Kirabo Jackson, an economist at Northwestern University, uses data to demonstrate what most of us know. Teachers have a big impact on student behavior. Their impact on behavior matters far more than their impact on test scores.
Get this: VAM was rewarding the wrong teachers. Not the ones who changed students’ lives, but the ones that raised scores.
Get this: Race to the Top favored the latter (the test score raisers) and fired the ones who made the biggest difference.
Get this: Schools were closed based on the wrong criteria.
Get this: Federal law prioritizes the wrong things.
And this article appeared in the conservative journal Education Next.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Economists need to stay the heck out of our classrooms and go somewhere else.
LikeLike
YES!
LikeLike
And this will lead to….more SEL in the classroom. We all know that SEL is the new snake oil in the education industry. Duckworth and Dweck will be the next ones rolling in the dough and our kids will just be more burdened and confused than ever with NO positive results. The best thing is to get rid of all day kindergarten and the push for state mandated Pre-K, put more unstructured recess hours into the school day from 3rd grade down, and for gosh sakes….quit test prepping these kids for months at a time for the sake of higher standardized test scores. You can have high test scores OR an education….but you can’t have both! Children won’t/don’t need any of this SEL crap if we just let them alone to solve their own disputes with each other in their own way. SEL CANNOT be taught…it is a learning process that happens from birth and continues on to shape who we become as adults. This will just open the door for “doing the wrong thing righter” as Sir Swacker likes to say!
LikeLike
Jackson created a behavior index. While this instrument measures what a student does in school, it is not as abstract or absurd as Duckworth’s social-emotional claims. A student’s conduct is observable. It makes sense that students that attend school regularly and get fewer behavioral reports would be more likely to graduate and go to college. Once again I would caution against attributing this to teachers alone as there are many variables in a student’s life including family, socio-economics, physical and mental health, etc.
However, using Jackson’s behavior index would show that the large number of students that leave Success Academy or other charters for various reasons are an indication that the school is not making an effort to retain students. They would get a lower score on Jackson’s index for losing so many students.
LikeLike
retired teacher:
To riff off of your last paragraph: the rheephorm-minded love certain kinds of numbers & stats.
Like their self-serving lists of all their “scholars” that got high test scores. That’s just the sort of “measures” they like.
What they don’t like: focus on putting down on paper “the large number of students that leave Success Academy or other charters for various reasons” as “an indication that the school is not making an effort to retain students.”
Now you’ve created an index just as good [or better!] than any of theirs—and how can they argue against this use of the figures they generate without being hypocrites?—that “measures” their indifference, laziness, gimmicky approach to education, and mad dog pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$.
Rheeally, they only have themselves to blame.
Really!
😎
LikeLike
Well, except that behavior is only a proxy for how people feel about themselves – whether they feel valued, worthy, competent, respected, cared for, loved, etc. I’m afraid this focus on behavior will lead the rephormers to trying to force behavior change (or, rather, more of that), rather than focusing on what actually changes behavior such as meeting kids where they’re at, making sure their needs are met, challenging them at appropriate levels, appropriate allowances for life circumstances without either pity or “high expectations”, etc. If a teacher has had an impact on a student’s behavior, it’s because that student believes that teacher cares and understands and sees him/her as a person, not because that teacher had “high expectations” or used “no excuses”.
LikeLike
Incidentally, I hope this is obvious, but making kids feel seen and valued and worthy is not something that can be packaged and sold or even taught. You just really do have to care.
And also incidentally, the flip side is that humans being humans, the care of one teacher is often not enough, depending on what that student faces elsewhere in life. I worry that this focus on behavior will lead to teachers being “held accountable” for student behavior, which is no better than being “accountable” for test scores.
LikeLike
Student behavior is an elusive thing to measure. Students’ behavior can change due to emotional issues at home such as divorce or homelessness. However, I have found that students that feel heard, accepted as capable and are challenged academically are less likely to get into trouble or skip school.
LikeLike
Student behavior can’t be measured.
LikeLike
Agreed. However, all public schools keep attendance records and misconduct records (suspensions or expulsions) that get disaggregated by race by the DOE if they receive any federal dollars.
LikeLike
And we shouldn’t be measured by attendance, either. Some kids are just going to be chronic non-attenders, especially in high-risk schools. I always have several a year the fit that description, and all of the calls and offers of help and discussions with students and parents isn’t enough to solve that issue.
LikeLike
There are so many problems with measuring students in general. Data analytics in education is futile pseudoscience, socks darn it. It appears the VAM scammers are just looking for new data sets to pawn off on the public as a way to measure the future. Ha! Silly nonsense.
I like positive behavior management strategies. I like the idea of encouraging us teachers to be welcoming and supportive of our students instead of punitive and stressed out over meaningless standardized tests. I appreciate any recognition that test score based carrots and sticks are destructive to education.
There are no data, however, that I will accept to influence me. I rely on getting to know my students only. Policy makers should know that and step aside. Drop the sticks and pass out the carrots equitably.
LikeLike
Who gave economists a green light to measure everything anyway? They have a tendency to over simplify the issues and over generalize their conclusions.
LikeLike
Charles Koch did.
LikeLike
What a non-surprise.
To accomplish the demolition of public education — it was CRUCIAL to rid the schools of the genuine professional teacher-practitioner — WHO KNOW WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE– which allowed the oligarchs to dumb the people down….and make a ton money for the hedge funds and criminals who have raided our wealth.
If the experienced surgeons were removed from the hospital and replaced with trained medics, people would die.
If you removed the experienced professional practitioner of pedagogy who knows how the human child’s brain acquires GENUINE SKILLS, AND KNOWS what LEARNING LOOKS LIKE– a genuine practitioner of a profession who cannot be fooled by magic elixirs– then you end up with the situation we see today.
https://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
There was (and is) so little respect for teachers, that the media had an easy job demonizing the most experienced, dedicated practitioners as ‘lazy incompetents,’ and thus, tens of thousands of our top teachers bit the dust when they did this. I wrote this decades ago on my own blog which went away when Apple took don me.com, so I republished it here http://www.perdaily.com/2011/01/lausd-et-al-a-national-scandal-of-enormous-proportions-by-susan-lee-schwartz-part-1.html BECAUSE IT happened to me.
Former students now in their thirties, REACH ME on social media, and tell me that it was I who made a difference in their lives, but when the predatory capitalists decided to make education into a market, like they did with health care, they threw out the professional-practitioners — i.e. the teachers… and I was under attack with false charges of corporal punishment, and hideous allegations — WITHOUT A SHRED OF HELP from the UFT — UNTIL MY HUSBAND CALLED RANDI HERSELF, as the newest principal of the school which I helped to put on the map, alleged that I threatened to kill her.
THAT is the truth and I have all the documents that tell the tale…and Randi herself, knows it!!!
IF YOU KNOW ME, then you KNOW how the most dedicated teachers were under attack with no help in sight.
My salary at the time, was 58k, despite — many degrees, and 20 full-time years, and 15 years as a sub. I and thousands of NYC teachers were pushed into the ground by the UTTERLY LAWLESS AND CONTEMPTIBLE NYC DOE in the nineties.
Here was the result
LikeLike
BUT, to show you how POWERFUL the EIC is https://greatschoolwars.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/eic-oct_11.pdf
what I described in my first comment , above, occurred when I was one of the most famous public school educators in the nation– at the very moment when I was the ‘NY State Educator of Excellence,” and my practice was the NYC cohort for the Pew research on the REAL Performance Standards for LEARNING. To show you how helpless teachers are, Harvard was filming my practice, and my work was touring the nation with the LRDC, but I was fighting for my career in NYC, where the assault on teachers began. The largest system in the 15,880 became a target for ‘charter-ization as funding disappeared for public education… thanks to ‘smaller government’ conservatives.
Then, they went after tens of thousands of teachers in the second largest school system LAUSD , and it was CHRONICLED at Perdaily.com YES. IT WAS OUT THERE AND NO ONE CARED OR NOTICED, but NOW that Broad and friends are taking over there is a huge outcry. A decade ago, Lenny Isenberg, created Perdaily.com, to chronicle the destruction of LAUSD. He explained, in post after post, that for every tenured teacher fired, or any teacher not allowed to reach tenure, the district saved 60,000 in benefits. With the budget about to be overwhelmed by budget obligations, instead of funding public education, the Eli Broad backed bureaucrats and corrupt politicians in LA, figured that thy could fabricate charges http://www.perdaily.com/2015/01/were-you-terminated-or-forced-to-retire-from-lausd-based-on-fabricated-charges.html
They removed teachers willy nilly, with clear civil rights violations — as the media ranted about bad teachers.
And as much as no one wants to acknowledge it, Lenny pointed out the collusion of the union UTLA http://www.perdaily.com/2011/03/lausd-and-utla–connecting-the-dots-of-blattant-corruption.html which supported the dismissal process (so much for all the ranters who claim unions protect those ‘bad teachers)!
He wrote about Carroll years ago: FORMER CTC ATTORNEY KATHLEEN CARROLL LAYS OUT UNHOLY ALLIANCE BETWEEN UNION AND PUBLIC EDUCATION PRIVATIZERS http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/former-ctc-attorney-kathleen-carroll-lays-out-unholy-alliance-between-union-and-public-education-pri.html
Isenberg wrote, a decade ago: it is ALL about money . http://www.perdaily.com/2014/06/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
He fought back I and stillis fighting, a decade later, but back then he asked : He asked HAS UTLA RANK-AND-FILE BEEN TOLD THAT I’M SUING UTLA? WHY NOT?
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/03/has-utla-rank-and-file-been-told-that-im-suing-utla-why-not.html
He is a real hero, and no one knows it, becasue he is a teacher!
http://www.perdaily.com/2013/11/lausd-gives-me-a-chance-to-be-a-hero-for-student-teachers-and-families.html
And now, they are trying to take away his teaching credentials… THIS IS POWER! http://www.perdaily.com/2018/02/oah-credential-hearing.html
FORGIVE ME, DIANE, you know how I feel.
Of course, this PLOY only works when the union looks the other way and colludes to end collective bargaining rights, and the media sells the lie!
YES! We need UNIONS. I LOVE UNIONS, and watched as they have been destroyed… but the nasty truth cannot be denied… what happened to all of us was aided by the incompetent, and corrupt people who were our only LEGAL help.
So, take an interest in WHO IS ELECTED TO YOUR UNION, because it is WE the people who ELECT those we need.
Google Francesco Portelos, and read how hard he fought to be the president of the UFT in NYC…and lost.. and thus, so did the teachers! http://educatorfightsback.org
LikeLike
You could knock me over with a feather. Who would have thought that teachers who teach kids who come to school would be more effective?
While I applaud Jackson’s conclusion, that teachers do a lot more than test scores show, I did not think he appropriately evaluated the VAM model as having any validity, either where academics or intangibles are concerned. Accepting this model for trying to gauge which teachers caused kids to succeed is a non-starter for me. His research seems to suggest that VAM itself is a bad model for evaluating anything. Why would he not suggest that conclusion?
LikeLike
I agree with Dienne77.
Let’s take the focus off of behavior versus academic performance and onto the absurdity of Bus. Admin.-like measurement in education.
I think there are three tracks for teachers, and those tracks can twist and cable at times. Track one: pioneer, make big mistakes and learn from them, constantly; always try new things and tweak and retry, etc. Track two: go with your instincts, intuition and experience; keep doing those things that work, and of course tweak and sometimes veer onto new ground, but safely, with supports and backup plans. Track three: follow policies, initiatives and the advice of others, sometimes to the letter and sometimes making major alterations so that these things at least work. Often we are on all three tracks within a single lesson. The complexity of this is as staggering as the simplemindedness and stupidity of VAM. Tests are but a tiny and highly fallible tool, with potentially huge downsides. Putting that tiny, unfortunate thing up front as the ultimate decider, the be all end all . . People really need to grow up.
LikeLike
be-all and end-all
LikeLike
Call me underwhelmed by another study with discredited VAM and test scores in math and ELA taken as essential for gaining insights about “The Full Measure of a Teacher” subtitled Using value-added to assess effects on student behavior.
The author may not be responsible for the title, but if you look at the links in his article, and whom he values as authorities on education, he is clearly in the same camp as economists who think of teachers and students as more or less valuable on strictly economic terms.
Consider the “Great Teaching “link subtitled: Measuring its effects on students’ future earnings. This article (2012) is co-authored by Raj Chetty, John Friedman, and Jonah E. Rockoff and it includes a reference to another article by Eric Eric Hanushek titled “Valuing Teachers” with all discussion ending in the earnings and economic status of students at age 28.
The economic worth of teachers is calculated on similar terms. Hanushek argues for firing the bottom 5 percent of teachers based on their VA scores. As if approving that formula for rating teachers (discredited by statisticians), the authors of Great Teaching estimate “that replacing a teacher whose value added is in the bottom 5 percent with an average teacher would increase students’ cumulative lifetime income by a total of $1.4 million per classroom taught.”
I suppose that some calculation somewhere will tell us what counts as “a classroom” in terms of size, duration, and much more.
A second link “Can Teacher Evaluation Improve Teaching? Subtitled Evidence of systematic growth in the effectiveness of midcareer teachers (2012, Taylor and Tyler) looks at “improved teaching.” through the scores earned by teachers on the Charlotte Danielson Framework for Teaching (FFT) and math scores for grades 4-8. The FFT version (pre-2010) had not an ounce of research supporting its use as a measure of effective teaching in any subject. Generalizing about all teachers based on math scores is easy and leads to ridiculous generalizations about “effective teachers. The multi-year program in this study cost $7000 per teacher evaluation.
Returning to Kirabo Jackson’s study, consider his take away suggestions in the last two paragraphs.
Also ask why he is so fixated on the word ”impact” (used 39 times) to describe a proper and “effective” relationship between teachers and their students.
LikeLike
YES.
LikeLike