EduShyster here describes Kevin
Huffman’s relentless campaign to demoralize Tennessee
teachers and make Tenessee the worst state to be a teacher. She
suggests that the time is soon coming when Huffman will be held
accountable. Not by the state board, which rubber stamps his bad
ideas even when they aren’t informed of the details. No, he will
face the accountability of angry parents, teachers, and other
citizens who have grown tired of his destructive tactics. That day
will come, rest assured. Even his membership in Jeb Bush’s Chiefs
for Change won’t save him from the wrath of
Tennessee’s Angry Moms</a, who created their own Facebook
page.
Archives for category: Teacher Evaluations
This is a great letter from a teacher to the state board of education on Tennessee:
“Dr. Nixon,
Speaking from 32 years of experience in education–both public and private–I beg you, implore you–yes, perhaps even grovel to you–to do your best to put to rest the issue of tying license renewal to student test scores. As I have never contacted the State Board of Education since I moved to Tennessee in 1988, I hope you will give me the courtesy of three minutes to hear me out.
“I have no problem with Common Core. I have no problem with the TEAM evaluation tool. I have no problem with eliminating poor teachers. I do, however, have a problem with the too rapid implementation of these initiatives. Common Core implementation should take three to five years. (I read the manual.) Tennessee has attempted to do it in 18 months. TEAM is an excellent tool when used for the purpose that it was developed, the growth of teachers, but not when it is used as a stick to turn observations into Whack-a-Mole to see how many rubrics a teacher can hit in order to get a score to keep a job.
This final move to tie the ability to continue in one’s profession to a growth outcome based on a matrix that no one can adequately explain smacks of yet another attempt to paint teachers as the problem with education. In the dark of the confessional, both you and I know that this is egregiously untrue. The demoralizing effect this potential act can have on our teachers is one growth measure I feel I can adequately explain. In recent weeks I have listened to gifted teachers—yes, GIFTED teachers–who are talking of exiting the profession early. To quote one teacher, “I’m just so tired. If they would just leave me alone and let me teach the kids, I can do that.” This is a math teacher, an area Tennessee certainly cannot afford to drive away.
“I am not sure when it became a badge of shame to be a “professional educator.” Based on what we have seen in education in Tennessee in the last three years, I seriously look for the eradication of of colleges of education at our universities. We could certainly save money as a state, and if the present leadership in the Department of Education is any indication, a teaching degree is not necessary to teach; anyone can do it. Following this train of thought, I’ve been to a doctor’s office. I know what happens in a doctor’s office. I think I’ll practice medicine for a couple of years when I retire. Maybe I’ll even teach in a medical school and train doctors.
“As a former English teacher, a Tennessee citizen, a voter, a taxpayer, and one who is passionate about seeing children have opportunities to improve their lives through education, I pray fervently that you and the entire Board will bring this runaway train to a screeching halt and vote down this measure.
“Sincerely,
“[A Tennessee educator]”
A reader whose nom de plume is “labor lawyer” responds to the AP survey–claiming that parents approve of high-stakes testing–with these observations:
Anecdotal evidence (my own conversations over several years with well-educated middle/upper-middle-class parents), the overwhelming majority of parents approve relying, at least in part, on student test scores to evaluate teachers, including to discharge teachers. In these conversations, I argue that high-stakes testing is 1) too unreliable to use for evaluation purposes due to variables impacting test scores that are beyond the teacher’s control, and 2) counterproductive because it has too many adverse side effects (i.e., encouraging cheating, narrowing the curriculum, discouraging teacher-teacher cooperation, and discouraging teachers from accepting assignments in low-SES schools). Usually, my arguments fall on deaf ears.
These conversations suggest — to me — that most parents do not know enough about what goes on in a classroom today (particularly a classroom in a low-SES-area school) to recognize the many variables that can impact student test scores and that the teacher cannot control. Similarly, most parents have not thought enough about high-stakes testing to recognize the adverse side effects it has on education. Unless the parent is him/herself a teacher in a low-SES-area school, the parent does not have sufficient information and has not spent sufficient time thinking about the issue of high-stakes testing to recognize its unreliability and adverse side effects.
If you would have asked me 15 years ago about high-stakes testing, I would probably have said it was a good idea. Since then, I have discussed the issue with family members and close friends who have taught in low-SES-area schools and, since my retirement a few years ago, have followed the high-stakes-testing debate on the blogs. As a result of these discussions and research, I am now strongly opposed to high-stakes testing. However, very few parents/voters (other than low-SES-area teachers) have experienced this level of exposure tot he high-stakes-testing issue.
The main culprit here — in my opinion — is the main stream media that has reported at length on high-stakes testing while devoting virtually no time to in-depth analysis of the problems inherent in high-stakes testing. The main stream media usually quote a sentence or two from a teachers union official regarding the union’s opposition to the testing without presenting or examining the union officials’ underlying arguments. The main stream media then follows the union official’s comments with responding comments from a pro-testing advocate to the effect that the union officials’ are merely trying to protect poorly-performing teachers, leaving the reader/listener with no guidance re which side of the debate has the better arguments.
A second important culprit are the elected officials — city, state, and federal — who have seized on high-stakes testing as an inexpensive and superficially reasonable solution to the problem of poor academic performance in the inner-city public schools. These elected officials are under significant pressure to “do something” about the inner-city schools and are also reluctant/unable to spend much $ on school reform. High-stakes testing is an easy solution to this political problem. So, we’re not likely to see elected officials — who have ready access to the mainstream media — out there attacking high-stakes testing.
A third culprit are union officials (and ed experts generally) who attack high-stakes testing (correctly) but fail to suggest alternative procedures for identifying/improving/discharging poorly-performing teachers. Virtually every parent/voter during his/her own school days or during his/her children’s school days came in contact with one or more teachers who appeared to be performing poorly and who continued doing so, year after year. These parents/voters will reject out-of-hand the argument that there are no poorly-performing teachers and the argument that current methods of teacher evaluation are effectively identifying/removing the poorly-performing teachers.
Bottom line: Unions and ed experts should strongly advocate for peer-review evaluation systems (like that in Montgomery County, MD — a large suburban school system outside DC — that has resulted in the discharge or resignation-in-lieu-of-review of over 500 teachers over 10 years) while continuing to attack the high-stakes testing.
A reader posted this AP story about parent support for standardized testing and the Common Core. If you read the story carefully, it shows that parents have no idea how test results are being misused and are unfamiliar with the Common Core. The headline says parents support “high-stakes testing,” but nothing in the story supports that assertion.
One parent quote in the story below thinks the test results are used diagnostically, which would be appropriate: ““The tests are good because they show us where students are at, if they need help with anything,” said Vicky Nevarez, whose son Jesse just graduated from high school in Murrieta, Calif. “His teachers were great and if there were problems, the tests let me know.”
Parents think that the test results will be used to help their child do better. They don’t realize that the results are not available for months, when their child no longer has the same teacher. Nor do they know that neither the teacher nor the student is allowed to see the test questions after the test, so they never learn what they got wrong and where they need to improve.
A thoughtful poll would reveal, I suspect, that parents know that the teacher is not the sole determinant of their child’s test scores. Even President Obama once opined that one of his daughters got a low test score in science because she wasn’t trying hard enough. He didn’t blame her teacher; he said Malia was “slacking off.” He said, ““But even in our own household, with all the privileges and opportunities we have, there are times when the kids slack off. There are times when they would rather be watching TV or playing a computer game than hitting the books.’’ In the school his daughters attend, teachers write their own tests, which is the way it should be.
How would parents react if they knew that the tests are not used to help their child, but to give her a rating and to rate the teacher and the school How would they respond if they knew that their child’s score would be used to fire her teacher or close her school?
Here is the story. If anyone can find the questions, please send a link or the questions.
Posted by a reader:
New poll: Parents back high-stakes testing
“By Philip Elliott and Jennifer Agiesta
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Often criticized as too prescriptive and all-consuming, standardized tests have support among parents, who view them as a useful way to measure both students’ and schools’ performances, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll. Most parents also say their own children are given about the right number of standardized tests, according to the APNORC poll. They’d like to see student performance on statewide exams used in evaluating teachers, and almost three-quarters said they favored changes that would make it easier for schools to fire poorly performing teachers. “The tests are good because they show us where students are at, if they need help with anything,” said Vicky Nevarez, whose son Jesse just graduated from high school in Murrieta, Calif. “His teachers were great and if there were problems, the tests let me know.”
The polling results are good news for states looking to implement increased accountability standards and for those who want to hold teachers responsible for students’ slipping standing against other countries’ scores. Teachers’ unions have objected to linking educators’ evaluations to student performance.
As students prepare to return to classrooms, the AP-NORC Center surveyed parents of students at all grade levels and found:
» Sixty-one percent of parents think their children take an appropriate number of standardized tests and 26 percent think their children take too many tests.
» Teachers’ fates shouldn’t rest solely on test results, according to a majority of parents. Fiftysix percent said classroom observations should be part of teachers’ evaluations, and 74 percent of all parents said they wanted districts to help struggling teachers.
» Despite many Republicans’ unrelenting criticism of the Common Core State Standards, in various stages of implementation in 45 states and the District of Columbia, 52 percent parents have heard little or nothing about the academic benchmarks and a third are unsure if they live in a state using them. Still, when given a brief description of what the standards do, about half of parents say educational quality will improve once the standards are implemented, 11 percent think it will get worse, and 27 percent say they’ll have no effect.
» Seventy-five percent of parents say standardized tests are a solid measure of their children’s abilities, and 69 percent say such exams are a good measure of the schools’ quality. “We know when the tests are coming up. They spend a lot of time getting ready for them,” said Rodney Land of Lansing, Mich. His daughter, Selena, will be in eighth grade at a charter school this fall. The weights-and-measures inspector supports the testing because “it shows what they know, and what they should know.”
“We need some way to keep track of whether the teachers are spending enough time educating,” Land said.
“Education union leaders have stood opposed to linking teacher evaluations with these tests, arguing it is unfair to punish teachers for students’ shortcomings. They also say teachers have not had sufficient time to rewrite their lessons to reflect new academic benchmarks, such as those found in the Common Core.
“When states have adopted the Common Core State Standards, which aim to provide consistent requirements across all states for math and English, test results often falter and the standards can make schools and teachers appear to be faring worse than they did the previous year.”
A teacher in Connecticut will lose her job because she teaches the neediest kids. If she can get a job in an affluent district, she will get a high rating.
She writes:
“I have been reading your flurry of blog posts and the excellent comments from teachers and other concerned citizens all at once this morning, and while I must say, they are very cathartic, my stomach is all in knots because they so hit home with my present situation, and clearly of so many other teachers. What you say about charter schools being “free to choose its enrollment and kick out disruptive students while we must accept everyone” is one of the kernels of truth at the center of this whole mess.
“I teach 7/8 social studies in one of the “lowest performing” schools (read highest poverty and crime neighborhoods), in a large CT urban district (name withheld to protect the guilty…). According to the new teacher evaluation system tied to test scores, I have been labelled as ineffective, and am being terminated by the district after 10 years.
“My school is not a magnet, and so we must accept students who are “kicked out” of charters and magnets from around the city at all times during the school year, and I actually had 6 students transfer in after March! These are often children with severe emotional disturbances, but they are almost always children who are very low-skilled, and by middle school, very turned off by the “Brave New World” of being tested more than they are being taught. Just the change in the classroom dynamic when new students like these are brought in is enough to throw all learning out of kilter as my current students feel the need to establish themselves in the pecking order of their new classmates. This makes any of my cooperative grouping plans go right out the window until I can try to form relationships with the new students, which sometimes is next to impossible, and this is only one of a myriad of problems like 10 year-old computers, no librarian, huge school wide disciplinary problems, lack of parental involvement, etc., etc.
“However, all these challenges for me and other teachers in schools like mine might be overcome if it were not for the pressure of district and school administrators constantly harping on deficient test scores, not enough “higher order thinking” questions, (very hard to do when many of my students can barely read) and not perfect classroom management. I have always believed that good teachers teach the “whole student” and that before any of those higher order thinking goals can be achieved, I need to meet the students at their level, and try to build on their strengths to give them the confidence they need to succeed, let alone survive the many traumas they face from their home situations. It is cruel to give them tests that just confirm their feelings of inadequacy, and yet, sadly, that is the future for my students with the CCSS Smarter Balance testing on the way.
“Of course I am not trying to claim that I have all the answers, but I don’t think that the powers that be do either. Every weekend of the past two years I have spent countless hours online looking at excellent websites like teachingchannel.org or edutopia.org among many others, and all have been very helpful for me in improving my practice and finding methods to increase student-directed learning. I have attended workshops and served on school reform committees in my district, but still, according to my district, I am not effective because my children are deficient according to these “standards.” I came to teaching 10 years ago after having had another career because I really thought I could make a difference for children in a school like mine, and judging from the number of kids who come back to say hello after they graduate and have written me thank you letters, I think I probably have. I am 57 and have been sending applications to other districts, but this may be the end of my teaching career because of my age and my poor rating.
“Thank you, Diane, for making me feel that at least I am not alone in this tragedy that is occurring in public education, although it is a small comfort considering that the welfare of our most at-risk children is at stake.”
“
There is a sacrosanct principle that has informed the actions of the U.S. Department of Education throughout its 33-year history: federalism. That is, a recognition that the federal government has limited authority, and that states and localities have the primary responsibility for education. George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind was a direct assault on federalism because it asserted the power of Congress and the Department of Education to tell states and localities how to measure “progress” and how to reform schools. Since no one in either Congress or the Department of Education knows how to reform schools, this was a bad but costly joke. And not funny.
Arne Duncan made the assault on federalism more intense by promulgating Race to the Top. RTTT offered a huge financial lure to states willing to abandon their authority and accept Duncan’s untried “remedies.” Most were hungry enough to do so, because in a time of financial crisis, money talks.
Duncan’s worst idea was evaluating teachers by test scores. Researchers have repeatedly demonstrated that the teachers in affluent districts get big gains and look effective while those who teach needy students do not get big gains and look like ineffective teachers. Duncan doesn’t care. He has his idee fixe and he is sticking to it, regardless of how many teachers-of-the-year get fired.
Now he has found a new way to undermine federalism. Frustrated by California’s stubborn refusal to join Duncan’s Race to Oblivion, he was able to find a group of superintendents (mostly trained by the unaccredited Broad Academy) who want federal money. So Duncan has bypassed the state, the entity that has legal jurisdiction over these districts, and has formed a direct relationship between the federal government and the coalition called CORE (California Office to Reform Education).
Read this post to learn more about this special “partnership” that cut the state out of the transaction. You will see familiar names, well known in corporate reform circles. They are eager to do what Duncan wants them to do, while ignoring the state of which they are part, which has wisely steered clear of Duncan’s mandates.
The saddest part of all this is that Duncan was a failure in Chicago, yet now he has brought his failed ideas to become national policy. After eight years of his “leadership,” what will be left of American public education? Who will want to teach?
The Gates Foundation just showered more millions on allies prepared to spread Bill Gates’ gospel of testing, test-based teacher evaluation, and Common Core.
Millions for the young inexperienced teachers who fight tenure and demand testing (Educators4Excellence); millions for Jefferson County, Colorado, where the school board and superintendent believe in testing and privatization; millions to buy off the NEA; and more. Read the link to learn who else won Gates’ money this time.
The hundreds of millions that Gates has poured into teacher evaluation by test scores has thus far produced nothing but massive demoralization.
Will anyone tell Bill & Melinda?
Policymakers are mostly agreed that they can measure teacher quality by whether scores go up or down.
Research does not support this simplistic notion.
Mostly, researchers have found that teachers in affluent districts get bigger score gains on standardized tests than teachers who are in poor districts, who have many children who don’t read English or have special needs.
And there is what I think of as the cardinal rule: Tests should be used only for the purpose for which they were designed.
A test of fifth grade math tests whether students have learned fifth grade math, not whether their teacher is effective.
Matt Di Carlo here discusses a research study whose author suggests that there should be two different tests: one for students, another for teachers.
I have trouble visualizing what the teacher test would look like, or what it would measure that would be an accurate gauge of “teacher quality.”
But then I have grown increasingly weary of our public infatuation with standardized testing as the answer to our educational needs.
Lance Hill points out that his state has a double standard when it evaluates teachers by test scores. Some who teach high-scoring students were rated “ineffective” because their students showed no growth. Their ratings were set aside for review. They were treated differently from those who teach high-needs students.
The Louisiana formula:
Excuses for the teachers of the high-performing. No excuses for those who take on the biggest challenges.
A couple of years ago, I was on a panel discussion about school reform in NYC. To one side of me was a young man of maybe 23 or 24 who was remarkable. He knew everything. He had taught for 18 months and had learned everything there was to know about teaching and how to reform schools. I should have been impressed, but found his arrogance annoying.
He was representing a group of other young teachers who call themselves Educators4Excellence,. They are funded by the Gates Foundation. They think that teachers should be evaluated by test scores of their students. They believe in merit pay. They oppose tenure or any kind of job security for teachers.
They just received another $3 million from the Gates Foundation. For rising young stars, it pays better than teaching to be an Educator 4 Excellence.
