If you think that VAM is a scam, you will enjoy this.
It is a hilarious spoof of the junk now sold to schools.
James Popham is one of the nation’s most knowledgeable testing experts.
In this video, he offers a deal you can’t refuse.
He is selling products to evaluate teachers, from the Tractable Teacher Evaluation Company.
If you are familiar with the value-added model, you will enjoy his “Value Added Mystery Measure,” which he describes as “completely incomprehensible.” Methinks he had William Sanders secret formula TVAAS in mind.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A wonderfully crafted satire. Amazing how many bad ideas about testing he managed to repackage.
The YouTube pushed my playlist from Popham to Bill Gates’ really innane “How to make a teacher great.”
LikeLike
Same here with the next video being Billy the Gates.
LikeLike
Señor Swacker, I think you could find a nice post-retirement part time position with Mr. Popham’s company!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m not sure that he would want my brand of obnoxious, sarcastic, no holds barred truth telling. Although maybe a background slot might work!
LikeLike
Hope to see you at the NPE Conference in October.
LikeLike
Yes, I’ll be there!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Did anyone catch the that “Guaranteed Growth” product was packaged to look like Miracle Gro? Priceless. As was “Test Scores, Up Yours!”
LikeLike
Oh dear, it appears WordPress doesn’t approve of one of the slogans Mr. Popham used – my comment is in moderation. I, however, thought it was hilarious and plan to steal it regularly.
LikeLike
You-all really have to read Bad Blood. It’s about Theranos, a company that was pitched as “revolutionizing” blood testing. The entire premise was an elaborate fraud.
They did exactly what ed reform does- they told wealthy and influential people that two big testing blood companies had a monopoly on blood testing – “incumbents” who were stuck in the “status quo” and had to be “disrupted. They dismissed the view of experts and practitioners- said they were biased because they were employed BY the status quo.
The big shots all swallowed it, hook line and sinker. Including Betsy DeVos, who was an investor. Senators, the Vice President, US Army generals, former Secs of State- they all bought what was absolute nonsense.
You’ll all recognize the peculiar language they use- down to words and phrases it’s identical to ed reform.
LikeLike
Ed reformers are incredibly excited about the upcoming Janus ruling- including the Democrats, who were only elected because they tricked rank and file labor union members into voting for them.
It’s really shameful behavior, this huge celebration they’re planning upon the demise of teachers unions. Half these people wouldn’t hold the cushy jobs they have if labor union members hadn’t once put them in office. It disgusts me.
I don’t mind that ed reform opposes labor unions. I mind that they mislead rank and file members. It’s dishonest and hugely cynical and really galling coming from people who make in excess of 100k a year for charter lobbying.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Years ago I did some research for my union about VAM…and was shocked to learn this came out of an AGRICULTURAL model to help determine the VALUE ADDED when fruit is turned into jam/ jelly. Um… anyone see a problem with this model when relating to educators? Anyway, glad we can laugh. (Until that VAM is applied to your profession.)
LikeLike
The originator of VAM was William Sanders, an agricultural statistician.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Phew. Glad I wasn’t completely off base! Many don’t believe me.
Think I’ll go make some jam. :-). I mean teach.
LikeLike
I knew Sanders, as he was from my county and came to explain his model to us before he got infamous. I asked him how the testing process accounted for the difference in teacher’s emphasis on the various standards. He was engaging, really nice, but completely mystified at my question.
I still stt he sister sometimes. She is a great conversationist and I like her. I still want someone to write me a good article for the historical quarterly about their mother, who was a good musician and well known locally. I think I learned something from knowing him a bit. I learned that we can all be well-intentioned and believe in the ideas we support…and be horribly wrong. When we are like that as teachers, we might hurt a few students. When a person is a public figure and makes a huge logical error, it can be very harmful to many people. We can go to our graves thinking we were on the right side of history.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Here is my illustration from the work of the late William Sanders, agricultural statistician. VAM is a measure for determining the productivity of seeds, sows, and cows. It is also an algorithm designed to support “survival of the fittest” as a measurable virtue.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Seeds, sows, and cows!? I feel um…worse about VAM now. 🙂
LikeLike
Since “survival of the fittest”, as originally stated by Darwin, is not about physical strength but best fitting the environment, fitness in this sense is hardly measurable—similarly to education.
LikeLike
The story about VAM is part of a large, age old story we can call “intimidation by math”. It is well know that most people get intimidated as soon as they are shown a math formula, and this is regularly exploited by politicians, businessmen, economists and even scientists to cram down unproven theories and methods our throats as sound practical recipes.
But do not be fooled, and do not think, just because you do not understand the formulas involved, you have no way of evaluating such methods. In any application of math in real life, there are hypotheses that are made, and those, in the vast majority of the cases, are understandable without any math.
So if you see that a “scientific” article is using math to describe or evaluate something which doesn’t appear quantifiable or measurable to you, your concerns are probably justified, and cannot be dismissed.
The most common example for this we encounter on this blog is articles which “prove” without doubt, that some new methods in education “increase student or teacher effectiveness”. As soon as you look into the article, you’ll see somewhere that the evaluation is based on test scores, and then you can voice your concern—or even dismiss the article.
If such an article doesn’t state clearly state the underlying hypotheses which allows the use of math, the situation is even worse: often the authors themselves are not aware of the hypotheses used. This certainly happens in educational policy documents.
Click to access rtx110500667p.pdf
LikeLike