Archives for category: Teacher Evaluations
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Peter Greene: Forbes Thinks that Schools Need Uncertified Teachers

By dianeravitch
July 29, 2017 //
54

Peter Greene saw an article in Forbes making the absurd assertion that the problem with public schools is that they have certified teachers. In typical fashion, he demolishes this claim.

The article argues that teachers do not need to be paid well, and they do not need to be certified.

Greene says this is nonsense, to put it mildly.

He points out 18 reasons why the authors are wrong.

Here is the 18th reason:

“18) And it offers the best hope of bringing more capable people into the teaching that all agree is so vital.

“This is the final line of the article, and nothing in it has been proven in any of the lines that came before. Great teachers are somehow born and not made, and they alone can fix everything, and they are apparently distributed randomly throughout the population. Somehow by lowering standards, lowering pay, destabilizing pay, and removing job security, we will attract more of them and flush them out.

“That’s 18 dumb things in one short article. I suppose Forbes could get better articles if they paid less and let anybody write for them.”

Categories Education Reform, Hoax, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Rachel M. Cohen: Is VAM Dying? A Review of the Evidence

By dianeravitch
July 21, 2017 //
10

It is called VAM. Value-added-measurement, or value-added-modeling. It means measuring the effectiveness of teachers by the rise or fall of the test scores of their students.

Rachel M. Cohen, writing in The American Prospect, documents the slow but steady retreat from evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students. Only a few years ago, VAM was lauded by Secretary of a Education Arne Duncan as the ultimate way to determine which teachers were succeeding and which were failing; Duncan made it a condition of competing for Race to the Top billions, and more than 40 states agreed to adopt it; Bill Gates spent hundreds of millions of dollars promoting it; a team of economists led by Raj Chetty of Harvard claimed that the actions of a teacher in elementary school predicted teen pregnancy, adult earnings, and other momentous life consequences, and earned front-page status in the anew York Times; and thousands of teachers and principals were fired because of it.

But time is the test, and time has not been kind to VAM.

Cohen reviews the role of the courts, with some refusing to get involved, and others agreeing that VAM is arbitrary and capricious. She credits Duncan and Gates for their role in creating this monstrous and invalid way of evaluating teachers. The grand idea, having cut down many good teachers, is nearing its end. But not soon enough.

Categories Duncan, Arne, Education Reform, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations, VAM

New Mexico: TFA Alum Takes the Reins as State Chief

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2017 //
7

Many teachers in New Mexico were relieved when Hanna Skandera resigned as Commissioner of the Public Education Department. Skandera never met the minimum legal requirement to hold the post; she had never been a teacher. She was a protege of Jeb Bush and wanted to bring the Florida model of high-stakes testing, accountability, and privatization to New Mexico. She subscribed to her mentor’s radical anti-public school, anti-teacher policies and even served as chair of Jeb’s Chiefs for Change, a far-right group.

The American Federation of Teachers and the Albuquerque Federation of Teachers filed suit against Skandera’s value-added teacher evaluation program, which counted student test scores as 50% of each teacher’s evaluation. Teachers hated this flawed and inaccurate method. See here. The New Mexico courts have enjoined the state from applying penalties based on its VAM. The New Mexico method is the toughest in the nation; it finds about 30% of teachers to be ineffective. New Mexico has a growing teacher shortage, due to low teacher pay and poor working conditions. Skandera did nothing to support teachers, nor has Governor Martinez.

Although Skandera has left, help is not on the way. Governor Susanna Martinez has appointed Christopher Ruszkowski, a deputy of Skandera, to take Skandera’s place.

“Ruszkowski arrived in New Mexico in April 2016 to oversee the Public Education Department’s research agenda, policies and academic priorities, including PARCC testing, school grades and pre-kindergarten….

“Born in Chicago, Ruszkowski spent three years teaching in Miami and Boston schools through Teach for America, then received a master’s degree in education policy from Stanford University. He most recently worked for the Delaware Department of Education, earning accolades from the state’s Democratic governor.

“Ruszkowski told the Journal on Wednesday that he is excited to lead New Mexico’s PED and maintain its “strong foundation.”

“(Teachers) are saying, ‘Let’s have some stability for once. Let’s have some continuity for once. Let’s not have another pendulum swing,’ ” Ruszkowski said. ” It’s very rare for a state to have the opportunity to have some degree of stability and continuity in its core systems over the course of a decade. New Mexico is getting there.”

In other words, the new chief thinks that teachers want to maintain and deepen Skandera’s hated policies.

Ruszkowski went out of his way to praise the Gates-funded Teachers Plus organization and to lob criticism at the NEA and AFT.

“Ruszkowski said he has yet to meet with Albuquerque Public Schools Superintendent Raquel Reedy, who oversees the state’s largest district, with more than 80, 000 students, and who often disagreed with Skandera’s reform efforts.

“Ruszkowski said districts in cities including San Antonio, Denver and Phoenix are making strides, while APS continues to struggle. Districts must adopt innovative approaches to education if they want to improve outcomes, Ruszkowski said.”

This last comment was an outright smear. None of those districts participate in NAEP, and there is no objective basis for comparing them, other than to note that those districts are in the forefront of privatization, which has shown no gains, except for schools that cherrypick their students and exclude those with disabilities.

It is time for New Mexico to elect a new Governor, one who wants to improve public schools, not destroy them.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, New Mexico, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Peter Greene: What William Sanders Learned About Teachers by Studying Radioactive Cows

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2017 //
31

We now know that William Sanders, the creator of Value-Added Measurement, which measures teacher quality with the methods of an agricultural statistician, is revered in the think tank world of D.C.

But Peter Greene, who teaches in a Pennsylvania high school, doesn’t think much of VAM.

He recounts how Sanders was inspired to think about measuring teachers based on his studies of radioactivity in cows that were downwind from a nuclear explosion (really!).

To which Sanders writes:

Oh, let’s tell the truth. VAM systems have also been limited by the fact that they’re junk, taking bad data from test scores, massaging them through an opaque and improbable mathematical model to arrive at conclusions that are volatile and inconsistent and which a myriad educators have looked at and responded, “Well, this can’t possible be right.”

You’ll never find me arguing against any accountability; taxpayers (and I am one) have the right to know how their money is spent. But Sander’s work ultimately wasted a lot of time and money and produced a system about as effective as checking toad warts under a full moon– worse, because it looked all number and sciencey and so lots of suckers believed in it. Carey can be the apologist crafting it all into a charming and earnest tale, but the bottom line is that VAM has done plenty of damage, and we’d all be better off if Sanders had stuck to his radioactive cows.

Categories Accountability, Data, Hoax, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, VAM

Audrey Amrein-Beardsley on The New York Times’ Touching Tribute to William Sanders, Creator of VAM

By dianeravitch
May 22, 2017 //
18

The New York Times published a tribute by Kevin Carey of the New America Foundationto William Sanders, “the little-known statistician who taught us to measure teachers.”

One hates to speak ill of the dead, but accuracy requires that we note that Sanders’ statistical model for “measuring” teachers was flawed, inaccurate, and damaged the lives of thousands of teachers based on Sanders’ obscure algorithms. Sanders was an agricultural statistician before he found a goldmine in education. Measuring teacher quality really is not akin to measuring cattle or crops. Every analysis of the influences on students’ test performance gives far more weight to family income and education than to the teachers who see her or him for an hour or five hours a day. Sanders tried to remove human judgment from the equation and ended up creating a profitable business that distorted teaching and learning into a struggle for higher test scores. If the tests themselves are invalid, then any accountability measures based on them will be invalid.

No one knows William Sanders’ works and its flaws better than Audrey Amrein-Beardsley. She has studied Sanders’ value-added measures for years and testified against them in court. She comments on the New York Times’ article here. Amrein-Beardsley points out that Sanders’ methods have been faring poorly in court because it is unfair to judge a teacher based on a mysterious algorithm that no one can understand or explain.

In my book Reign of Error, I wrote about the fallacy behind Sanders’ reasoning by quoting a song from “The Fantasticks.” I paid $1200 for the right to reprint the lyrics. It is the one that goes “Plant a radish, get a radish, not a sauerkraut./That’s why I love vegetables, they know what they’re about.”

No one can say the same about children. Children from the same parents are different, even when their upbringing is as identical as those parents can make it. They look different, they act different, they have different interests, they have different goals.

Sanders never understood that.

Categories Teacher Evaluations, VAM

SomeDAM Poet: Economists Are Like Weathermen

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2017 //
65

The blog poet makes the assertion that economists are like weathermen, but in this case, I disagree respectfully. Economists of education express a certainty that no weatherman would. Weathermen (meteorologists) give you different scenarios, warn you that the track of the storm might shift, recognize that there are many uncertainties. Economists of education (not all of them! Think Helen Ladd of Duke) claim that they can use test scores to measure teacher effectiveness, and that they have taken all contingencies into account. Hundreds, probably thousands, of educators have lost their careers because of the specious claims of economists like Raj Chetty, who assert that they can judge the value-added of teachers by the test scores of their students, that third-grade teachers affect the life-time earnings of their students, and that teachers who don’t hit arbitrary test scores marks should be fired, sooner rather than later.

“Economists are like weathermen”

Economists are like weathermen
This cannot be denied
Cuz if, by chance, they get it right
It’s greatly AMPLIFIED!!

But mostly, they just get it wrong
And utter not a word
For them to actually point this out
Would really be unheard

And when their goof’s so blatant
They really can’t ignore it
They simply claim they found a “flaw”
But “markets” will restore it

Categories Accountability, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, VAM (value-added modeling)

South Carolina: A Principal Resigns Rather than Lie to His Staff and Families

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2017 //
33

This story appeared on the blog of Patrick Hayes’ EdFirstSC.

In Charleston, South Carolina, Principal Jake Rambo was ordered to evaluate his teachers based solely on the test scores of their students. Not multiple measures. Standardized tests.

He refused.

He was told that he was being transferred to another school because of his school’s test scores.

He said he didn’t want to leave his school.

He was told to tell the school community that he requested a transfer.

He said he wouldn’t lie.

He resigned rather than lie.

Dear Ms. Darby and CCSD Board of Trustees, Ms. Belk and District 2 Constituent Board,

It is with a heavy heart and out of a sense of moral obligation that I write to share with you my concerns about our District, its students, the James B. Edwards community, and specifically the events that have occurred over the last month. Alongside my wife, I have prayed about the decision to compose this letter and have acknowledged my fear continuing to work in a district that seems to often misrepresent the truth and punish those who question anything about its direction. It is my hope that you are truly unaware of what’s occurring in CCSD.

On the evening of April 24, I received a call from the Executive Director of the Elementary Learning Community, informing me that although I would receive a “Principal” contract for 2017-18, it would not be at JBE. I was shocked, as my tenure as principal of the school began less than two short years prior.

Not one time throughout this school year has any CCSD administrator, including the Superintendent, the Associate Superintendent of Schools, the Executive Director of the Elementary Learning Community, or the Director of the Elementary Learning Community visited our building. Neither had any leader shared with me a single concern about my performance, the performance of our teachers, or the performance of our students. Not one time, if it existed, were any community concerns conveyed to me, and not one time was even the “threat” of a potential move shared with me privately, publicly and/or in a group setting.

I was devastated, as I love our community, its parents and most importantly, its students. While we have lots left to accomplish, during my 1 ½ years at the school, we have increased student enrollment, put community programs in place to close the opportunity gap, increased physical activity opportunities, and improved parent, teacher, and student satisfaction.

The following morning, April 25, I met with the Executive Director of the Elementary Learning Community. The first thing he did was take a torn half-sheet of paper on which several rows of numbers were scribbled, handed me the paper and said, “Pick which scores are yours.” After asking for further
clarification about his request, I identified JBE students’ winter MAP scores. He then said, “That’s why you’re being moved.”

Perplexed again, I remained silent. My study of the NWEA website suggests that the intent of MAP is not to penalize students, teachers and/or principals. Instead, its purpose is to be used as a formative tool to help teachers know in what areas they need to focus their instruction throughout the following semester to grow students.

I sat silent, much as I had less than a month earlier on March 29, after being told in a principal allocation meeting that I should use testing data to place educators on improvement plans. I later spoke honestly to the teachers at JBE about my hesitation to do this and indicated that I would never use
student test scores in isolation to place teachers on improvement plans. Make no mistake: teachers and principals welcome accountability, but they want it to be fair, consistent, and student-centered.

After my meeting with the Executive Director on the morning of April 25, I met with the Superintendent later that day, per my request, after which I was more stunned than ever before. She indicated that the school’s data supported I did not have experience working in a “low income” school and said, “You are a young guy. You’ve not had experience working under a strong principal leader, have you?” Raised to respect authority, I did not respond that the principal underneath whom I worked for several years and who mentored me is currently appointed by the Superintendent herself as the Interim Director of Administrator Hiring and Leadership Development for CCSD.

I shared with the Superintendent that no one had visited our school or shared with me any performance concerns throughout the school year and that I was baffled why all of this was occurring. She indicated that because I received a principal contract and wasn’t being “demoted,” this wasn’t an issue. I remained silent. I was shocked to hear that such could actually happen in a school system where due process, best practice, and mentorship should exist for all teachers and administrators.

I changed the subject and shared with the Superintendent that I believed my work at JBE to be unfinished. As a result, I indicated that my community would likely be upset when it learned of this decision.

She then responded, “Your future in CCSD depends on how you handle this situation.” I sat silent.

She continued, “You could either play the victim, or you could tell your community it was your decision to leave JBE and that you’ve been ‘called’ to lead a school with students who need you more.”

Stunned it would be suggested I misrepresent “my” intentions to a community I love because of what appeared to be student test scores, my speaking out against a plan to put teachers on improvement plans, and my inexperience as a leader-I quickly explained that while I would “always respect my employer, I would not lie.”

She then said, “This is your truth to tell.”

On Thursday, April 27, I met with the Associate Superintendent of Schools. She confirmed the reasons I was being moved as student test data and a lack of diverse experience. During this meeting, she discussed the timeline with me for sharing this information with the JBE community. She approved the letter I had written to send to parents with the exception of a few sentences that identified the reasons for my move as student test scores and level of experiences. She requested that I remove those lines as “people don’t need that much information.”

I complied with her request and removed the information.

It was at this time that I made the one special request I’ve made throughout this process to the Associate Superintendent of Schools, to allow my 7 year old son to transfer from JBE and be placed at Sullivan’s Island Elementary School for 17-18. I explained that his remaining at JBE would be too hard
emotionally on him and our family as the school community and its teachers are very special to us all. This would also relieve a hardship on my wife and me in regards to transportation, as my sister is a teacher at the school.

The Associate Superintendent of Schools quickly and confidently approved this request, indicating it “would be no problem at all.” Afterwards, I spoke to the SIES principal and arranged the transfer.

I then notified my community of the transfer. When parents began sharing concerns with the Board of Trustees and district office, I received a call from the Associate Superintendent of Schools, indicating my 7 year old son would no longer be approved for a transfer and able to attend SIES. Instead, she indicated, “He’s been placed on the waiting list.”

Since then, parents and community members have been told by the Superintendent and Board members that it is because “of an outstanding skill set” that I’m being moved and that it has nothing to do with the aforementioned reasons. They even told a select group of parents in a closed-door meeting
that my transfer was unequivocally not about test scores.

If this decision was indeed based on an “outstanding skill set,” which would benefit students at another school, why could it not benefit the students at JBE, the most diverse elementary school in Mt. Pleasant? Who is advocating for all of these children in our community?

When the Associate Superintendent of Schools visited JBE for the first time this year, Friday, May 5, to meet with the faculty without me present, she, once again, informed staff that this decision was not about test scores. After the meeting, she said to me, “The Superintendent is NOT happy with this.”

Meanwhile, all of our students sit silent and wait. They wait for us to value them over test scores. They wait for us to value things like learning through play and physical activity. They wait for us to value real-world experiences over test preparation. They wait for us to empower their teachers to be creative and engage them in meaningful learning. Most of all, they wait for us to value doing what is right.

After nearly 10 years in CCSD, it is apparent that I now have a fundamental, philosophical difference with its leadership. Therefore, please accept this as my official letter of resignation, effective June 30, 2017.

Sincerely,
Jake Rambo
Principal
James B. Edwards Elementary School

I now place the name of Jake Rambo on the blog’s honor roll for his principled resistance to unconscionable policies that harm teachers and students.

Categories Honor Roll, Principals, South Carolina, Standardized Testing, Teacher Evaluations, VAM

Cathy O’Neill: Don’t Grade Teachers with Bad Algorithms

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2017 //
43

Cathy O’Neill is a mathematician who wrote a wonderful book called “weapons of Math Destruction,” in which she showed how math and big data can be misused to reach very bad decisions.

She recently wrote an article for Bkloomberg News in which she explained why VAM is a terrible way to evaluate teachers.

She writes:

“For more than a decade, a glitchy and unaccountable algorithm has been making life difficult for America’s teachers. The good news is that its reign of terror might finally be drawing to a close.

“I first became acquainted with the Value-Added Model in 2011, when a friend of mine, a high school principal in Brooklyn, told me that a complex mathematical system was being used to assess her teachers — and to help decide such important matters as tenure. I offered to explain the formula to her if she could get it. She said she had tried, but had been told “it’s math, you wouldn’t understand it.”

“This was the first sign that something very weird was going on, and that somebody was avoiding scrutiny by invoking the authority and trustworthiness of mathematics. Not cool. The results have actually been terrible, and may be partly to blame for a national teacher shortage.

“The VAM — actually a family of algorithms — purports to determine how much “value” an individual teacher adds to a classroom. It goes by standardized test scores, and holds teachers accountable for what’s called student growth, which comes down to the difference between how well students performed on a test and how well a predictive model “expected” them to do…

“Fundamental problems immediately arose. Inconsistency was the most notable, statistically speaking: The same person teaching the same course in the same way to similar students could get wildly different scores from year to year. Teachers sometimes received scores for classes they hadn’t taught, or lost their jobs due to mistakes in code. Some cheated to raise their students’ test scores, creating false baselines that could lead to the firing of subsequent teachers (assuming they didn’t cheat, too).

“Perhaps most galling was the sheer lack of accountability. The code was proprietary, which meant administrators didn’t really understand the scores and appealing the model’s conclusions was next to impossible. Although economists studied such things as the effects of high-scoring teachers on students’ longer-term income, nobody paid adequate attention to the system’s effect on the quality and motivation of teachers overall.”

Happily, she says, VAM is on the way out. The new federal law does not require it, and courts have been ruling against. She cites Sheri Lederman’s court victory in New York and the recent court victory in Houston, where the judge said the algorithm was so opaque that it should not be used at all.

VAM has ruined the careers, the reputations, and the lives of many educators. One teacher, Rigoberto Ruelas, committed suicide soon after his VAM rating was published online by the Los Angeles Times. This is an example of a deadly use of math to damage real people, not just a game played by economists. Whoever participated willingly in this sham exercise should do penance.

Categories Teacher Evaluations, VAM

Audrey Amrein-Beardsley: The Top Ten Research-Based Reasons Why Standardized Tests Should NOT Be Used to Evaluate Teachers

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2017 //
11

The value-added assessment model that was forced on states by Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top is starting to fall apart, in the courts and in the experience of every state compelled to use it.

In this post, evaluation expert Audrey Amrein-Beardsley explains the top ten reasons why large scale, standardized tests should not be used to evaluate teachers.

She faced off against the rightwing National Council on Teacher Quality, which has consistently supported VAM and high-stakes testing. It is funded by, among others, the Gates Foundation.

Categories National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), Nevada, Teacher Evaluations, VAM

Busted Pencils: Teacher Licenses Are Under Attack!

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2017 //
8

Tim Slekar, dean of education at Edgewood College in Milwaukee, warns of the strategy that corporate reformers are using to undermine and destroy the teaching profession.

They say there is a shortage. They ignore the fact that the “shortage” is caused by the exodus of experienced teachers due to policies that create intolerable working conditions. They then say that the “solution” to the manufactured shortage is to eliminate entry requirements for teachers, thus lowering the bar to anyone with a college degree.

He writes:

It is happening all across the country. Policy makers, pundits and idiots keep screaming teacher shortage. And, in the same breath advocating and putting forth policies that do away with teacher licensing. Why?

First the BS answer: Allowing license flexibility or doing away with teaching licenses altogether will fix the shortage and if “we” don’t do something fast children will face empty classrooms.

The TRUTH: Softening teacher license policies or doing away with the license altogether will kill the profession of teaching.

Its that simple. Yet trying to get media and policy makers to understand this seems almost impossible. Trust me. I have been trying for 4 months.

Now it’s up to you. Take what you learn below. Call your legislators. Call your local media. Chain yourself to a tree naked. Oops. That was supposed to say “chain yourself to a naked tree.” Do whatever you can to get this ALEC backed attack on the profession of teaching to the people.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »