & twice-yrly 45-min assessments (at yr-beginning & end) for every student in every class, so for midsch & up we’re talking at minimum 6 hrs assessments added to PARCC, plus for teachers minimum every 3 mos inputting data– all for ‘free’, adding unpaid hrs of data-clerk work thus reducing time for decent lesson-planning!
Who are the $$$$$ folks behind King?
Mercedes Schneider reported at Huffpo, in February, that CCSSO received $15.4 mil. form the Gates Foundation for operating support.
NCTQ gets its money from the clawing oligarch foundations, John and Laura Arnold, Bill and Melinda Gates, Eli Broad, Lynde and Harry Bradley…
Just when is it that teachers are actually supposed to have time to design engaging lessons or, for that matter, teach? I am beginning to agree with those who call for dismantling the department. It’s time consuming enough to produce reports that actually inform instruction. Perhaps this is an underhanded way of forcing the computerization of instruction, which is the simplest way to produce a meaningless stream of numbers.
Any teacher that goes into teaching in poorer communities is setting themselves up for failure. Teaching programs will find it hard to recruit candidates to work in these districts and probably will find it expedient to confine their students to more affluent communities if even they are going to be judged by the scores of the students of their graduates. I really do question the intelligence of a department that clings to an agenda that flies in the face of all credible research.
No. It’s a deliberate attempt to fund charter schools for investment.
“More likely is that teachers will get the message to avoid teaching in schools that enroll students who are impoverished, and that their preparation programs will encourage them to steer clear of the neediest children.”
More likely is that the “best and brightest” will use their smarts to decide NOT to go into teaching.