Audrey Amrein-Beardsley testified on behalf of the plaintiffs (the teachers) in the court case against New Mexico’s teacher evaluation system. She is an expert on teacher evaluation and has had the benefit of having been a teacher. Her blog “Vamboozled” regularly criticizes the misuse of test-based evaluations programs (like VAM, value-added measurement) that use the rise or fall of student test scores as their measure of teacher effectiveness.

In this post, she gives an overview of day three of the trial. The main “expert witness” for the state, testifying in favor of VAM, was Tom Kane of Harvard. He previously directed the Gates Foundations MET (Measures of Teacher Effectiveness) study, which promoted the use of VAM.

It is noteworthy that neither Beardsley nor Kane was able to analyze New Mexico’s data because the state did not release them or make them available, even to its own “expert witness.”

Kane admitted that he

had not examined any of New Mexico’s actual data. This was surprising in the sense that he was actually retained by the state, and his lawyers could have much more likely, and literally, handed him the state’s dataset as their “expert witness,” likely regardless of the procedures and security measures (but perhaps not the timeline) I mentioned prior. Also surprising was that Kane had clearly not examined any of the exhibits submitted for this case, by both the plaintiffs and the defense, either. He was essentially in attendance, on behalf of the state, to “only speak to [teacher] evaluations in general.” As per an article this morning in The Albuquerque Journal, as an “expert witness” he “stressed that numerous studies show that teachers make a big impact on student success,” expressly contradicting the American Statistical Association (ASA), while referencing studies of primarily his econ-friends (e.g. Raj Chetty, Eric Hanushek, Doug Staiger) and those of his own (e.g, as per his Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) studies), although this latter (unambiguous) assertion was not highlighted in this article. For more information in general, though, see the articles this morning in both The Albuquerque Journal and The Santa Fe New Mexican.

Then the state called the superintendent of the Roswell Independent School District to testify in favor of the state’s evaluation model. He said that the new system was an improvement over the old one. He also testified that he would not use the ratings to fire teachers, because he already had a teacher shortage. He told the local newspaper that:

“I am down teachers. I don’t need teachers, number 1, quitting over this and, number 2, I am not going to be firing teachers over this.” His district of about 600 teachers currently has approximately 30 open teaching positions, “an unusually high number;” hence, “he would rather work with his current staff than bring on substitutes” in compliance. So while he testified on behalf of the state, he also testified he was not necessarily in favor of the consequences being attached to the state’s teacher evaluation output, even if as currently being positioned by the defense as “low-stakes.”

Politico reports on the lawsuit that teachers have filed against the state’s teacher evaluation system, which bases 50% of a teacher’s evaluation on test scores:

UNIONS SEEKING HALT TO NEW MEXICO TEACHER EVALS: An effort to halt New Mexico’s teacher evaluation system is back in court today for a third day of testimony. The American Federation of Teachers New Mexico and the Albuquerque Teachers Federation filed a lawsuit in February against the state education department and its education secretary, Hanna Skandera, arguing that the evaluation system relies too heavily on student test scores and violates teachers’ constitutional rights. Data reporting errors produced inaccurate evaluations in spring 2014, prompting Skandera to usher in changes [http://bit.ly/1rn00X2 ]. But the most divisive piece – basing 50 percent of teachers’ evaluations on students’ standardized test scores – remained in place. Some New Mexico teachers even burned their evaluations, protesting [http://bit.ly/1AniLTk] inaccuracies as well as what they see as an inherently unfair system. The national affiliate of both local unions, the American Federation of Teachers, has been heavily involved in the case. President Randi Weingarten attended [http://bit.ly/1FIUxWq ] a hearing on the unions’ request for a preliminary injunction in mid-September. She said she hopes the judge will stop the program now, before a trial next spring decides whether the entire evaluation system is valid.

– AFT also released a report on teacher evaluations, highlighting the experiences of 10 districts in New York and Rhode Island that changed their approaches. A long-time crusader against what it sees as the overuse of student test scores in high-stakes decision-making, AFT says evaluation systems must use multiple measures in order to get the most accurate picture of a teacher’s effectiveness: http://bit.ly/1JDHIHS.

– Speaking of teachers, the Education Department has sent its final teacher preparation rule to the Office of Management and Budget for review. [http://1.usa.gov/1VrsDQE] The proposed rule, released [http://politico.pro/1L4IwuU ] last November, aims to drive bad teacher preparation programs out of business. Teachers unions have panned the rule for using student test scores to measure how new teachers are performing in the classroom, although the department says states would be able to use other measures as well, like classroom observations. Other groups have said it would place a huge financial burden on states, which would be tasked with collecting new data on teacher placement, retention and student learning. The department has said the rule would cost states and teacher prep programs $42 million over 10 years. But groups like the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing said it could cost California alone $485 million for just one year. The final rule is expected sometime this month.

To learn more about the lawsuit in New Mexico, read Audrey Amrein-Beardsley’s description of the proceedings here. Beardsley testified for four hours on the deficiencies of the model. Today, Tom Kane (an economist and a champion of VAM) will testify.

Audrey Beardsley reports here on the trial of teacher evaluation in New Mexico.

She is testifying Monday so she keeps her views to herself, but she quotes others.

This is a quote from an article written by another observer at the trial:

“Joel Boyd, [a highly respected] superintendent of the Santa Fe Public Schools, testified that ‘glaring errors’ have marred the state’s ratings of teachers in his district.” He testified that “We should pause and get it right,” also testifying that “the state agency has not proven itself capable of identifying either effective or ineffective teachers.” Last year when Boyd challenged his district’s 1,000 or so teachers’ rankings, New Mexico’s Public Education Department (PED) “ultimately yielded and increased numerous individual teacher rankings…[which caused]..the district’s overall rating [to improve] by 17 percentage points.”

State Senator Bill Soules, who is also a recently retired teacher, testified that “his last evaluation included data from 18 students he did not teach. ‘Who are those 18 students who I am being evaluated on?’ he asked the judge.”