Michelle Rhee is on a national vendetta against teachers. According to an investigation by a special unit of Al Jazeera, Rhee has poured large sums into a campaign to attack unions and teachers in California, using the services of a politically powerful lobbyist in Sacramento.
Since there is no research to support her campaign to destroy unions and to eliminate due process from teachers, her crusade is either an ego trip or payback for her failure to crush the teachers in DC.
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Noted VAM expert Audrey Amrein-Beardsley explains why New York’s teacher evaluation system doesn’t work and why the release of results has been delayed:
She writes:
“One of the biggest drawbacks of such teacher evaluation systems is that they have literally no instrumental value; that is, no states across the country have yet figured out how to use these data for instrumental or change-based purposes, to inform the betterment of schools, teacher quality, and most importantly students’ learning and achievement, and no states yet have plans to make these data useful. These systems are 100% about accountability and a symbolic accountability more accurately that, again, has little to no instrumental value. No peer-reviewed studies, for example, have demonstrated that having these data actually improves, not to mention does much of anything for schools, since such data systems have been implemented. This is largely due to a lack of transparency in these systems, high levels of confusion when practitioners try to consume and use these data (many times because the data reported are far removed from the realities and content particulars they teach), and issues like this. Oftentimes, by the time teachers get their evaluation reports, students are well on their way in subsequent grades, and in this case almost onto two grade levels later.”
The following notice was sent to all teachers in Florida from the State Commissioner of Education, letting teachers know that their names and evaluations will be released to the media. Most teachers do not teach tested subjects and grades, so their ratings are based on the test scores of children they never taught.
This is Junk Science at its worst, another front in the battle to destroy public education and dismantle the teaching profession. No matter how many esteemed researchers say this is wrong, judging teachers by test scores–anyone’s test scores–is the battering ram of choice for the corporate reformers.
The only way to stop this juggernaut of destruction aimed at our nation’s teachers is to refuse to give the tests–not one teacher but entire schools.
Here is the letter:
As many of you know, we at the Department of Education have been fighting for you and for all teachers in an effort to maintain the confidentiality of teachers’ names and their individual value-added data.
We took on this fight because I believe the teacher-principal relationship for professional development is supported when evaluation information has a period of protection. Your work and dedication have helped to create a bright future for our state and our children, and I want to support that work in any way that I can.
Recently, the department – and our co-defendant, the Florida Education Association – lost a lawsuit filed by a news outlet to gain access to teachers’ individual value-added data. This data is calculated on behalf of school districts to complete their teacher and principal evaluations.
Later today, the department is providing these data, as required by the First District Court of Appeals, to the media who have requested it. We expect this information will be posted online and individual teacher names and value-added data will be publicly available.
The department will not post this information on its website, but is presenting answers to frequently asked questions and other information to the public at http://www.fldoe.org/profdev/studentgrowth.asp.
As a former teacher, I know that teaching is hard work. And, I’m confident that teachers in Florida are among the nation’s best in helping students succeed.
Growth in student achievement is an important part of an educator’s evaluation in Florida, which is the way it should be. As important as growth in student achievement is, our evaluation systems also include evidence of other important and essential aspects of teaching.
Despite being compelled to release this information after mounting our best legal efforts to protect the confidentiality of teachers’ information, we remain encouraged and feel that we have an opportunity in front of us.
We are encouraged because through this information, we can celebrate the achievement of Florida educators – the teachers who have led students to success in their classrooms, as well as the programs that trained those teachers, the school and district leaders who supported them, and the families and communities who trusted them.
We also feel we have an opportunity because when we look at the data, we can see where we should allocate our resources and attention to continue improving.
While releasing these data as a public record is not our chosen path to increase its usefulness, we will make this an opportunity to improve communication and understanding about what these data can – and cannot – tell us, and how they support better decision-making when analyzed in combination with other information about teaching and learning.
And, that is what we as professional educators are all about: improving teaching and learning. Until every teacher in every child’s classroom in every school has all the support and expertise necessary to add maximum value over the course of a year, we cannot rest.
Our work together on this will not be slowed. We do this work with the support of Governor Scott, whose budget proposal includes a record amount for Florida’s schools including over $8 million for the express purpose of providing the professional development school leaders need to improve student achievement. And, we do so with the support of our State Board of Education that is constantly focused on the best policies to help teachers and students succeed.
I look forward each day to our continued work to ensure Florida’s students receive a high-quality education so they may succeed in college, career and life. Thanks again for all you do each and every day.
Sincerely,
Commissioner Pam Stewart
Florida Department of Education
NEA, the larger of the nation’s two teacher unions, never ceases to surprise.
In December 2011, Dennis Van Roekel co-authored an article in USA Today with Wendy Kopp of Teach for America, expressing their agreement on how to improve the preparation of teachers. Needless to say, the article provoked outrage among some NEA members, especially those who rightly see TFA as a placement agency for inexperienced, ill-trained youngsters who provide staff for a growing number on non-union schools.
Now NEA has announced a new partnership with the Gates-funded Teach Plus, which advocates for the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers. Its model is Colorado’s SB 191, one of the nation’s harshest laws, where student test scores count for 50% of a teacher’s evaluation. Bear in mind that evaluating teachers by the scores of their students has been shown by researchers to be inaccurate and to punish teachers whose classes include the neediest students. See here and here, for example.
Mercedes Schneider here explains why Teach Plus is a strange bedfellow for NEA.
She assumes that the teachers’ union wanted “a seat at the table” by aligning with an organization that is deeply embedded in the corporate reform movement. She warns that the union and experienced teachers will be “at the table,” but they will not have a seat. They will be on the serving platter.
One of our Marion’s leading experts on teacher evaluation, Audrey Amrein Beardsley, here evaluates Michelle Rhee’s efforts to promote her failed ideas in South Carolina.
Rhee trots out her familiar rhetoric about bad teachers and failing schools in one of the nation’s poorest states, urging them to buy her snake oil. Will they buy? Or will they do some research?
The Vergara trial is an effort by a wealthy tech entrepreneur to win a judgment that any due process rights for teachers harms the civil rights of minority students.
The defense (the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers) called Harvard professor Susan Moore Johnson to testify. Johnson is one of the nation’s leading authorities on the teaching profession. Plaintiffs’ lawyer attempted to rattle her by asking narrow questions about California law and pointing out that she had studied only one district in California, as though the laws there operate in a vacuum. Here is an account from a corporate reform source.
In contrast, the following was sent by a colleague with access to the trial transcript:
“Diane –
“I wanted to let you know that Susan Moore Johnson testified on Tuesday at the Vergara trial. Her testimony was rock star stuff because of her credentials and I thought it’s worth sharing with you for your blog. The plantiff’s tried to say that she wasn’t very qualified to testify because she had only studied a few districts in California directly in the course of her work on the issues that the trail was about. They also admitted that income inequality, poverty and other issues were at play in high poverty schools but they said those things are irrelevant because they only want to focus on taking away teachers rights. You can see some quotes below.
“In Vergara v. California, evidence won the day. Dr. Susan Moore Johnson took the stand on February 18 and 19, using a lifetime of experience and research to back up her testimony that due process allows teachers to do their best work.
“Some highlights from her testimony:
“Due process allows teachers to do their best work: “It’s essential that the people who work with students, primarily the teachers, are able to do their best work, and that means that the conditions of their work have…to ensure that they have the resources they need, the time they need and the conditions they need to teach well.”
“Better working conditions mean greater student improvement: “When we took the data from the surveys and identified the schools that were rated as very favorable working environments, favorable working environments, unfavorables, and we linked that to student achievement using a student growth measure which is used in the state of Massachusetts, we found that student improvement was greater in schools where teachers reported better working conditions.”
“Laws around tenure, seniority and due process help retain good teachers: “Teachers remain in schools where there are strong and effective principals who deal fairly with them and with students and create environments where they can do their best work. Teachers want to be able to teach effectively, and schools that enable them to do that are schools where they will stay. And that’s regardless of the income level of the school.”
“Interestingly, during her testimony, the plaintiff’s lawyer admitted that there were other factors of inequity at play. He said, “”[T]here are other things that can contribute – like racism, etc. That is not relevant.”
“Bottom line:
“Parents, teachers and students are fed up with the inequities that too often plague our classrooms. Schools are under- and unfairly funded. Classrooms are overcrowded. Segregation is still a reality, decades after Brown v Board of Education. Some kids come to school hungry. Others leave with no home to go to.
“If those who brought this case really cared about making a difference for kids, they’d be working with trachrs and parents to find and implement evidence-based solutions – early childhood education, small classes, project-based learning, wraparound services, professional development, fair funding formulas and more.
“Blaming teachers’ work conditions for the inequities in public education is a misdirected, ideological argument.”
Good news!
The Washington State Senate, rejecting federal bribes and threats, voted NO to evaluating teachers by student test scores. The fact that this method has failed wherever it was tried may have influenced their decision. Also, the state senators may have been aware of the research showing the utter failure of this way of evaluating teachers, which reflects who was in the class, not teacher quality.
Sorry, Arne!
Here is the story:
“OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Education officials say the state will be limited in the way it can spend about $44 million in federal dollars after the Senate on Tuesday turned down a proposal that would have mandated the use of statewide standardized tests in educators’ evaluations.
“Senate Bill 5246, which failed by a 28-19 vote, would have revised the state’s new teacher-principal evaluation system to accommodate a demand from the federal government to mandate using statewide standardized tests as a factor in evaluations.
“Washington state has a waiver from provisions of the so-called No Child Left Behind law. It could lose the waiver and some federal money by not changing the current law, which only suggests the tests be used in evaluations instead of mandating them.
“Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, D-Bothell, said she voted against the bill because using state tests to measure student growth has not been proven to be an effective way to judge teachers.
“Nationwide we are a leader in the teacher-principal evaluation system,” she said. “Why would we allow the federal government to break a system that is working?”
Another great column from Myra Blackmon in the Athens (Georgia) Banner-Herald, explains the education industry and its obsession with data.
She writes:
“Some folks believe that if you can’t quantify something, it isn’t worth bothering with. People in power are often so obsessed with the data, the numbers, and the profits they often lose sight of the people behind the information.
Such is the case with the massive educational “evaluation” being pushed by so-called reformers. Many of these high-level reformers — Bill Gates, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others — know little or nothing about teaching and learning in our public schools. Bill Gates’ children attended Lakeside Academy in Seattle, where tuition approaches $30,000 a year. One of Michael Bloomberg’s daughters was featured in a documentary “Born Rich” about growing up with tremendous wealth.”
PS: the editors should note that Bill Gates put $200 million into the Common Core standards, not $200,000 (which would be chicken feed for Gates).
Anthony Cody is steamed that Bill Gates was invited to be a keynote speaker for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. He knows that Gates will praise them and make them feel good.
But, beware, he says.
No one has done more to damage the profession of teaching than Bill Gates. Cody cites word-for-word the insulting and vacuous comments Gates has made in print and in lectures that undermine teacher professionalism.
No one has done more to foist an obsession with standardized testing on the nation’s children than Bill Gates.
As Cody observes,
“I know that the level of saturation that Gates and his money has achieved make his influence almost like the air that we breath. For that reason, it is all the more important to have a sober assessment of this reality. Scientist Carl Sagan wrote some years ago,
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.
“Bill Gates is a charlatan as far as education is concerned. He has discarded the expertise of educators as if it were trash, because it did not align with his concept of how learning ought to be measured and improved. In its place, he has fostered a worship of almighty data. He will come to the National Board singing the praises of accomplished teachers, because he wants to bring leading educators to his side, even as he devalues their expertise and autonomy.”
Now, if he agrees to subject his own children to the same data-driven regime he is imposing on the nation’s children, we might take him seriously. But we won’t hold our breath for that to happen.
Teacher John Thompson here brilliantly and cogently dissects the efforts of the Billionaire Boys Club to eliminate due process rights for teachers in California.
This post examines testimony in the infamous Vergara case, where a fabulously wealthy tech entrepreneur has engaged a top legal team to argue that “bad” teachers are causing low test scores. Tom Kane of Harvard and Gates is a star witness for the plaintiffs, and Thompson does a great job of showing that his claims don’t match the evidence. Kane even quotes Campbell’s Law, which warns about the dangers of high-stakes testing. Doesn’t that invalidate the case for the plaintiffs?
Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive…
The billionaires no doubt hope that a victory in the Vergara case in a strong union state will provide a national precedent to enable them to destroy teachers’ unions wherever they still exist and to eliminate teachers’ due process rights nationwide, even in non-union states.
This case has nothing to do with improving education or protecting children and everything to do with dismantling the teaching profession and cutting costs.
Diane Ravitch's blog 