Archives for category: Teacher Evaluations

Dana Goldstein has written an interesting commentary on the history of teacher unionism.

Chicago was the home of the very first teachers’ union, and it was founded by a tough female teacher named Margaret Haley.

Haley hated the factory-style schools of the day, objected to rigid standardization, and wanted dignity for the teaching profession. I will quote some of her words on another post.

For now, read Dana’s overview of the origins of the teachers’ union in Chicago. I told Dana, by the way, that I don’t agree with her conclusions, where she suggests that teachers need to give up “old notions of rigid job security and near nonexistent teacher evaluation.” Maybe I am quibbling over words, but I would hate to see teachers become at-will employees with no academic freedom, living in fear of community opposition to teaching controversial ideas and books. I am not sure about “near nonexistent teacher evaluation.” That sounds like a straw man. It is not teachers who decide how they should be evaluated; it’s the central office. If they fail to evaluate teachers, shame on them. The issue is not whether there should be evaluation, but whether it will be sound and not based on spurious metrics.

Categories Chicago, Education Reform, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Unions

New York Times’ Editorial on Chicago: Still Clueless

By dianeravitch

September 12, 2012 //

A few weeks ago, the New York Times published an editorial saying that teachers needed more carrots and sticks to make them work harder and produce higher test scores. The assumption is that they are not working hard now (a Gates-Scholastic survey in the spring said the typical teacher works an 11-hour day now); and that waving a bonus in front of them would raise student test scores (even though merit pay has never worked, even with a bonus of $15,000 for doing so); and that the threat of firing might move the needle (even though it is the kids who need to “produce,” and threats don’t produce better education).

Today the Times blames the Chicago teachers’ strike on the teachers and suggests it is all the fault of their leader, Karen Lewis, who is enjoying a power play. He thinks the teachers should accept evaluation based on student scores because everyone else is doing it.

But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe he didn’t have time to read the research that shows this method is junk science.

Maybe the Times missed the story about the strike having been authorized by more than 90% of the union’s membership.

Maybe the editorialist didn’t hear about classes of more than 40 children.

Maybe he didn’t know about the schools with no art teachers, no library, no social worker.

Maybe he was absent that day.

Categories Chicago, Merit pay, Teacher Evaluations

What Does Mayor Rahm Want?

By dianeravitch

September 11, 2012 //

The real difference between the CTU and Mayor Rahm Emanuel is not money. By all accounts, the union and the mayor are close on compensation.

The real differences are about the corporate reform agenda. The mayor wants merit pay, more charters, evaluation of teachers by test scores, and all the other components of the national corporate reform agenda.

But little noticed by the national media is that none of these so-called reforms works or has any evidence to support it. Merit pay has failed wherever it was tried. Teacher evaluation by student test scores is opposed by the majority of researchers, and practical experience with it has led to confusion and uncertainty about whether student scores can identify the best and worst teachers. The charters in Chicago and elsewhere do not get better test scores than the regular public schools. Even in Detroit, only 6 of 25 charter high schools got better scores than the much-lamented Detroit public schools.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm, Merit pay, Teacher Evaluations, Unions

Value-Added Nonsense

By dianeravitch

September 11, 2012 //

If you add the scores on standardized tests for five years in a row, can you tell who the best and worst teachers are?

No.

But that’s the theory behind value-added assessment.

The idea is that an “effective” teacher raises test scores every year. The computer predicts what the test scores are supposed to be, and the teacher who meets the target is great, while the one who doesn’t is ineffective and should be shunned or banished.

But study after study shows that value-added assessment is rife with error. As this paper from the National Academy of Education and the American Educational Research Association shows, value-added assessment is unstable, inaccurate and unreliable. Teachers who get high ratings one year may get low ratings the next year. Teachers are misidentified. Data are missing. The scores say more about which students were in the classroom than the teachers’ “quality” and ability to teach well.

Teachers of the gifted are in trouble because the students are so close to the ceiling that it is very difficult to “make” them get higher scores.

Teachers of special education are in trouble because their students have many problems taking a standardized assessment. A teacher wrote me last year to tell me that her students would cry, hide under their desks, and react with rage; one tore up the test and ate the paper.

Teachers of English language learners are in trouble because many of their students don’t know how to read English.

A superintendent in Connecticut wrote me to say that his state department of education is pushing the Gates’ MET approach. I urged him to read Jesse Rothstein’s critique. In fact, the MET study won the National Education Policy Center’s Bunkum award for research that reached a conclusion that was the opposite of its own evidence.

For a fast and accurate summary of what research says about value-added assessment, read this article by Linda Darling-Hammond.

VAM is junk science. Bunk science.

Just another club with which to knock teachers, wielded by those who could never last five minutes in a classroom.

Categories Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Special Education, Students, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

The Real Story Behind The CTU Strike

By dianeravitch

September 10, 2012 //

Count on Stephanie Simon of Reuters to get the story that eluded every other reporter.

She is the one that got the inside story on Louisiana, TFA, and for-profit investors.

Now she has the scoop on Chicago.

The strike in Chicago is not about money.

It is a national story.

It’s about the survival of public education.

Read her story.

Categories Chicago, Corporate Reformers, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm, For-Profit, Obama, Privatization, Race to the Top, Teach for America TFA, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, U.S. Department of Education, Unions, US Education

An Open Letter to the White House

By dianeravitch

September 10, 2012 //

Jessie B. Ramey attended a meeting at the White House with a delegation of Pennsylvania educators.

Ramey wrote an open letter to Roberto Rodriguez, President Obama’s education advisor, asking the White House to stop berating educators and public education.

Based on the story in The Atlantic claiming that Michelle Rhee is “taking over the Democratic Party,” it becomes imperative for President Obama to distance himself from Rhee’s anti-teacher ideas.

Does President Obama support charter schools, like Rhee? Yes.

Does President Obama support for-profit schools, like Rhee? He hasn’t said.

Does President Obama worry about a dual school system in American cities, with charters for the haves and public schools for the have-nots? We need to know.

Does President Obama want entire school staffs to be fired because of low test scores? He said no at the Convention but he supported the firing of the staff at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island and his Race to the Top turnaround strategy supports mass firings. Does he approve or disapprove?

Does President Obama truly want to stop the odious practice of teaching to the test? Will he explain how teachers can avoid teaching to the test if their pay and their job depends on student test scores?

President Obama must let the nation’s teachers know that he is with them. He can do so by disassociating himself from Rhee’s anti-teacher agenda, as well as from policies pushed by his own Race to the Top.

And he could go to Chicago and tell Rahm Emanuel to settle with the teachers and do what is right for the children of Chicago.

Categories Charter Schools, Chicago, Democrats, Education Reform, Emanuel, Rahm, For-Profit, Merit pay, Obama, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

What If Teacher Evaluation Is Not Broken?

By dianeravitch

September 9, 2012 //

The following comment is evidence that the corporate reformers’ narrative about the “broken” evaluation system is wrong. I say “wrong” as a euphemism. I actually think it is a calculated lie, one that has been promulgated to advance a political agenda: to eliminate collective bargaining rights, to eliminate seniority and tenure, to demand that teachers have zero job protections, not even due process. All of this will make it possible to fire “bad” teachers, with no hearings or delay. The “bad” teachers are the ones who can’t raise test scores every single year.

If you don’t agree with this train of thought, then you are branded as a paid lackey for the teachers’ union, a defender of the status quo, and worse.

But what if the narrative is a giant lie? What if the evaluation system is working quite well in most places? What if low test scores are caused not by “bad” teachers, but by socio-economic conditions that shape children’s interest in schooling?

What if our society has been sold a bill of goods, intended to distract us from addressing real problems?

This reader writes:

I taught in Westchester County, New York, for 35 years (retiring in June 2011). I was on the faculty of two high schools and served as department chair in the second of those two. In both schools, working with several administrative teams, I nearly always found administrators working in the collaborative, supportive way described in Carol Burris’s excellent and reassuring post. This does not mean that I found all these administrators equally visionary or thoughtful or smart, but I found them all supportive and, when necessary, willing to rid the school of those who couldn’t rise to the its standards or fit its culture. I rarely saw weak teachers tenured. I saw a few tenured teachers eased out. I agree that “[a]lthough…it makes sense to make the 3020a dismissal process shorter and less costly, it should never be easy.” / With all this in mind, I was struck by a recent New York Times’ article celebrating the fact that, last year only 50% of teachers up for tenure actually received tenure in the NYC schools. (Many were granted a 4th year to pursue tenure.) The Times was convinced that this showed a rising standard of excellence. But this ignores a fact widely understood in public schools: That a teacher should not be invited back for a third year unless he or she is clearly on the track to receiving tenure. In 2010, according to the Times, 80% of candidates received tenure–a fact the article bemoaned, though 80% seems a little low to me.

Categories Accountability, Teacher Evaluations

How We Evaluate Teachers

By dianeravitch

September 9, 2012 //

Experienced principal Carol Burris describes how she evaluates teachers at South Side High School in Rockville Center, New York.

I am tired of reading that “teacher evaluation is broken” and therefore teachers need to be evaluated by points and student test scores. The idea that evaluation is broken comes from “the Widget Effect”, a report created by Rhee’s New Teacher Project. It claims that teachers are rated satisfactory/unsatisfactory, with nearly all being in the first category.

I have never used that rating system in my 13 years as principal. Nor have any of my colleagues on Long Island. It is used in New York City. New York City is large and important, but it is notevery district. That rating system could have been changed through collective bargaining, if the mayor and UFT had the will to do so.

I cannot tell you what every principal does, but I can speak to what I do and it has worked to build a great school.

First, there is a difference between the supervision of instruction and evaluation. Evaluation is summative and judgmental. The clinical supervision of instruction consists of the observations, short and full period, written and not, the conversations and meetings with teachers about students and curriculum, the review of lesson plans and student assessments. It is that important space where the principal and teacher meet to talk about teaching and learning. It is where teaching is reflected upon and improved. It should NOT receive numbers….unless you want to destroy its effectiveness. This will all change with APPR.

My assistant principals and I meet twice a week for several hours and we review our observations of teachers. We make sure that we are consistent in our feedback. We keep a recordof instructional concerns to make sure that we are not sending mixed messages and that we are concentrating not on trivia, but on what is most important. We identify teacher strengths and discuss how we can have the teacher share those strengths with colleagues. This is the most important part of our job. We do most of the professional development for our teachers, often teaching those sessions along with teachers.

Evaluation, in my school, for tenured teachers is a narrative report issued at the end of the year.In that report, the teacher reflects on the goals she chose to develop that year. She and the supervisor choose goals for the following year. She lists professional development activities and ways in which she engaged with students. The assistant principal or I sum up what we saw when we observed. We list strengths and areas for improvement.

If the teacher is struggling, she is placed on intensive supervision. If that occurs, the next year she is observed formally at least four times, lesson plans are reviewed in greater detail, there are frequent meetings that focus on instruction and planning, a teacher mentor may be assigned etc. The point is to give greater support. It works. Teachers get better. Most need to be on it for a year, some for a few years. We have had teachers ask to continue informally after the process ended. It is very time consuming for the principal, but it is time well spent. In the very rare cases when a teacher digs in and does not improve, there is a process called 3020a.

Supervision and evaluation for untenured teachers are far more extensive. There are at least four observations. There is mandated professional development. The first year, they are assigned a mentor teacher. The teachers in my building are very collegial—they work closely together on the development of plans, units and assessments. They provide great support to new teachers.

I do not give tenure easily—it must be earned. Because of our commitment to equity, our school is not an easy place to teach—we do not hide struggling or reluctant students in low-track classes.

There are teachers who are not a good fit—although they may be successful somewhere else. Evaluation forms for untenured teachers are complex and lengthy. There are four categories for each dimension on which they are evaluated, and we provide narrative to back up the rating. No numbers are assigned. Although we may mention their students’ scores, it is not part ofevaluation. It is a thoughtful summation of the teacher’s work. By carefully monitoring to whom we give tenure, we have built a very strong faculty

I have no desire to have more power to dismiss tenured teachers. It is my job to make sure that they are serving students well, and if they are not, to address it. All of the tools are there. Although perhaps it makes sense to make the 3020a dismissal process shorter and less costly, it should never be easy. Tenure protects educators from the whims of political school boards.Teachers can give students grades fairly without having to worry that their parents are powerful people. It gives them the protection to speak the truth when it might be unpopular. Tenure helps build community in schools and that is very good for students and families.

I am very proud of my teachers. Nearly every one of them signed the principals’ letter against APPR, despite repeated pressure not do so. Not one has removed his or her name. They know they are more than a number. They know what being evaluated by test scores will do their school and their collegial relationships. Our teachers are true professionals. I think most teachers and principals are.

Categories Education Reform, Principals, Teacher Evaluations

An Inquiring Mind Wants to Know

By dianeravitch

September 9, 2012 //

A new reader has joined our discussion and is looking for answers to important questions. I assured this reader that we have explored these topics in some depth; that we know that the purpose of reform is to eliminate unions; to get rid of tenure; to cut the budget for schools; and to privatize the greatest extent possible, with profits where possible for smart investors in “reform.”

I invite the new reader to hang out with us and join our discussion.

Any advice for the new member of our discussion group?

Please forgive me if I am pulling this conversation back to farmed-out ground (I’m new); but is it fair to say that the gist of the corporate-backed educational “reform” movements today is generating cheaper teachers?This is how the equation boils down for me (a public school teacher). As I’ve been trained to show my work, my thinking is that the greatest “reform” that privatization and charter school movements bring is the elimination of union contracts. And that the primary consequence of eliminating unions in any field is lower labor costs.If the above argument holds water, is it acceptable to eliminate the obfuscating phrase “educational reform movement ” and replace it with the clearer “reducing educator salary” movement? Or, more simply, the “labor-busting” movement? Or the “cheapness” movement?In a similar vein, I am wondering if Dr. Ravitch and others have exposed the cant behind the argument that problems with tenure stem from unions. There don’t seem to be many general-public sources pointing out that no one from a public teacher’s union awards tenure to teachers. Every single public decision to grant tenure is made by an elected school board, advised by its appointed educational managers. If the nation’s schools are saddled with incompetent tenured teachers, the blame falls on leadership and management, does it not? From all the complaints being voiced about tenure that outsiders — many from the world of corporate management — it seems pretty clear to me that the nations educational managers apparently couldn’t recognize an incompetent teacher if they got hit with a hammer by one of them. What is eliminating tenure going to help this group of apparently bumbling crop of managers transform into brilliant predictors of pedagogy? At least tenure forces educational decision-makers to live with the consequences of their incompetence. Lifting the pressure of having to evaluate their teachers in three years and educational managers will be even less accountable for their bad decisions. In the world of corporate management, weakening the chains of accountability is an insane act — something that you would think the corporate nabobs nattering about our schools would understand. Unless they absolutely do understand what they are saying is absurd but don’t care, since the real goal isn’t improving our schools at all.

Categories Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Testing, Unions, US Education