Archives for category: Teacher Evaluations
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Students at Elite HS in NYC Boycott Tests

By dianeravitch
October 31, 2013 //
13

Students at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, a school that accepts only students that have high scores on their entry examinations, boycotted the latest tests to protest their purpose. The students knew that the tests had no purpose other than to evaluate their teachers, and they thought the tests were not only a waste of students’ time but unfair to their teachers.

Geoff Decker of Gotham Schools writes:

A group of students at the elite high school in lower Manhattan pledged to opt out of the English tests that were administered today, saying they’re opposed to the exam’s purpose. The tests are low-stakes for students, but they’ll be used to grade teachers on new evaluations being rolled out this year.

“This movement is meant to support Stuyvesant teachers in opposing an unfair teacher evaluation system,” Senior David Cahn wrote on the Facebook page he created to encourage other students to join in.

Students across the city are taking formal baseline tests this year in many subjects because of new teacher evaluation rules. The rules require teachers to be rated in part by how much their students improve over the course of the year, and schools are using tests this fall as the baseline for determining student proficiency at the beginning of the year. 

The extra testing has eaten into class time and taken teachers out of classroom for grading. “

The students at Stuyvesant High School proved that they understand more about teaching and learning than policymakers in Washington and Albany.

Categories Students, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Schneider Reviews Rhee’s Tax Forms

By dianeravitch
October 24, 2013 //
35

Mercedes Schneider here analyzes the tax returns submitted by Michelle Rhee for her two organizations. One engages in political activities, and the other is an advocacy group.

Rhee gives generous contributions to those who seek the privatization of public education.

Schneider notes the close connection between Rhee and the creators of Common Core.

She concludes her review with these thoughts:

“In reading these tax documents, I cannot help but wonder if our democracy is such a farce that it will crumble beneath the weight of the wallets of the wealthy removed. I wonder what it will take for them to realize that they are foolishly destroying the foundation upon which they themselves stand. In their arrogant fiscal elevation they forget that even they require the foundational institutions that form our democracy– public education being one such institution…..

“Here’s a hint: When you hear that a candidate in a local election is being outspent by 10- or 20-to-1, vote for that candidate.”

Categories Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Vouchers

Jeff Bryant on “The Empty Harvest” of School Reform

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2013 //
7

Jeff Bryant of the Education Opportunity Network surveys the wreckage of “test-and-punish” methods of reform. Such methods lead not to “reform,” but to bullied teachers, who are demoralized by their situation. Some leave, some hang on, but the results have been unimpressive.

Bryant sees a slow-motion collapse of the coercive “reform” movement, as its bold promises turn out to be empty. The reformers’ day on the hill is coming to an end.

As Bryant writes:

With the advent of No Child Left Behind, the accountability had its mechanism for targeting individual schools, but with the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program, the accountability arsenal aimed at individual classroom teachers too.

With Michelle Rhee as its celebrity cheerleader, the school accountability movement became the perfect PR campaign promising a way forward to ever increasing education “effectiveness.”

But all those years of promises for this: Studies can prove that teachers are capable of being manipulated by coercive management systems, but the wealth of improvement stemming from expensive new assessment systems has yet to fill the account left barren by the nation’s reluctance to invest in our children’s education.

Michelle Rhee-like accountability systems that have been in place a substantial amount of time have done no better than the one in D.C. A long-standing system in Tennessee, for instance, has done nothing to improve academic achievement and has revealed “almost nothing about teacher effectiveness.”

The most ardent reform enthusiasts now admit to “overselling, and underthinking [sic]” their cause, even as they try to dispel whatever is being proposed as a positive alternative.

Parents and public officials in places as diverse as rural Virginia and uptown New York Cityare more boisterously questioning the whole premise of ramping up more tests on students to determine the value of their teachers.

As the education reform movement’s empty harvest leads us into a winter of discontent, what’s needed are more proposals from multiple sources for a more positive way forward.

Far beyond the media spotlights focused on reform celebrities like Rhee, other credible voices are calling for a different course for accountability and an agenda based on opportunity and support for learning. No wonder more people are listening.

Categories Corporate Reformers, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

NC Leaders Abandon Any Pretense of Common Sense

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2013 //
42

Legislators in the far-right legislature of the once forward-looking state of North Carolina waste no opportunity to demoralize teachers with their wacky punitive policies. They just don’t like teachers. They seem certain that only 25% of the state’s teachers are worthy, even though 96% were rated effective by the state evaluation system.

So the teacher-bashers in the legislature will make sure to play whack-a-mole with the lives of teachers.

The new plan is to strip tenure from all teachers and let teachers compete for four/year contracts and $5,000 bonuses.

North Carolina is one of the lowest paying states in the nation for teachers. One reason to accept low wages is a promise of reasonable job security. That will be eliminated. As Lindsey Wagner reported in NC Policy Watch, some NC teachers are leaving the state, realizing that the legislature wants to destroy their profession and reduce them to public mendicants.

Leaders of the state’s two largest districts see this as bad policy:

“The General Assembly voted this year to eliminate teacher tenure in 2018. In the meantime, school districts across the state are being required to identify which educators will be offered a $5,000 pay raise as part of a four-year contract if they give up their tenure. Roughly one-quarter will be offered the four-year deal.

Some of the most vocal complaints are coming from the Wake County and Charlotte-Mecklenburg school systems. Like their counterparts across the state, the large systems are searching for a way to carry out the new state requirements.

“I’m hoping the General Assembly will talk with educators and look at the long-term consequences – both intended and unintended – of this legislation before it does irreparable harm that will take years and years and years to fix,” Wake County school board member Kevin Hill said Tuesday at a school board meeting.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Superintendent Heath Morrison said the four-year contract and bonus plan has raised a host of questions, and threatens already-rocky teacher morale.

But backers of the change say it provides meaningful education reform by basing job security and pay on performance. They say the old system of giving tenure and then basing pay on seniority rewarded ineffective teachers.”

Contracts and bonuses will be tied to test scores.

A defender of the legislation used the occasion to ridicule teachers:

“Only in the warped world of education bureaucrats and union leaders could a permanent $5,000 pay raise for top-performing teachers be branded as a bad thing,” Amy Auth, a spokeswoman for state Senate leader Phil Berger, a Rockingham County Republican, said in a written statement.

Historically, North Carolina public school teachers who have passed a four-year probationary period have earned tenure, called career status.”

And there is more to this sad story:
Critics of the system, such as Berger, have pointed to the firing of 17 tenured teachers in the 2011-12 school year to argue that too many bad teachers are still being employed. But supporters of tenure argue that it protects good teachers from being fired unfairly, and that many bad teachers are encouraged to resign.

Starting July 1, 2018, North Carolina public school teachers will receive contracts of between one and four years. Teachers will work under contracts that are renewed based on performance – like nearly every other profession, according to Auth.

Some changes go into effect now, such as offering four-year contracts to some educators.

A big question concerns how to determine which teachers will be offered the four-year contracts. Superintendents will present a list of names to their school boards, which can modify the list.

Administrators from 10 of the state’s biggest school districts, including Wake, Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Durham, Johnston and Gaston, held a video conference Tuesday to talk about the changes.

“You actually have some school districts that are suggesting that they’ll do a lottery because of concerns about legal issues and concerns about morale,” Morrison said.

Auth stressed that the “top 25 percent of teachers” will get the new contract and raises, saying they’re “highly effective teachers.” Teachers must be rated “proficient” under the state evaluation system to be eligible.

But Ann McColl, general counsel for the N.C. Association of Educators, pointed to state statistics showing that 96 percent of classroom teachers were rated as proficient.”

Categories North Carolina, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

Note to John King: What Teachers Really Care About

By dianeravitch
October 23, 2013 //
14

When State Commissioner John King released the teacher ratings, he said that teachers should be relieved because only 1% were found to be “ineffective.” The implication: You have nothing to worry about; you won’t lose your job based on my untested evaluation system.

Some reacted by wondering why the state had spent hundreds of millions of dollars to determine that only 1% of teachers were ineffective; principals were furious about the mountain of paperwork they had waded through to prove what they already knew.

But this teacher had a word of advice for Commissioner King:

“This just shows how out of touch John King is. He says these numbers should ease teachers concerns because the ratings aren’t bad. This is an insult! Teachers aren’t criticizing this dumb evaluation system based on test scores because they are selfishly concerned about their ratings. Teachers are concerned because the over emphasis on test scores will lead to less effective teaching, squash creativity, narrow the curriculum, suck the enjoyment out of learning and on and on… Maybe King lives his life simply worrying about himself but most teachers are driven by a desire to help their students grow as people. He just doesn’t get it!”

Categories Accountability, Teacher Evaluations

Only 1% of NY Teachers Rated Ineffective

By dianeravitch
October 22, 2013 //
25

Hoping to calm teachers’ fears about the state’s new, untested, and probably invalid teacher evaluation system, Commissioner John King announced that only 1% of teachers were rated ineffective.

NYC scores were omitted due to failure to reach agreement on time.

“ALBANY—More than 90 percent of teachers outside New York City have earned high ratings in the state’s first year of mandated performance evaluations, a fact that state education commissioner John King said “should” ease unions’ concerns about attaching “high stakes” to testing in a new, more difficult curriculum.

“King presented preliminary numbers to the state Board of Regents Tuesday morning, announcing that nearly 50 percent of teachers received a “highly effective” rating, which is the top score. Another 42 percent were deemed “effective,” with only 4 percent as “developing” and 1 percent as “ineffective.”

“Teachers who earn two consecutive “ineffective” ratings could be fired under the law. Those with “developing” or “ineffective” will be outfitted with an individualized professional development plan to help them improve.

“The state’s data includes evaluations of nearly 127,000 teachers. So, while about 117,000 teachers were rated in the top two categories, nearly 7,000 teachers got the lower ratings and will require professional development. The remaining teachers were not accounted for in those reports.”

Most researchers consider test-based evaluations to be invalid.

Categories New York, Teacher Evaluations

Ex-DC Principal Adell Cothorne: Don’t Believe the Hype About IMPACT

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2013 //
6

Adell Cothorne, DC whistle-blower extraordinaire, offers a warning: Don’t believe so naive as to believe the hype from the District of Columbia public schools about its teacher evaluation system.

Cothorne was there.

She says that the principals were not trained; that school secretaries often did the crucial paperwork.

That the IMPACT system is so complicated that no one, not even its designers, could explain how it works.

That the system continues to lose excellent principals and teachers.

That the evaluation system has no bearing on student achievement.

Cothorne suggests that IMPACT should be applied to central office staff.

Categories Teacher Evaluations

Schneider on DC IMPACT Study: Already Obsolete

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2013 //
41

Despite the glowing hyperbole in the media, Mercedes Schneider says there is nothing new in the results. The study is dated, there is missing data, the effects of the cheating scandal remain unknown, and the investigation of the cheating was turned over to an accounting firm with no experience in investigating cheating. Mercedes is not impressed.

Categories Teach for America TFA, Teacher Evaluations

Andy Spears: 20 Years of Value-Added Assessment in Tennessee, No Improvement, Zip, Nada

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2013 //
12

Race to the Top placed a $4.45 Billion bet that the way to improve schools was to tie teachers’ evaluations to their students’ test scores.

As it happens, the state of Tennessee has been using value-added assessment for 20 years, though the stakes have not been as high as they are now.

What can we learn from the Tennessee experience. According to Andy Spears of the Tennessee Education Report, well, gosh, sorry: nothing.

Spears has a list of lessons learned. Here are the key takeaways:

“4. Tennessee has actually lost ground in terms of student achievement relative to other states since the implementation of TVAAS.

Tennessee received a D on K-12 achievement when compared to other states based on NAEP achievement levels and gains, poverty gaps, graduation rates, and Advanced Placement test scores (Quality Counts 2011, p. 46). Educational progress made in other states on NAEP [from 1992 to 2011] lowered Tennessee’s rankings:

• from 36th/42 to 46th/52 in the nation in fourth-grade math[2]

• from 29th/42 to 42nd/52 in fourth-grade reading[3]

• from 35th/42 to 46th/52 in eighth-grade math

• from 25th/38 (1998) to 42nd/52 in eighth-grade reading.

5. TVAAS tells us almost nothing about teacher effectiveness.

While other states are making gains, Tennessee has remained stagnant or lost ground since 1992 — despite an increasingly heavy use of TVAAS data.

So, if TVAAS isn’t helping kids, it must be because Tennessee hasn’t been using it right, right? Wrong. While education policy makers in Tennessee continue to push the use of TVAAS for items such as teacher evaluation, teacher pay, and teacher license renewal, there is little evidence that value-added data effectively differentiates between the most and least effective teachers.

In fact, this analysis demonstrates that the difference between a value-added identified “great” teacher and a value-added identified “average” teacher is about $300 in earnings per year per student. So, not that much at all. Statistically speaking, we’d call that insignificant. That’s not to say that teachers don’t impact students. It IS to say that TVAAS data tells us very little about HOW teachers impact students.”

Read the whole article.

It is one of the best, most sensible things you will read on value-added assessment. It is a shame that Tennessee has wasted more than $300 million in search of the magic metric that identifies the “best” teachers. It is ridiculous that Congress and the U.S. Department of Education wasted nearly $5 billion to do the same thing, absent any evidence at all. Just think how many libraries they might have kept open, how many health clinics they could have started, how many early childhood programs initiated, how many class sizes reduced for needy kids.

But let’s not confuse the DOE with actual evidence when they have hunches to go on.

Categories Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Tennessee, Testing

New York Study: Teacher Evaluations Are Flawed

By dianeravitch
October 20, 2013 //
42

A study commissioned by the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents found that the state’s educator evaluation system is flawed in multiple ways and does not produce reliable ratings.

The state’s formula gave less credit to teachers serving disadvantaged students, judged some teachers on the performance of too few students, failed to measure key variables such as student mobility and did not clearly signal how schools can assist teachers or students, the study found.

“Our fears were realized,” said Harrison Superintendent Louis Wool, who was president of the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents when the study was started in the spring. “The first round of assessments did not accurately measure the value of teachers whose students are in poverty, in special education or speak limited English. We are concerned that we have spent countless hours and millions and millions of dollars to produce results that are not comparable across the state and do not inform teacher practice or student learning.”

Perhaps it is studies like this that have caused Bill Gates to declare that we won’t know if “this stuff” works for at least a decade. But by the time the decade is over, how many careers will have been destroyed, how many lives ruined by the hunches of Bill Gates and Arne Duncan?

Categories New York, Teacher Evaluations
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