Jake Jacobs, an art teacher in New York, commends Cynthia Nixon for calling for the repeal of New York State’s teacher evaluation law, which was imposed to comply with Race to the Top. After Nixon spoke out, the State Assembly cobbled together a pretend repeal of the law, which does not actually change anything since districts will still be required to use a test, but only a test approved by the state commissioner. Critics of the bill fear it will double the amount of testing by adding local tests to state tests.
At lest, Nixon had the courage to call for a flat out repeal of a useless and ineffective method of evaluating teachers.
Consider how Jake Jacobs is evaluated.
“Where I teach, we have two days of federally mandated math tests, two days of English Language Arts tests, and two days of Science tests for 8th graders. Then, because of the Annual Professional Performance Review policy, we have state requirements for two more math tests, two more English Language Arts tests, two more Science tests, two Social Studies tests, plus two language tests for English learners (even though they also take the English Language Arts tests). Some schools are required to do mandated “field testing” in June as well.
“From the start, Cuomo’s performance review policy was gamed from every direction.
“As an art teacher, I was stunned at the absurdity of the Annual Professional Performance Review “group measures,” which since 2013 made me choose math or English Language Arts scores for my evaluation. In 2015, I reported on the “ineffective” rating attributed to me because of low math scores, even though I don’t teach math, and I was teaching in an alternative school that only enrolled high need students, and I never even met some of the children whose test scores were used. Last year the city even debuted standardized Art tests for eighth grade—but hardly any schools participated.
“In 2015, Sheri Lederman, a fourth-grade teacher and accomplished professional at the top of her game, challenged her rating in a New York State Supreme Court, which later determined that the process for her evaluation was “arbitrary and capricious.”
“If the point of Annual Professional Performance Review was to create a horrible, wasteful evaluation policy and then make teachers bargain for relief, it worked well.
“Cuomo boasted in 2014 that his teacher evaluation system would be his single most enduring legacy.”
This is the height of absurdity!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
Another school shooting this morning. Noblesville IN. At least two people hurt. Shooter in custody. The song remains the same.
RTTP was SUCH a bad deal for public schools. They got a small amount of start up money and they will be paying for these programs for decades, no matter the merits or if they return any value.
The Obama Administration essentially re-prioritized the budget planning for all the public schools who were dumb enough to bite. Public school funding has gone down on ed reform’s watch, so there was less money to play with for experiments anyway, and yet public schools cut strong benefits like music and art and “extras” to adopt this garbage.
We can blame the federal “ed reform” movement, but our school leaders have to get smarter and tougher. They have to say “no”. If they don’t they will be jerked around by theorists forever. I don’t think it’s a bad impulse, the “niceness” or “eagerness to please” that I see in our local public school but draw a line! You know what you’re doing! Tell these people to take a hike sometimes. Politely, of course 🙂
It’s legal. It’s allowed. Be the experts. Half of the ed reform “experts” are trained in things like political science. They’re only experts because they say they are.
Linking teacher evaluations to test scores is absurd, and so is linking student scores to the higher education teacher training programs. The only reason student scores have been linked to teacher evaluation is that it was the will and money of Gates that were inserted into policies to implement this unfounded notion. Both ideas are based on false assumptions, and the actual goal is to cause turmoil and churn in public education.
I read DeVos’ speeches- slogans strung together seemingly at random- and she loves this one:
“We must also rethink education after high school and embrace the fact that a global economy demands a posture of lifelong learning. Education does not end with the movement of a tassel. We must put to rest the notion that a traditional four-year degree is the only pathway to success. ”
All of the people who scold young people on this have 50 year old bachelor’s degrees.
DeVos never bothered with an ounce of training past “the movement of a tassel” and look where she ended up!
Not one of these people have EVER retrained at a community college while working full time, learned something new once their job disappeared, or done ANY of the things they lecture others on. Yet they have these fabulous careers which consist mostly of giving stern lectures and the job security! They’re employed for life.
Test based School evaluation is just as awful. In MD they will start to give A-F ratings for schools based on test scores. The real estate market in this area is already on this band wagon. It will just create more segregation in areas….even in the wealthy districts.
Test-based teacher evaluation is more than absurd: It’s a flat-out ideological fantasy meant to make it easy to fire teachers. The test-based “Value-Added Method” (VAM) of evaluating teachers has been “slammed” — quoting The Washington Post — by the very people who know the most about data measurement: The American Statistical Association (ASA). The ASA’s authoritative, detailed, VAM-slam analysis, titled “Statement on Using Value-Added Models for Educational Assessment” and has become the basis for teachers across the nation successfully challenging VAM-based evaluations.
Even though it’s anti-public school and anti-union, the Washington Post said the following 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:
“System-level conditions” include everything from overcrowded and underfunded classrooms to district-and site-level management of the schools and to student poverty.
A copy of the VAM-slamming 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 or principals — and teachers’ and principals’ unions should fight all evaluations based on student test scores with the ASA statement as a good foundation for their fight.
Absurd is not the word I’d use!
Jake has nailed a big problem that first surfaced in Florida, where teachers of “untested subjects” almost 69% of all teachers were given the choice of choosing the math or the ELA score for their school as the metric for their own evaluation. As I recall, that case went to court and the teachers lost. I learned about it from the art teachers in Florida. The judge said the system was unfair but not “unconstitutional.” https://feaactioncenter.org/2014/05/a-disappointing-ruling-on-teacher-evaluations/
As for VAM (the scoring system that will not die) here is a short one-page statement from Steven K. Klees, an expert. The title “VAMs Are Never “Accurate, Reliable, and Valid” clearly states why the statement against VAMs from the American Educational Research Association is misleading, actually wrong, even if that statement moved thinking in the right direction–condemning the use of VAM for teacher evaluation.
Of course, many districts and some states (Maryland) are stuck with the equally invalid SLO process, a writing assignment and guessing game marketed since 1999 by William J. Slotnik as part of pay-for-performance schemes. Under the Obama administration SLOs were among three options approved and marketed as student “growth” measures for teachers of untested subjects. This sham, and variants like SMART goals, lives on in many districts and sometimes in entire states (e.g. Maryland).
Prior to the current evaluation process in NY teachers were rated solely by supervisory observations – under the last year of the Bloomberg era 2.7% of teachers received unsatisfactory ratings and 40% of probationary teachers had their probation extended, under the current system under 1% of NYC teachers received “ineffective” ratings …. no matter how you “assess” teacher performance there is a subjective element – the NY law does allow for external assessors – hardly any schools use the option – peer assessment? Very few schools choice that option …. as dedicated trade unionist, and a pragmatist, I pick the method is most favorable to teachers.
Please spread the word to sign our petition to repeal the teacher evaluation law in NYS.
https://petitions.moveon.org/sign/repeal-nys-teacher-evaluatio?source=embedhomepage
Hmm.
I mostly agree with the sentiment here, but allow me to offer a different angle.
I teach in RI, where Deborah Gist swooped in a few years ago and made sweeping changes to teacher evaluation before taking her circus back to Oklahoma. We don’t have MANDATORY test-based evaluation, but we do have “student learning objectives”, which can at our option include test-based evaluation.
For whatever reason – maybe because I am an excellent teacher, although I doubt that is the primary reason – my ESL students consistently crush the ACCESS test, as measured by student growth. Pick a category and most of them have growth exceeding the average, with a great many exceeding the top of the range. This year I handed myself a “4” (highest mark) on the SLO section of my evaluation by using student test scores, which I knew would exceed reasonable expectations because they always do.
This is all well and good for me, but consider the shift in dynamic between teacher and admin when the teacher has in hand supposedly iron-clad proof of the superiority of their results. When admin pushes a new initiative or insists that I change my teaching methodologies, I can wave those test results in their faces and, really, what can they say? That the test is inaccurate or invalid? The almighty test? Ha ha ha… No, of course they cannot say that, they just have to suck it up and deal with it. Want me to change my lessons to fit the latest fad? Want me to use Google Classroom or Flubaroo or whatever other nonsense you’ve been told to push? Did you SEE my student growth last year? My methods work very well, thank you very much, now go away.
It is worth noting, perhaps, that our admin is currently pushing to REMOVE the SLO portion of the evaluation system. I wonder why… ;^)