Archives for category: Teacher Evaluations
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Stuart Egan: Sanders’ EVASS Has Lost in Court, But NC Won’t Let It Go

By dianeravitch
March 24, 2019 //
14

 

 

William Sanders was an agricultural statistician who developed a secret, patented formula for measuring teacher effectiveness. It’s call EVASS. It was tossed out by a Houston judge who said it was wrong to judge teachers by a secret algorithm that they could neither examine nor question.

As Stuart Egan reports, North Carolina clings to EVASS, no matter how many times it has been discredited (by scholars such as Audrey Amerein-Beardsley) or by courts that findit arbitrary and inscrutable.

Want to understand how teachers in North Carolina are evaluated?

Egan writes:

“Actually, the chain is from a .gov to a .org to a .com.”

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

Sarasota Superintendent: Give Teachers Bonuses!

By dianeravitch
March 17, 2019 //
12

 

The Superintendent of Sarasota County in Florida notes that the state is offering bonuses of $9,000 to “highly effective” teachers, and two-thirds of teachers in his county are “highly effective.” The actual number, he says, might be even higher.

The ratings are based mainly on test scores, although most teachers don’t teach the subjects tested annually. Bonuses do not count towards pensions.

Surely, the Governor doesn’t want to give big bonuses to most teachers.

Florida ranks about 46th in the nation in teachers’ salaries.

The Governor and State Commissioner Richard Corcoran announced their plans to the state’s 67 Superintendents.

Bowden: Legislative priorities have great impact on schools and teachers

Prior to the opening session of the Legislature, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed three education-related executive orders on key topics — the elimination of Common Core standards, a Jobs of the Future initiative and improved safety and security in our schools.

In addition, Commissioner of Education Richard Corcoran noted priorities for his office that include teacher bonuses as part of the Best and Brightest program; tuition forgiveness programs for new teachers; Base Student Allocation (BSA) increases and a continued commitment to the Safe Schools program.

Sarasota County Schools…are closely monitoring proposed changes to the Best and Brightest bonus program that has significant impact to teachers in our school district. Currently, the Best and Brightest program provides annual bonuses of $800 for teachers earning an “effective” rating and $1,200 for “highly effective” teachers. In addition, there is another $6,000 for highly effective teachers with an SAT or ACT score at the 80th percentile and above.

Governor DeSantis has proposed to replace the current program with a single $9,000 bonus for highly effective teachers serving at a school whose state grade rose by at least 1 percent and eliminate the SAT/ACT requirement.

Although there are many drawbacks to compensating teachers using bonuses, a $9,000 bonus to recognize the best teachers in our school district is a significant reward. It is clear the state wants to circumvent the collective bargaining process by offering these bonuses, which are not subject to collective bargaining.

The school district and the teachers union are charged with developing a Teacher Evaluation System that identifies teachers as highly effective, effective, developing/needs improvement or unsatisfactory. The state would then use these marks to compensate teachers with a bonus according to their score.

In 2017-18, approximately 67 percent of our teachers were rated highly effective based on the current evaluation system. There are many more teachers in our school district worthy of a highly effective rating; however, the current evaluation system rates them lower.

If the union were to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement and work with district leaders to develop a new and improved evaluating system before the end of the school year, more teachers would be eligible for the $9,000 bonus this year as recommended by the governor — that’s a significant bonus!

Sarasota County Schools is blessed to have incredibly dedicated teachers who work to inspire our students every day. They deserve to be recognized and compensated to the fullest extent possible based on state requirements.

I am hopeful the school district and union officials can come to the table soon as both contracts are set to expire at the end of this school year. The goal is to reward our teachers and classified staff for their hard work and dedication.

In addition, I hope we can join forces to effect positive change in Tallahassee as the Legislature works to create fundamental adjustments to the education system.

I look forward to continued conversations with state leaders, school superintendents and the union to help our A-rated school district be even more effective for our students, staff and community.

Dr. Todd Bowden is the superintendent of Sarasota County Schools.

https://www.heraldtribune.com/opinion/20190317/bowden-legislative-priorities-have-great-impact-on-schools-and-teachers

Categories Florida, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay

D.C.: Teachers Unfairly Terminated by Michelle Rhee Win $5 Million Settlement: VICTORY!

By dianeravitch
March 8, 2019 //
62

The Washington Teachers Union won a long-standing battle with the D.C. public schools caused by the unfair implementation of Michelle Rhee’s teacher evaluation program called IMPACT.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/04/AR2010080406934_pf.htmlhttps://www.dclabor.org/home/wtu-settles-excessed-teachers-case

https://www.dclabor.org/home/wtu-settles-excessed-teachers-case

 

 

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, hailed the settlement:

 

WASHINGTON—AFT President Randi Weingarten issued the following statement after the Washington Teachers’ Union reached a landmark settlement with District of Columbia Public Schools over teachers terminated by former Chancellor Michelle Rhee:

“This settlement doesn’t take away the hurt and shame Michelle Rhee inflicted on so many great D.C. teachers—but after a long fight, it is a small step toward vindication for those who suffered from her top-down, test-and-punish policies that have failed both the arbitrator’s test and the test of time.

“Instead of helping teachers get what students need, Rhee embarked on a blame-and-shame campaign that was as ineffective as it was indefensible. There is a straight line between the Rhee agenda—which tried to strip educators of any voice and dignity and reduced students to test scores and teachers to algorithms—to the current walkouts in which educators are fighting for an appropriate investment in public schools. Teachers fight for what students need. That is as true now as it was when Michelle Rhee denigrated their voice.

“What happened a decade ago still stings, but the teachers in Washington, D.C., who were wrongly fired will take some measure of comfort from this settlement; and their unions will continue to fight to make sure the wrong-headed mentality that pitted students against their teachers never arises again.”

Background

The Washington Teachers’ Union, an AFT affiliate, has reached a settlement with District of Columbia Public Schools over the union’s grievance involving teachers “excessed” in 2010. The overall value of the settlement agreement is more than $5 million.

Under the settlement agreement, each teacher who was terminated by DCPS as a result of this “excessing” will be entitled to monetary compensation.
Categories District of Columbia, Justice, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers

Mark Simon: Can the Schools of D.C. Recover from More Than a Decade of Failed Reforms?

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2019 //
40

“

Mark Simon, a former teacher and current parent activist in D.C., is hopeful that the District is ready to reverse the failed policies launched by Michelle Rhee in 2007.

The district is under mayoral control, which itself is a failed structure that bears no relationship to improving schools. The mayor chose Lewis Ferebee as the new chancellor, who arrives with a reputation as a privatizer who aided in closing public schools in Induanapolis, which has been a target for the Disruption Movement.

Simon writes:

“The experiment of tying teachers’ evaluations and pay to student test scores is over. It captured the imagination of decision-makers in D.C., Denver and nationwide a decade ago. As Post columnist David Von Drehle pointed out, the demand to end the experiment motivated a citywide strike in Denver. An “innovation” when it began in 2006 has become what Von Drehle called “an anachronism.”…

“Acting D.C. Chancellor Lewis Ferebee, responding to questions at his nomination hearing before the D.C. Council this month, acknowledged he was brought to Indianapolis by reformers to be the disrupter of neighborhood schools. That’s not how he wants to be seen now. He’s spent the past two months listening to parents, principals, teachers and students, and he’s learned a lot.

“If policymakers pay close attention to what teachers, parents and students are saying, the District may stumble into insights to fix teacher turnover and tackle school instability. At public hearings, demoralized parents and teachers say teacher and school ratings over which they have little control feel inaccurate. Standardized test scores are driven by factors outside school, including the socioeconomic background of students and the quality of neighborhood assets, more than by what takes place in classrooms.

“Ferebee admitted that teacher turnover is a big problem in the District. He wants to take another look at the Impact evaluation system and the short-leash one-year contracts given principals. He’s heard there’s a culture of fear in schools. Teachers and principals are afraid to exercise their judgment or say what they think. He heard the District may, by design, have created a school system in which respectful relationships of trust have been undermined. In the rush to fix the outcome data on a few narrow indicators — test scores, graduation rates, attendance — we may have jeopardized the heart of what defines good teaching and what parents want from great schools.

“Listening to the questions D.C. Council members and the legions of public witnesses asked Ferebee, it’s clear that the tide has turned. There is a broad consensus that we need a correction in education reform in the District. Regardless of whether Ferebee gets confirmed as chancellor, the nominee, his overseers on the D.C. Council and teachers and parents who have lived through almost two years of scandals seem to have reached the same conclusions. The metrics used to judge schools and teachers have lost credibility. The voices of teachers and parents are starting to have newfound respect.

“I recently watched an amazing prekindergarten teacher, Liz Koenig, and her daughters, ages 2 and 4, at an EmpowerEd meeting. EmpowerEd was created two years ago by classroom teachers in D.C. Public Schools and the charter sector to elevate teacher voices and relational trust in each school and citywide. I watched Koenig as she allowed her daughters to make decisions while providing subtle feedback, building a sense of agency. It struck me that great teaching — the talent to nurture a child’s development — is personal, interactive and requires tremendous skill. I’ve seen the adoring letters from her students’ parents. She’s beloved. Teachers at her school voted her “best of staff.” So, it was a shock this week when we found out that the Bridges Public Charter School administrators have told her not to come back in the fall. It had nothing to do with the quality of her teaching, they said. The unspoken message was that charter operators are accountable only to the metrics that rate them as Tier 1, 2, or 3. There’s something wrong in DCPS and the charter sector when teachers are expendable.

“Teachers and public education have been subjected to one failed experiment after another over the past decade. It’s time to get back to measuring teachers and schools by the things that make them valuable and to admit that the past 10 years may have led us in some wrong directions. Schools are best measured by what parents, teachers and students say they’ve experienced: the learning culture.

“According to University of Massachusetts professor Jack Schneider, who spoke at a public Senior High Alliance of Principals, Parents and Educators meeting at the Columbia Heights Education Campus attended by the deputy mayor for education and other elected officials last month, there are excellent climate surveys of parents, teachers and students that should be on D.C.’s school report card, overseen by the state superintendent of schools on the My Schools DC website. Instead, most of the simplistic five-star rating is derived from the PARCC test.

“Teachers should be tapped and retained because they create a love of learning and change students’ lives — not just their standardized test scores. If we learn the lessons of this moment, and it looks as if there’s a good chance we are starting to, the District’s education future looks bright.”

Friends, the Corporate Reform Movement is dying.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Denver, District of Columbia, Education Industry, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, VAM

Aaron Pallas: The Problem with New York’s “New” Teacher Evaluation Law

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2019 //
13

The New York legislature passed a law shifting teacher evaluation to districts. The law does not prevent linking teacher evaluations to student test scores. It allows districts to choose the tests, subject to the approval of the state commissioner.

The state and NYC teachers’ unions are happy with the bill.

The leaders of Opt Out say it’s a hoax. They say it shifts the responsibility to evaluate teachers by high-stakes tests from the state to districts. This “change” is no change.

Pallas explains.

Categories New York, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

New York: NYSAPE Protests Legislative Effort to Lock in Test-Based Teacher Evaluation

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2019 //
12

The New York legislature pretended to kill VAM by passing legislation that shifts responsibility for teacher evaluation from the state to local districts. But the new law is old wine in a new bottle. It still requires that 50% of teachers’ evaluation must be based on test scores. This practice was denounced by a judge in New York, who called it “arbitrary and capricious.” This practice was rebuked by the American Statistical Association, which said it was invalid for individual teachers. This practice has been enjoined by judges in Houston and New Mexico.

New York State Allies for Public Education, the group that has led the wildly successful opt-out movement, issued the following statement today.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 21, 2019
More information contact:
Lisa Rudley (917) 414-9190; nys.allies@gmail.com
Jeanette Deutermann (516) 902-9228; nys.allies@gmail.com
NYS Allies for Public Education – NYSAPE

NYSAPE Urges Legislators to Vote NO to APPR Bill that Will Permanently Link High-Stakes Testing to Teacher and Principal Evaluations

This week, the NYS Assembly and Senate are expected to pass a teacher/principal evaluation bill that will amend the way NYS evaluates teachers and principals. Parents and educators who have taken a stand against the damaging effects of high-stakes testing vehemently oppose this legislation. Rather than the minor tweaks proposed in this legislation, we demand an immediate end to the mandated use of student test scores and student performance measures in the evaluation of educators and the closure of schools. Parents and Educators implore lawmakers to slow down and do further research. Please Take Action and write to your legislators in Albany to stop this speeding train!

Contrary to the claims of some supporters of the legislation, a close examination of the bills indicates that they continue to link teacher evaluations to student growth as measured by test scores and give the state education commissioner the power to shut down or take over schools based on state test results.

Reports of “decoupling” test scores from teacher evaluations are misleading and do not tell the whole truth. The proposed legislation does nothing to dismantle the current test-and-punish system. Under the proposed legislation, a district is no longer mandated to use the flawed grades 3-8 state assessments for evaluative purposes. However, districts must still use some type of test to evaluate teachers and principals.

How would this legislation work? School districts would still be required to administer all state assessments, but would have a choice between using the grades 3-8 state assessments for teacher evaluation or a different test altogether. If a district chooses not to use the grades 3-8 state assessments, the district must then select a separate assessment (often in addition to state exams) to be used in their evaluation plan. In addition to doubling down on high-stakes testing, the proposed legislation will logically lead to even MORE testing for students.

Despite the American Statistical Association and the National Science Foundation’s conclusion that evaluating teachers based on their students’ test scores produces statistically invalid results and does not improve learning outcomes, these bills ensure that 50% of teacher and principal evaluations will continue to be based on student assessments. This is hardly a victory. (For more on the 50% issue, see this article.)
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Bianca Tanis, special education teacher and public school parent said, “I am disappointed by the misinformation campaign surrounding these bills. They perpetuate the same junk science that forces educators to teach to a test. At the end of the day, there is nothing about this legislation that is pedagogically sound.”

“Many professional organizations representing educators and stakeholders have expressed serious misgivings. The legislators must take the time to do further research and make an informed decision,” said Lisa Rudley, Westchester County public school parent, Ossining School Board member, and founding member of NYSAPE.

“We understand that some support of this legislation focuses on local control and the ability of school districts and local unions to choose their own tests for evaluation plans through collective bargaining. However, these bills put the burden of evaluating a teacher squarely on the backs of children through test performance. An evaluation system that pressures children and ignores research is reckless and morally flawed,” said Jeanette Deutermann, leader of Long Island Opt Out.

“The receivership component of the law means schools can be closed because a handful of students perform poorly on state tests. The stakes attached to these exams have never been higher. In no way does it help teachers become better at their jobs or schools to improve. This legislation does not even come close to decoupling high-stakes testing from the ways we evaluate our teachers and schools,” said Kemala Karmen, co-founder of NYC Opt Out.

Education historian Diane Ravitch points out, “The current teacher evaluation law (APPR) was passed to make New York eligible for federal funding from the Race to the Top program in 2010. Under this law, 97% of teachers in the state were rated either effective or highly effective. The law is ineffective. It should be wholly repealed, rather than amended as proposed. Let the state continue setting high standards for teachers and let local districts design their own evaluation plans, without requiring that they be tied to any sort of student test scores.”

Jamaal Bowman, Bronx middle school principal, said, “It is time to bring together parents, scholars, students, doctors, educators, and all who care about our children to create policy that equitably nurtures the brilliance in every child. Why are we still discussing teachers and standardized tests without discussing the toxic stress that greatly harms our children daily, and the lack of opportunity that exists for so many children across the state?”

“The entire idea of basing teacher evaluations on student growth is not only invalid, it is destructive. It alters the relationship between students and teachers–poorly performing students become a threat to job security. Districts will create new metrics that are just as unreliable and invalid as those based on the grades 3-8 test scores and Regents exams,” said Carol Burris, Executive Director of the Network for Public Education and a former New York State High School Principal of the Year.

“The day has come to call on all legislators to legislate and for all educators to educate. We need our legislators to stay out of the way when it comes to creating educational policy, especially when it has to do with evaluating teachers and principals. We need to bring trust back into the educational space. It all starts with trust, and we must trust the fact that using any test score to evaluate an educator is not only wrong, it’s just bad practice,” said Dr. Michael Hynes, Patchogue Medford School District.

The parents and educators in NYS who voted in this new legislative body are relying on them to slow down and take the necessary time to enact research-based legislation that will protect children, educators, and local control.

Please Take Action and write legislators in Albany to stop this speeding train!

NYSAPE is a grassroots coalition with over 50 parent and educator groups across the state.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Hoax, New York, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, VAM

New York: Will Elia Punish Opt Out Schools?Will Legislature Return Teacher Evaluation to Districts?

By dianeravitch
January 17, 2019 //
5

Peter Goodman has been covering New York State and city education politics for many years.

In this post, he reports that Commissioner MaryEllen Elia is planning to punish schools that have high opt out numbers, treating them as”failing schools” even though they include some of the highest performing schools in the state.

Elia is out of control. She doesn’t know how to listen but she sure knows how to crack the whip.

On the teacher evaluation front,Goodman reports that the Legislature is prepared to turn the issue back to districts. It’s fair to say that the Legislature’s efforts to base teacher evaluation on test scores and computer algorithms has been a disaster.

Uncertain: even as teacher evaluation is returned to districts, Will it still be based on test scores, a measure proven to be flawed and inaccurate?

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Failure, New York, Opt Out, Parent Groups, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Arizona: Why Teachers Are Leaving Their Classrooms and Hard to Replace

By dianeravitch
December 31, 2018 //
19

Linda Lyon, recent President of the Arizona SchoolBoards Association, describes the low funding and legislative hostility that has created a teacher shortage in Arizona. The legislature’s answer to the teacher shortage: lower standards to fill empty classroom.

Pay is not the only reason teachers are fleeing classrooms. They also cite inadequate public respect and increased accountability without appropriate support. In Arizona specifically, contributing factors include 25% of our certified teachers being retirement eligible, a grading system for schools that still relies heavily on standardized tests, a GOP-led Legislature that is very pro-school choice if not openly hostile to public district education and their teachers, and the lack of respect for the teaching profession demonstrated by the dumbing down of teacher qualification requirements.

Arizona began this dumbing down in 2017. According to AZCentral.com, since the 2015–2016 school year, “nearly 7,200 teaching certificates have been issued to teachers who aren’t fully trained to lead a classroom. In just three years, the number of Arizona teaching certificates that allow someone to teach full-time without completing formal training has increased by more than 400 percent according to state Department of Education data analyzed by The Arizona Republic. For the 2017–18 school year, that added up to 3,286 certificates issued to untrained teachers and by 47 days into the 2018–2019 school year, 1,404 certificates had been issued to untrained teachers while 3,141 were issue standard certificates.”

That last 1,404 certificates issued for the current school year is probably the most instructive, because this is after the 10 percent raises for teachers the #RedforEd movement garnered in 2018. So, less than one-third of the way into the school year, the state has issued almost half as many certificates to untrained teachers as the entire previous year. In other words, despite the 10% pay increase, Arizona districts are having even more difficulty attracting professional teachers into their classrooms.

Categories Arizona, Funding, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage

Laura Chapman on the Triple Disasters of Federal Policy: NCLB, RTTT, and ESSA

By dianeravitch
December 21, 2018 //
15

Laura Chapman responded to this post about the nil effects of NCLB:

She writes:

“The biggest lie was NCLB. The second biggest lie was Race to the Top. The third biggest lie is ESSA.”

NCLB was the template for what followed. I wrote about that jargon-filled fiasco as a heads up to colleagues working in arts education who did not know what hit them.

Race to the Top was the double whammy with a propaganda mill called the “Reform Support Network” designed to intimidate teachers who failed to comply. USDE outsourced the problem of compliance to people who did not know what to do with this fact: About 69% of teachers had job assignments untethered to statewide tests. The hired hands working for the Reform Support Network offered several absurd solutions. Among these were the idea that teacher should be evaluated on school-wide scores for subjects they did not teach (e.g., math, ELA) and that a writing assignment called SLOs (student learning objectives) should function as a tool for evaluation.

The SLO writing assignment required teachers to specify and predict gains in the test scores of their students from the beginning to the end of the year. Teachers were graded on their SLOs and up to 25 criteria had to be met for writing a “proper” SLO. That absurdity has been marketed since 1999, first in a pay-for-performance scheme for Denver conjured by William Slotnick (Master’s in Education, Harvard). There is no evidence to support the use of SLOs for teacher evaluation. Even so, this exercise is still used in Ohio, among other states.

ESSA is like NCLB in that the high stakes tests are still there, but they are surrounded with legalese about state “flexibility.” Some parts of ESSA calls for de-professionalizing the work of teacher education (see Title II, Section SEC. 2002).

ESSA became the federal law before our current ten-yacht owner and avowed Christian missionary, Betsy Devos, was appointed to be in charge of the Department of Education.

Devos’ incompetence delayed and then mangled the “approval” of required ESSA “state plans“ for this school year, 2018-2019. In the meantime, groups that championed NCLB and Race to the Top publicized their own ratings of ESSA plans (e.g., Bellwether Education Partners, Achieve, and the Collaborative for Student Success). The Collaborative for Student Success is funded by the Bloomberg Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, ExxonMobil, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and The Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation–none friends of public education.

I think that compliance checks on ESSA, if any, will be outsourced and that the still pending federal budget will confirm the ten-yacht Education Secretary’s’ real priorities—choice and some of the increasingly weird things recently on her mind.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Education Industry, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Stupid, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

New York Post: Bring Back “Junk Science”!

By dianeravitch
December 13, 2018 //
18

Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post has an editorial chastising the New York Board of Regents for failing to reactivate the value-added method of evaluating teachers by the test scores of their students.

Whoever wrote the editorial is ignorant of the fact that the American Statistical Association warned against the use of this method or the RAND-AIR report that found zero benefit from the Gates Foundation’s investment in districts that used this method.

This teacher-blogger reminds readers that a New York Judge already labeled this method “junk Science.”

Categories New York, Teacher Evaluations, VAM (value-added modeling)
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