Archives for category: Teacher Evaluations
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Should Students Rate Teachers?

By dianeravitch
October 7, 2012 //
36

Larry Ferlazzo reports on an interesting exchange about student ratings of teachers. Amanda Ripley, who is a cheerleader for corporate reform, loves the idea of trusting students to tell us which teachers are great and which stink.

Felix Salmon points out where she is wrong.

The Gates Foundation loves the idea of student surveys, of course, and several districts are already using them.

I personally have a lot of trouble with the idea of asking students to rate their teachers. It’s bad enough that teachers’ careers now hinge on their students’ test scores, but now they will be asked to win popularity contests. I don’t see this as a way to improve teaching but as a way to compel teachers to pander to students, to assign less homework, to inflate grades, and to seek student approval.

Why are so many people messing up teachers’ ability to teach?

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Students, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

What Race to the Top Has Accomplished

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2012 //
65

Let’s give credit where credit is due.

Because of Race to the Top, most states are now evaluating teachers based in significant part on student test scores. The American Educational Research Association and the National Academy of Education say that the methodology for doing this is inaccurate and unstable. The ratings bounce around from year to year. Such ratings reflect which students were in the class, not teacher quality.

Because of Race to the Top, more states are permitting privatization of public schools.

Because of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, all schools are labeled by their test scores.

Because of Race to the Top, there is more teaching to the test, more fear and anxiety associated with testing, more narrowing of the curriculum, more cheating.

Because of Race to the Top, many schools in poor and minority neighborhoods will be closed.

Because of Race to the Top, many principals and teachers will be fired.

Is this what President Obama meant when he referred to the “results” of his Race to the Top? It explains why Romney applauded it and specifically hailed Arne Duncan.

This reader has a different view of Race to the Top:

In addition to the intimidation and demoralization of teachers, Race to the Top is having its intended results: the destabilization, fragmentation and privatization of the public schools.

In their public utterances on education, Obama and Duncan are frauds, but the education reform complex is being managed by very intelligent and far seeking -venal, but far-seeking – people. They know exactly what they are doing, and more often than not are getting their way.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Duncan, Arne, For-Profit, Obama, Privatization, Race to the Top, Romney, Mitt, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, US Education

Gary Rubinstein on VAM

By dianeravitch
October 6, 2012 //
5

You will enjoy reading this clear explanation of the flaws of value-added assessment. Gary Rubinstein takes down the conventional wisdom with eclat.

Categories Teacher Evaluations, Testing

When Teachers Said “NO” to Race to the Top

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2012 //
23

Anthony Cody reports that teachers in Sacramento and Fresno rejected participation in Race to the Top.

They reject the program’s heavy emphasis on testing and basing their evaluation on test scores.

Cody wonders why President Obama insists that Race to the Top is not “top down.” Of course, it is top down. It reflects what the Obama administration wants, not what teachers believe is right for their students.

Why does President Obama says he opposes “teach to the test” when his signature program compels teachers to teach to the test?

Why does President Obama claim that Race to the Top is “working” and getting results?

It is not working, it is being imposed. And it has no results other than demoralized teachers.

Categories Federal Waiver, Obama, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

ALEC Triumphant in Louisiana

By dianeravitch
October 5, 2012 //
10

I wrote a post about radical legislation in Pennsylvania that will authorize the Governor to create a charter commission with power to overturn local decisions. This legislation was written by the corporate-funded organization ALEC.

The Louisiana legislature passed the radical ALEC agenda last spring. Teachers lost tenure; unqualified people can become teachers. Test scores determine teachers’ careers. More than half the state’s students are eligible for vouchers, with some going to fundamentalist schools. Charters will pop up everywhere. Students can take their tuition money to online schools that get poor results, or to any snake-oil salesman that hangs out a shingle and pretends to be an educator.

Everything comes out of the minimum foundation funding for public schools, which is supposedly illegal, but who cares? Lots of new opportunities to make a buck in Louisiana or any other state that passes ALEC model legislation.

A reader in Louisiana notes that the proposed governor’s commission, stripping local boards of their decision-making powers, has already passed in his state:

This legislation was passed in Louisiana last spring. Don’t let this happen to Penn -teachers get the word out to fight this. This December our Board of Education will present the first list of applicants to fall under this new provision and they have shown that they decry true accountability. My school district,St. Tammany Parish, is the highest performing large school district in the state with highest average ACT score in the state and above the national average. We have never allowed charters but we are now expecting to be invaded. One prospective charter operator is advertising on Craig’s List for personnel to open an “international school.” He is a former instructor of Muslim studies at the Air Force Academy (5years) from Edinburgh, Scotland. Where do these charter promoters come from and how do end up here.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, For-Profit, Louisiana, On-Line Education, Pennsylvania, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure

The Best Shanker Blog on Misuse of Testing

By dianeravitch
October 4, 2012 //
5

Matthew DiCarlo, the lead author of the Shanker Blog, is a smart social scientist who analyzes research and data with care, never with ideology or an axe to grind.

We have had one area of disagreement in recent years. I have become sick of the misuse of testing, I no longer believe in test-based accountability. Matt sees value in testing and accountability.

Today he has a blog that is very powerful on this very subject. He calls it “Assessing Ourselves to Death.” Read it.
It is outstanding.

I couldn’t have said it better myself (although he still leaves some room for test-based accountability, while I still maintain that TBA is unworthy and creates perverse incentives for score inflation, cheating, curriculum narrowing, etc., all of which destroy educational values).

Categories Accountability, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Hey, Arne, Read This

By dianeravitch
October 4, 2012 //
16

In an earlier post, a parent expressed frustration that her child’s teacher never explained how awful the testing is, how it was stealing time from instruction and was of little or no value.

Many teachers wrote to say that without tenure, they can’t take any risks, can’t upset administrators, can’t speak up without endangering their jobs.

This parent has a different take. I wish Arne Duncan would read this and realize that he is destroying teacher morale and professionalism in schools across the nation. His policies are misguided at best, deceptive and harmful at worst.

I spoke to the teachers at my sons’s school. They are EXHAUSTED. They hate the testing, they are fearful for their jobs but they are even more fearful that their beloved principal will be replaced if they don’t follow these crazy mandates. They are on a watch list now due to NCLB mandates ( special ed failure rate had dipped). This is the BEST school in the whole district- national ranking for newspaper, mock trial, debate, the highest SAT scores in the district, the highest number of AP passing exams score in the district and is ranked in the country. These fantastic teachers, who are dedicated to special needs students and needs of special students, are being crucified by the weekly lesson plans, the state oversight by under-aware and under trained ‘professionals’. These teachers HATE the tests being implemented by this VAM measure that is their prize for winning RTT. They are ridiculous tests that have no merit but the teachers who give their all to the kids in the class and before and after are flat out EXHAUSTED by these VAM measures.

Burning out teachers, who are seasoned and fantastic professionals, for no educational reason at all. That is why parents don’t know.

Categories Duncan, Arne, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

Can Someone Explain? Mr. Gates? Secretary Duncan?

By dianeravitch
October 4, 2012 //
27

State after state is imposing new teacher evaluation systems that have never worked anywhere else; new pay structures that no one understands; eliminating collective bargaining rights; removing tenure to make it easier to fire teachers.

All of this is allegedly to “improve” the teaching profession.

But this is what is happening on the ground. Bill Gates, if you are reading this, can you please explain? Arne Duncan, this is what you brought about through your Race to the Top, perhaps you could explain.

Can anyone explain how these measures improve the teaching profession?

I’m a first grade teacher in Indianapolis. We cannot even get anyone to explain to us what the new pay structure is for our school district. We know we will no longer be given pay increases…..we’ve been told nothing about bonus pay, or starting salaries. Our union has no power since our legislature stripped it in this last session. I understand that we want to hold teachers accountable, but I think it is not unreasonable to expect that I be at least told what my pay structure will be so I know what to work towards. I’ve earned a masters degree, two separate certifications and have 16 years of experience in inner city schools. I do what I do because I love it and I make a difference. I’m tired of being demonized and demoralized in the press because I want to know whether or not I am going to be able to continue to support my family. These new evaluation systems are so complicated and at the same time vague and ambiguous. I’m in the process right now of writing my state approved forms for my administrator for part of my evaluation and I’m overwhelmed by what I must now do. People believe all of this paperwork and bureaucracy is going to make better teachers, but in reality it is driving people from the profession. College enrollment in education programs has dropped dramatically over the last 5 years. Who would want to be a teacher in this climate? I don’t know about Chicago and DC, but in Indianapolis, we are all frustrated and worried about the future of our schools.

Categories Accountability, ALEC, Indiana, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

What Happened When an Engineer Became a Teacher

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2012 //
1

A reader writes in response to an earlier post:

I too started with degrees in physics and engineering (and later an M.Ed. that you will hear about). By choice, I walked out of an engineering job, and a few days later into a high-school classroom several hundred miles away as a full-time science teacher (they probably wouldn’t let me do that nowadays). I never found the job hard, just fun and exhausting. That first year they gave me five classes and four preparations. The other teachers in the science department looked at me strangely when I told them that – I was the new guy, I had never taught before: two preps were desirable, three was considered the maximum and difficult, four was tantamount to suicide. They waited for me to collapse. It took until February. And I was designing the curriculum for each course that I taught on a day-to-day basis: Physics Level I, Physics Level II, Chemistry Level I, and Chemistry Level II. I was out for a week with flu probably brought on by exhaustion. After that I learned to pace myself a little better. You see I was also taking a course at night toward earning my M.Ed., which was a requirement in my contract, and when spring semester had started at the University I was hosting student interns into my classes so they could earn their teaching certificates! I did that because I could earn enough tuition credits to pay for my M.Ed. I continued teaching for another 15 years at all levels (elementary through college), including teaching a graduate-level course to elementary school teachers at the University on how to make computer-based instructional videos with software I developed on the fly. This was about 35 or 40 years before Khan Academy… there’s more, but you get the picture. Now, I have some advice for people who want a single-point statistic to measure teacher performance …………. I’m sorry, they won’t let me print that in a nice blog like this.

Categories Curriculum, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Arne Duncan Feels Your Pain

By dianeravitch
October 3, 2012 //
27

In a speech at the National Press Club, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan reached out to the nation’s teachers to assure them that he understands how they feel.

He understands that change is hard, especially when almost every state and district is imposing untested, experimental and possibly destructive methods of evaluation on them.

The end game, he is sure, will be higher test scores.

Of course, no one should be evaluated by a single score.

Truly, he understands. Message: I care.

Categories Accountability, Democrats, Duncan, Arne, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations
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