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The Guardian: Why Payment by Results Is “Dangerous Idiocy”

By dianeravitch
July 31, 2014 //
30

The Guardian of London has an excellent article that explains why payment by results always fails. The article is based on a study that the article links to.

Two examples of payment by results in the current “education reform” strategy that is promoted by the Obama administration: basing teacher evaluation on test scores and merit pay.

The article calls payment by results in “dangerous idiocy” and explains why:

“Payment by results is a simple idea: people and organisations should only get paid for what they deliver. Who could argue with that? If your job is to get people back to work, then find them a job dammit.

“Plenty of people working in local government and public services are already starting to realise this is nonsense, and a pernicious, damaging nonsense at that. The evidence is very clear: if you pay (or otherwise manage performance) based on a set of pre-defined results, it creates poorer services for those most in need. It is the vulnerable, the marginalised, the disadvantaged who suffer most from payment by results.

“Here’s why: payment by results does not reward organisations for supporting people to achieve what they need; it rewards organisations for producing data about targets; it rewards organisations for the fictions their staff are able to invent about what they have achieved; it pays people for porkies.

“We know that common things happen when people use payment by results, and other outcomes-based performance management systems. There have been numerous studies that show that such systems distort organisational priorities and make organisations focus on doing the wrong things – and they make people lie.

“This lying takes all sorts of different forms. Some of them are subtle forms of deception: teachers who teach to the test or who only enter pupils for exams they know they are going to pass; employment support that helps only those likely to get a job and ignores those most in need; or hospitals that reclassify trolleys as beds, and keep people waiting in ambulances on the hospital doorstep until they know they can be seen within a target time. In the literature, this is known as gaming the system…..

“Sadly, the distortion of practice by payment by results doesn’t just stop with managers. The evidence shows that it also undermines the practice of frontline workers. It turns the relationship between support worker and client upside down. When payment-by-results practices are introduced, workers who used to ask their clients “How can I help you to achieve what you need?” instead think “How can you help me to produce the data I need?”

The article was written by Toby Lowe, a visiting fellow at Newcastle University business school and chief executive of Helix Arts, a charity that transforms lives through art. He is collecting stories from people who have been forced to lie by payment for results. you can reach him at Twitter: @tobyjlowe

Categories Merit pay, Teacher Evaluations

Rick Hess: Why Race to the Top Failed

By dianeravitch
July 30, 2014 //
24

Among the conservatives who comment on education, Rick Hess is consistently the most thoughtful. I often disagree with him, for example, about choice and for-profit schooling. But I am often impressed by his thoughtfulness and pleasantly surprised by his willingness to question “reform” dogma.

Here is a column that is a great example of Rick’s insight. In it, he essentially concludes that Race to the Top failed because it told the states what to do instead of asking for their best ideas. He is not the first conservative to question this strategy. States are good at promising to comply with mandates but if their hearts are not in it, don’t expect much.

Rick wisely points out that Race to the Top imposed the Common Core standards and by doing so, fomented the eventual pushback and controversy. Because of Arne Duncan’s eagerness to boast of fast results, he created problems that he could not control. Rick says the same thing about teacher evaluation. Race to the Top forced all states eager for federal funds to adopt a new teacher evaluation program without knowing how to do it. Early returns show that 95% or more of teachers are rated “effective” or higher, so what was the point of the hundreds of millions spent to create those systems.

One might say much the same about Duncan’s beloved turnarounds. They have not produced much in the way of lasting, positive results.

Rick’s conclusion about the $4.35 billion spent on Race to the Top?

“The result: the sugar high that Race to the Top used to fuel reform in 2009 is likely to be undone, and then some, by the legacy of half-baked, federal compulsion.

“What President Obama termed “the most meaningful education reform in a generation” has proven, for my money, to be more a cautionary tale than a model.”

This has been a period of unprecedented turmoil in American schooling. Unless you are in love with the idea of disruption, as many reformers are, there is not much to celebrate.

Categories Common Core, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations

Jeff Bryant: Will Campbell Brown Replace Michelle Rhee as the Face of “Reform”?

By dianeravitch
July 30, 2014 //
31

Jeff Bryant wonders whether Campbell Brown will replace Michelle Rhee as the public face of “reform”? Bryant describes the movement as “Blame Teachers First.”

Bryant suspects that Rhee’s star is fading fast. Bryant describes her as “education’s Ann Coulter.” The lingering doubts about the Washington, D.C. cheating scandal never dissipate, and John Merrow’s latest blog about the millions that Rhee has paid to protect her image have not been enough to stop the slide. He notes that she never collected the $1 billion she predicted and that her organization is retreating from several states. Her biography bombed. She was unable to draw a crowd in many of the states where she claimed to have thousands of supporters. Bryant says she is yesterday’s news.

Campbell Brown is thus next in line to inherit the role as leader of the “Blame Teachers First” movement.

Bryant writes:

“With Rhee and StudentsFirst sinking under the weight of over-promises, under-performance, and unproven practices, the Blame Teachers First crowd is now eagerly promoting Campbell Brown.

“According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Brown launched the group Partnership for Educational Justice, with a Veraga-inspired lawsuit in New York State to once again dilute teachers’ job protections, commonly called “tenure.” The suit clams students suffer from laws “making it too expensive, time-consuming and burdensome to fire bad teachers.”

“An article in The Washington Post noted, “Brown has raised the issue of tenure in op-eds and on TV programs such as ‘Morning Joe.’ But she may be just getting warmed up.”

“Actually, Brown has already been warmed up and is plenty ready to take the mound and pitch. As the very same article noted, Brown started her campaign against teachers some time ago, claiming that the New York City teachers’ union was obstructing efforts to fire teachers for sexual misconduct. Unfortunately for Brown, the ad campaign conducted by her organization Parents Transparency Project failed to note that, as The Post article recalled, at least 33 teachers had indeed been fired. “The balance were either fined, suspended or transferred for minor, non-criminal complaints.” Oops.

“Further, as my colleague Dave Johnson recalled at the time, Brown penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal accusing the teachers’ union of “trying to block a bill to keep sexual predators out of schools.” It turned out, the union wanted to strengthen the bill, not stop it. Double oops.

“Nevertheless – or as The Post reporter put it, “undaunted” – Brown has now decided to take on teacher personnel policies on behalf of, she claims, “millions of schoolchildren being denied a decent education.”

Who is funding the new anti-teacher drive? Bryant describes the familiar organizations that promoted Rhee, such as TNTP, which Rhee founded, as well as Republican operatives.

He writes:

“What emerges from these interwoven relationships, then, is a big-money effort led by a small number of people who are intent on the singular goal of reducing the ability of teachers to have control of their work environments. But to what end?

“Regardless of how you feel about the machinations behind the Rhee-Brown campaign, what’s clear is that it is hell-bent on imposing new policies that have little to no prospect of addressing the problem they are purported to resolve, which is to ensure students who need the best teachers are more apt to get them.

“Research generally has found that experienced teachers – the targets for these new lawsuits – make a positive difference in students’ academic trajectory. A review of that research on the website for the grassroots group Parents Across America concluded, “Every single study shows teaching experience matters. In fact, the only two observable factors that have been found consistently to lead to higher student achievement are class size and teacher experience.”

The new campaign looks very much like the old campaign, with only this difference. Brown does not pretend to be a Democrat.

Categories Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

NAISON: What the BATs Told Duncan and His Staff

By dianeravitch
July 29, 2014 //
179

Wow! This post will knock your socks off, unless you work for the U.S. Department of Education. The post was written by Mark NAISON, one of the co-founders of the BATs. (I don’t know why, but my iPad always converts Mark’s last name into all-caps.)

The Badass Teachers Association held a rally outside the U.S. Department of Education on July 28, and several were invited to meet with staff at the Office of Civil Rights to air their grievances and see if they could find common ground. After some talk, some of which was contentious, Arne Duncan dropped in unexpectedly and joined the conversation, but said he would talk about only two subjects:

“Secretary Duncan after introducing himself, and saying that he could only stay for a few minutes, asked for two things; first if we could articulate our concerns about the Department’s policies on dealing with Special needs students, and secondly, if Shoneice and Asean could step out with him to talk about what was going on in Chicago.

“In response to his first comment, Marla Kilfoyle started speaking about her concerns about Department from her standpoint of the parent of a special needs student as well as a teacher. She said it appeared that Department policies were forcing school districts to disregard individual student IEP’s and exposing special needs students to inappropriate and abusive levels of testing.

“Secretary Duncan deflected her remarks by saying that the Department was concerned that too many children of color were being inappropriately diagnosed as being Special Needs children and that once they were put in that category they were permanently marginalized. He then said “We want to make sure that all students are exposed to a rigorous curriculum.”

“At that point, I interrupted him in a very loud voice and said “ We don’t like the word ‘rigor.” We prefer to talk about creativity and maximizing students potential.”

“Secretary Duncan was somewhat taken aback by my comments. He said “ we might disagree about the language, but what I want is for all students to be able to take advanced placement courses or be exposed to an IB (International Baccalaureat) curriculum.

“At this point, Larry Proffitt interrupted the Secretary and said that in Tennessee, Special Needs students were being abused and humiliated by abusive and inappropriate testing and that their teachers knew this, and were afraid to speak out.

“We were clearly at an impasse here, which the Secretary dealt with by saying he had to leave and asking Shoneice and Asean to step into the hall with him and continue the conversation.”

This is a small part of a fascinating report on the BATs meeting at the DOE. When people ask me why I support them, I say, “They speak truth to power.” Here is the proof. Too many educators are docile and compliant. They are not.

Please read the whole post.

Do you think that Arne Duncan really believes that the greatest need of students with disabilities is access to rigorous AP and IB courses?

Categories Closing schools, Privatization, Race to the Top, Special Education, Supporting public schools, Teacher Evaluations, U.S. education

Carol Burris: Poor Teacher Evaluation Systems Will Not Improve Education

By dianeravitch
July 29, 2014 //
19

Carol Burris, principal of south side High School in Rockville Center, New York, writes here about the multiple flaws of test-based teacher evaluations.

At an Ed Trust celebration, Duncan told the crowd, “But we can’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good. We can’t let the utopian become the enemy of the excellent. And we can’t let rhetorical purity become the enemy of rigorous practice.” I do not have any idea what the third admonishment means, but I doubt Arne needs to fear that his rhetoric is pure.

So it came as no surprise that when he spoke of Tennessee’s teacher evaluation plan, Mr. Duncan praised the state for “not letting the perfect become the enemy of the good”. The teachers of Tennessee, however, are not seeing the new system as “the good”—they are, for the second time, suing the state because the system is, in their eyes, arbitrary and flawed. And it is.

When it comes to the new teacher evaluation systems, it is not a dispute between perfect and good. We are now forbidding the good to be the enemy of the lousy. The use of students’ scores is becoming more and more indefensible. In New York State, teachers despise APPR, and it is equally unpopular among principals who, for the most part, see it as a headache that does nothing to improve teacher performance. Teacher and principal scores, by district, were supposed to be released in the winter. It is the end of July and they have not appeared. That is not a surprise. If they were released, it would be an embarrassment, especially for districts that actually tried to engage in the Las Vegas pursuit of predicting student growth from pre-tests to post-tests. The New York State Education Department is stalling, and Governor Cuomo is letting it happen.

There was one state, Massachusetts, that created a plan that was more sensible than most. It did not use numbers, but rather was rubric based. It was phased in over time and applied to everyone, including central administrators. But now that the time has come to phase in the test scores, the trouble begins.

In his July 17 memo to Superintendents and Charter School leaders, Commissioner Mitchell Chester states he is pleased that the Bay State has not chosen “an algorithmic approach,” only to later explain in detail the algorithm by which teachers should be evaluated by test scores. To go further down the path of the lousy, he explains how the state will generate growth scores from PARCC exams for participating schools, and then attempt to show “growth” from the prior year student MCAS scores. Please say it isn’t so. That is not a growth measure. That is comparing students with similar scores on one test with each other the following year on an entirely different test. New York did the same thing last year. Can you do it? Of course you can—there is very little that you cannot do with numbers. It is easy to create a formula that is intimidating enough that eyes will glaze over. But that does not make it valid, reliable, fair or useful. It will be one more silly system that will result in a lawsuit, no doubt.

Chiefs for Change, including State Superintendents Huffman and Skandera, took the NEA and AFT to task for having the guts to back away from the test-based teacher evaluation systems they once supported. They accused them of ‘evading accountability’ like horse thieves running from the posse. They wanted union leaders to sit compliantly with hands folded, in the face of mounting evidence that the test-score evaluation systems are not working. These Chiefs for ‘change at any cost’, do not understand. True accountability means having the courage to speak the truth when facts come to light, even when it contradicts what you once supported. To keep one’s mouth shut as the lousy marches forward is wrong.

Categories Duncan, Arne, Massachusetts, Teacher Evaluations, Tennessee

Columbia Scholar Says Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff Are Wrong About VAM

By dianeravitch
July 28, 2014 //
85

Moshe Adler, a professor at Columbia University, has emerged as one of the most incisive critics of the work of Raj Chetty, John Friedman, and Jonah Rockoff on Value-added measurement (VAM).

In the recent Vergara decision about tenure for teachers in California, the study by Raj Chetty and John Friedman of Harvard and Jonah Rockoff of Columbia played a prominent role. But according to the economist Moshe Adler the study is wrong and misleading. According to Adler, the authors suppressed a result that contradicts their main claim, they picked and chose which data sets to use, they used a misleading method of analysis that inflated their results and they misrepresented research that contradicts their claims as supporting them. These are just a few of the problems with the scientific integrity with the study. Adler wrote his review for the National Education Policy Center and it can found at: http://nepc.colorado.edu/newsletter/2014/06/adler-response-to-chetty)

A short time after the publication of his NEPC review, Adler received an email from Chetty that informed him that the study had been accepted for publication by the American Economic Review (AER). (Chetty also suggested that a Nobel Prize will likely follow!) Adler immediately wrote to the editors of the AER to alert them to the grave scientific problems with the study. The editor-in-charge did not evaluate Adler’s objections herself, nor did she send them to the referees to evaluate. Instead, she forwarded Adler’s letter to the authors who then replied to Adler’s NEPC review. The editor found this reply satisfactory, but as Adler explains in his response, Chetty’s et al.’s reply is without merit, and it only adds to the problems with the research. Chetty’s letter to Adler and Adler’s correspondence with the AER can be found at: http://www.columbia.edu/~ma820/Chetty%20Adler%20AER.htm

Categories Research, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure

Denver Teachers Suing District to Protest Forced Layoffs

By dianeravitch
July 27, 2014 //
18

In 2010, Colorado State Senator Michael Johnston took credit for a piece of legislation called Senate Bill 191, which he said would produce “Great Schools, Great Teachers, Great Principals.” Its main feature was tying teacher evaluation to their students’ scores, which counted for 50%. But it included other time bombs. One allowed districts to lay off teachers for various reasons. Now seven teachers and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association is suing.

One of those who lost her job was Cynthia Masters, a special-education teacher in a K-8 school. She was one of only 3,000 to lose their job.

“In the four years since the law was passed, nearly 3,000 DPS teachers have lost their positions due to what the district calls “reduction in building,” or RIB for short. The reasons that teachers are RIBed vary: Some lose their jobs because their schools are “turned around” or closed. Others are cut because school enrollment drops. In Masters’s case, she was RIBed due to a decrease in the number of special-ed students.

Of those 3,000 teachers, 1,240 had at least three years’ worth of positive evaluations, including Masters. And not all of them have been able to find new jobs. According to the law, still widely referred to as Senate Bill 191, RIBed teachers with three years of positive reviews — officially known as “nonprobationary” — who can’t find a position within a certain time frame are put on unpaid leave, a move that both unions believe violates the state constitution……”

“Brad Bartels, an attorney with the Colorado Education Association, says these teachers are victims of DPS’s brand of musical chairs. They didn’t lose their positions because they were bad teachers, he insists: “They just didn’t have a chair when the music stopped.”

“Seven DPS teachers and the DCTA have now sued the district. (The statewide CEA is representing the DCTA in the matter.) The lawsuit is a class action, and the plaintiffs represent several different classes, including all teachers in Colorado who were considered nonprobationary prior to the passage of Senate Bill 191 and all nonprobationary DPS teachers who were RIBed and ended up on unpaid leave.

“Westword spoke with five of the seven plaintiffs and found that they have several things in common: All are older than 45 and have good teaching records. Upon losing their positions, all five applied for hundreds of teaching assignments within DPS but, inexplicably to them, received just a few interviews. Only one managed to avoid being put on unpaid leave or being forced into early retirement.

“I applied for over 700 positions in the district,” says plaintiff Michelle Montoya, who got RIBed in the fall of 2010. “I thought, ‘I can deal with this. I’m going to go get a job. My skills are definitely needed.’ And I just never got a second interview.”

Will Senator Michael Johnston live long enough to declare that Colorado now has great teachers, great principals, great schools, thanks to Senate Bill 191?

Categories Colorado, Corporate Reformers, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

KrazyTA Deconstructs VAM and ASA

By dianeravitch
July 26, 2014 //
68

Our friend and frequent commenter KrazyTA has analyzed the response of the VAM Gang (Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff) to the American Statistical Association’s pithy demolition of their famous and much praised justification for VAM.

Here is his analysis:

I urge viewers of this blog to read the recent response by Raj Chetty (Harvard University), John Friedman (Harvard University) and Jonah Rockoff (Columbia University) to a statement by the American Statistical Association (ASA) [2014] on VAM.

A pdf file of same (less than five pages hard copy) can be accessed at—

Link: http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/ASA_discussion.pdf

The last paragraph of their response to ASA’s point #7 (p. 4):

“The ASA appropriately warns that “ranking teachers by their VAM scores can have unintended consequences that reduce quality.” In particular, it is possible that teachers may feel pressured to teach to the test or even cheat if they are evaluated based on VAMs. The empirical magnitude of this problem—and potential solutions if it turns out to be a serious concern—can only be assessed by studying the behavior of teachers in districts that have started to use VAMs.”

Immediately followed by the last paragraph of their response, in full (p. 4):

“In summary, our view is that many of the important concerns about VAM raised by the ASA have been addressed in recent experimental and quasi-experimental studies. Nevertheless, we caution that there are still at least two important concerns that remain in using VAM for the purposes of teacher evaluation. First, using VAM for high-stakes evaluation could lead to unproductive responses such as teaching to the test or cheating; to date, there is insufficient evidence to assess the importance of this concern. Second, other measures of teacher performance, such as principal evaluations, student ratings, or classroom observations, may ultimately prove to be better predictors of teachers’ long-term impacts on students than VAMs. While we have learned much about VAM through statistical research, further work is needed to understand how VAM estimates should (or should not) be combined with other metrics to identify and retain effective teachers.”

My initial reaction.

While they don’t use the term “Campbell’s Law” — IMHO, they are deliberately avoiding it — notice how they take the import and sweep of Campbell’s astute observation and reduce it to “responses such as teaching to the test or cheating” with the added proviso that “there is insufficient evidence to assess the importance of this concern.” *Note that in his testimony during the Vergara trial, Dr. Chetty on p. 547 casually dismissed this challenge to his VAM-based beliefs as “Campbell’s Conjecture.”*

Link: http://www.vergaratrial.com/storage/documents/2014.01.30_Rough_am_session.txt

This is critical. First, they reduce Campbell’s Law to a statement about individual morality and ethics—of the employees no less!—rather than something that involves whole institutions [e.g., the recent VA scandal or the Potemkin Villages of the now-vanished Soviet Union] and is created/mandated/enforced from the top down. Second, by doing so they avoid having to address the destructive effects of Management by the Numbers/Management by Objective/Management by Results, i.e., the very management philosophy of those funding their “research” and leading the charterite/privatization charge. Third, they literally discard the already large amount of evidence proving the accuracy and trustworthiness of Campbell’s Law re VAM [and its fuel/food, standardized test scores] by referring to it as “insufficient” — while their pronouncements, of course, even though they need “further work,” is the current Gold Standard.

So it is hardly surprising that they are hot and heavy for heading off potential problems in data corruption by “studying the behavior of teachers in districts that have started to use VAMs” when what is needed is to independently study, monitor and regulate the behavior of folks like administrators, school boards, heads of CMOs and charter owners/operators, the DOE, and those who employ people like Chetty, Freidman and Rockoff—they’re the ones that set the numerical goals/straightjackets that drive data corruption!

*While W. Edward Deming would come in handy here, someone else thought along the same lines: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” [Charles Goodheart]*

The next is a bit perplexing. Apparently they don’t know how to use google and Amazon to find (among many such works) Sharon L. Nichols and David C. Berliner, COLLATERAL DAMAGE: HOW HIGH-STAKES TESTING CORRUPTS AMERICA’S SCHOOLS (2010, third printing) or Phillip Harris, Bruce M. Smith and Joan Harris, THE MYTHS OF STANDARDIZED TESTING: WHY THEY DON’T TELL YOU WHAT YOU THINK THEY DO (2011). Perhaps they permit themselves no newspapers, internet, or television either, hence testing scandals such as those in Washington, DC and Houston, TX and Atlanta, GA (just to name a few) escaped their notice completely. Also, the above authors and many others, like Audrey Amrein-Beardsley (see her recent RETHINKING VALUE-ADDED MODELS IN EDUCATION: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON TESTS AND ASSESSMENT-BASED ACOUNTABILITY, 2014) can be contacted by email. Is it too much to ask of those claiming to be researchers that they take the time and make the effort to, er, get the contact information they need to make sure their research is done properly?

In their response to ASA point #7 they quote the ASA to the effect that “Most VAM studies find that teachers account for about 1% to 14% of the variability in test scores, and that the majority of opportunities for quality improvement are found in the system-level conditions. Ranking teachers by their VAM scores can have unintended consequences that reduce quality” (p. 3). The trio start off as best they can by stating that “The ASA is correct in noting that the majority of variation in student test scores is ‘attributable to factors outside of the teacher’s control,’ and that this ‘is not saying that teachers have little effect on students.’” Wait! You can read the rest for yourselves but a fly in the ointment—or the elephant in the room—when you’re in a debate is that when you concede the most critical point you lose the argument.

Since Chetty/Friedman/Rockoff didn’t dispute the 1% to 14% assertion then I would like to point out that I would be awfully interested in knowing why they’re ignoring the other 99% to 86%. Could it be that it’s poses intractable difficulties to their VAManiacal beliefs?

My very last point. Chetty/Friedman/Rockoff don’t understand that even under the most favorable circumstances, high-stakes standardized testing measures very little, is inherently imprecise, and is used for purposes so inappropriate to its few strengths that it needs to be junked. Take out of the Chetty/Friedman/Rockoff response those terms referring to “test scores” and the like and, well, the whole thing falls apart. Those “vain and illusory” [thank you, Duane Swacker!] numbers/stats are the glue that holds VAM together, the fuel that keeps VAM moving ahead, the food that sustains its very existence.

The Golem of VAM reverts to its inert form when you remove the magic of Testolatry.

Perhaps they should have taken that class in ancient Greece rather than Bean Counting For $tudent $ucce$$—

“I have often repented of speaking, but never of holding my tongue.” [Xenocrates]

Or if you prefer another very old, very dead and very Greek guy:

“Words empty as the wind are best left unsaid.” [Homer]

Take your pick. Odds are you won’t go wrong. [a numbers/stats joke…]

😎

P.S. I leave it to readers of this blog to read the triad’s response and make their own judgments and comments.

Categories Teacher Evaluations

Los Angeles: Court Rules that Public Has No Right to Know Job Ratings of Individual Teachers

By dianeravitch
July 24, 2014 //
79

Remember that the Los Angeles Times released the value-added ratings (made up by their own consultant) with the names of teachers in 2010?

 

Recently, the paper sued to get the ratings for three years-=-2009-2012. The LAUSD said it would release the ratings but not the names attached to them.

 

Yesterday a three-judge panel said the district did not need to release the names of the teachers with their ratings.

 

The public has no right to know the names of Los Angeles Unified School District teachers in connection with their job performance ratings, according to a court ruling issued Wednesday. In denying a request for disclosure by The Times, a three-judge state appellate court panel found that keeping the names confidential served a stronger public interest than releasing them. The panel overturned a lower court ruling ordering disclosure and rejected The Times’ assertion that the public interest of parents and others in knowing the ratings of identifiable teachers outweighed the interest in confidentiality.

 

Instead, the panel accepted L.A. school Supt. John Deasy’s contention that releasing the names would lead to resentment and jealousy among teachers, spur “unhealthy” comparisons among staff, cause some instructors to leave the nation’s second-largest school system, and interfere with teacher recruitment.

 

The judges said the specter of parents battling to place their children with the highest-performing teachers was of “particular concern.”

 

Is the rating based on test scores? Is it valid? Has anyone asked for the ratings of police or firefighters or other public employees?

 

Jim Ewert, general counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Assn., said the ruling was “unbelievable” and that accepting “conjecture” as evidence to deny public disclosure was “without precedent.”

“How a speculative declaration can rise to the level of clearly outweighing the public interest in disclosure is a mystery to me,” he said.

The Times sought three years of district data, from 2009 through 2012, that show whether individual teachers helped or hurt students’ academic achievement, as measured by state standardized test scores. L.A. Unified has provided the data but without the teacher names or their schools.

Using a complex mathematical formula, the district aims to isolate a teacher’s effect on student growth by controlling for such outside factors as poverty and prior test scores. The district sought to use the analysis in teacher evaluations but was resisted by the teachers union, which called it unreliable.

The court did not rule on the validity of the analysis, known in L.A. Unified as Academic Growth Over Time.

The judges did find that the public might have a right to know the schools where the anonymous teachers worked. They sent that issue back to the lower court for consideration.

 

Think about it. The LA Times published the names and ratings of individual teachers in 2010. Can anyone honestly assert that this data release improved the schools? Did it mean that the schools hired better teachers or that parents chose better teachers?

 

This is a thicket into which Race to the Top has led us, as districts and states across the nation use “value-added assessment” to measure the unmeasurable. No one has figured out how to make it work, but people continue to believe in it as if it were a magic talisman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Los Angeles, Teacher Evaluations

Chris Christie Reduces Impact of Test Scores on Teacher Evaluations

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2014 //
24

The word is getting out. Basing teacher evaluations on test scores is a sham. Or unpopular. Or junk science. Or Gates said not to do it.

 

Whatever the reason, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has announced that his state will cut back on the importance of test scores in evaluating teachers.

 

“Governor Christie announced the rollback Monday while ordering the creation of a commission to study the effectiveness and impact of all standardized tests given in the state.

The two actions came amid growing criticism of the new academic standards known as Common Core and the tests linked to them. Many parents have contended that too much testing is harmful to students. The teachers union has argued that the new exams have been rushed, that districts aren’t ready, and that it’s too soon to judge teachers on the results. Political conservatives — a key constituency for potential GOP presidential hopefuls like Christie — believe the standards are a federal intrusion in the classroom, and they have put pressure on governors to roll them back.

“This is an issue that is a national issue,” state Education Commissioner David Hespe said in an interview Monday. “We want to understand all the assessments that our children are taking. We want to know: Are they all necessary and can we do it better? I think the answer is yes.”

The rollback would minimize the impact of tests on teacher evaluations, making them worth 10 percent in the next school year instead of 30 percent. Their portion of teacher evaluations might increase to as much as 20 percent in the next two school years….

The New Jersey Education Association, which represents teachers, welcomed the compromise with the Christie administration.

“The NJEA believes this agreement is the best possible outcome, and it should lead to common-sense, research-based recommendations from the Study Commission,” said Wendell Steinhauer, president of the union.

He pointed to bills in the Senate and the Assembly that would delay the use of tests as teacher performance measures and to create a task force to examine the Common Core standards. Steinhauer said he believes the key reason for Christie’s concession was that the measure had wide public support, was overwhelmingly passed in the Assembly, and was poised to pass in the Senate — which could have forced a gubernatorial veto.

Steve Wollmer, communications director for the union, said the governor saw that the implementation would be a “train wreck” and could have led to greater problems.

In the practice rounds of testing this year, districts reported problems with technology. Parents feared that preparation for tests had dominated classroom instruction.

The commission created by Christie’s executive order will review the effectiveness of all K-12 tests used to assess student knowledge. The commission will look at volume, frequency and impact of student testing throughout New Jersey school districts.

Christie will appoint all nine commission members, who should have expertise or experience in education policy or administration, according to his order. The commission will issue an initial report with recommendations by Dec. 31, and a final report seven months later.

Hespe said the commission will check on whether tests can be used for multiple purposes and whether any are redundant.

Jean McTavish, a Ridgewood parent who had her children opt out of new standardized tests, said she remains skeptical of real change. She worried the tests led teachers to narrow the curriculum and teach to the test, and that liberal arts education was suffering as a result.

“Ultimately, I don’t think this is going to change much, but it’s a good thing people are going to learn more,” she said. “I anticipate this is going to be a long conversation about how best to educate our children.”

The task force will not review the effectiveness of the Common Core State Standards in general, as some critics had wanted. New Jersey adopted the standards in 2010 and was one of 44 states to do so.

The standards, developed with support from governors and business, created a uniform list of what students should learn in English and math by grade level. It was intended to raise standards and better prepare students for college. But controversy and complaints have prompted many states to pass laws in recent months to review or revoke standards.

Political conservatives have been among the harshest critics and have assailed Republicans who support the standards. Christie could face questions about his support for Common Core if he seeks the Republican Party nod for president.

In a press release, Christie touted his commitment to school spending, rigorous education and teacher effectiveness.

“Establishing this commission is just another step in ensuring we’re providing the best quality education possible to our students.”

 

Categories New Jersey, Teacher Evaluations
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