Archives for category: Teacher Evaluations
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Jan Resseger on Absurdity of Ohio VAM

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2013 //
5

This just in from an advocate for children who live in poverty:

This week the Cleveland Plain Dealer has a new series, “Grading the Teachers.” It is basically an endorsement of the new Ohio Value Added Measures (VAM) program by which teachers will be rated. Scores are being made available on-line. Ohio’s VAM formula, according to the news account, does not consider the socioeconomic information about the children.

Here are the articles thus far in the series:

· Grading the Teachers, Part I ‘Value-added’ ties teacher ratings to pupils’ test scores.
· Grading the Teachers, Part 2” Value-added scores show no link between performance and salary.

I just sent the following to the paper for use as either a letter or op-ed. I suspect it won’t be published, which is why I’m sending it around now. Usually I would wait to see if it gets published, but this time I’m not going to, because this is so important.

Fifty years ago Johns Hopkins sociologist James S. Coleman documented the most powerful factors affecting student achievement: the socio-economic background of children’s families and the concentration of poverty in particular communities.

Two years ago Duke economist Helen Ladd wrote: “Study after study has demonstrated that children from disadvantaged households perform less well in school on average than those from more advantaged households. This empirical relationship shows up in studies using observations at the levels of the individual student, the school, the district, the state, the country.”

A year and a half ago Stanford educational sociologist Sean Reardon documented that while in 1970, only 15 percent of families lived in neighborhoods classified as affluent or poor, by 2007, 31 percent of families lived in such neighborhoods. Reardon documents a simultaneous jump in an income-inequality achievement gap between very wealthy and very poor children, a gap that is 30-40 percent wider among children born in 2001 than those born in 1975.

Surely we can agree that poverty should not be an excuse. But blaming school teachers for gaps in scores on standardized tests, as the Plain Dealer does in “Grading the Teachers,” is not only cruel to the teachers singled out when scores are published—for example, Euclid’s Maria Plecnik, a previously highly rated teacher who will leave the profession this year— but foolish as public policy. Who will want to teach in our poorest communities with the system of Value-Added Measures that the Plain Dealer acknowledges, “do not account for the socioeconomic backgrounds of students as they do in some other states.”

Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville critiques the logic of those who would blame school teachers: “Some want to make the absurd argument that the reason low-income youngsters do poorly is that, mysteriously, all the incompetency in our education systems has coincidentally aggregated around low income students. In this view, all we need to do is scrub the system of incompetency and all will be well.”

Blaming teachers certainly gets the rest of us off the hook. If we can just fire teachers, we won’t have to fund schools equitably or adequately. We won’t have to address the impact of economic and racial segregation or the shocking 22 percent child poverty rate in America, the highest in the industrialized world.

Ms. Jan Resseger
Minister for Public Education and Witness
Justice and Witness Ministries
700 Prospect, Cleveland, Ohio 44115
216-736-3711
http://www.ucc.org/justice/public-education
“That all citizens will be given an equal start through a sound education is one of the most basic, promised rights of our democracy. Our chronic refusal as a nation to guarantee that right for all children…. is rooted in a kind of moral blindness, or at least a failure of moral imagination…. It is a failure which threatens our future as a nation of citizens called to a common purpose… tied to one another by a common bond.” —Senator Paul Wellstone, March 31, 2000

Categories Ohio, Teacher Evaluations

Ohio Teachers Subjected to Junk Science Ratings

By dianeravitch
June 17, 2013 //
30

Now it is teachers in Ohio that have been rated by a secret value-added formula.

Teachers in affluent schools were twice as likely to score well as those in low-income schools.

Here is the key language:

“The details of how the scores are calculated aren’t public. The Ohio Department of Education will pay a North Carolina-based company, SAS Institute Inc., $2.3 million this year to do value-added calculations for teachers and schools. The company has released some information on its value-added model but declined to release key details about how Ohio teachers’ value-added scores are calculated.

“The Education Department doesn’t have a copy of the full model and data rules either.

“The department’s top research official, Matt Cohen, acknowledged that he can’t explain the details of exactly how Ohio’s value-added model works. He said that’s not a problem.”

Think of it. The person at the Ohio Department of Education in charge of the ratings doesn’t understand how the model works. He says it is not a problem.

Well, it is a problem for excellent teachers who were told they were “least effective.”

These models,based on standardized tests, are inaccurate and unstable.

Do not trust the ratings. They are garbage. No high-performing nation is rating teachers this way. It is mean-spirited, mechanistic, and meaningless.

Categories Ohio, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

NYC Teacher Ratings Will Flunk More Teachers

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2013 //
32

The politicians won’t rest until they can fire more teachers. John King is their man. He has the system that mo one undestands but that is guaranteed to find some teachers to fire.

The politicians know that if they fire a bunch of teachers, it will surely lead to higher achievement and will close the achievement gap. The fact that it has never happened anywhere doesn’t faze them. What has evidence got to do with it? The important thing is to fire enough teachers to satisfy the politicians.

I have said it before and I will say it again: evaluating teachers by test scores is junk science.

When Sidwell Friends and Fieldston and Exeter do it, then we will know it has merit. Until then, it is politically motivated nonsense.

Categories NYC, Teacher Evaluations

Monica Ratliff Responds to Critics

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2013 //
10

Since she upset the heavily-funded favorite in the recent Los Angeles school board runoff, many eyes are on Monica Ratliff.

Some of her supporters were concerned when she appeared at an event where the Gates-funded Educators for Excellence presented a report on teacher evaluation. The event was attended by Superintendent John Deasy and school board president Monica Garcia, an ally of Deasy.

Immediately the tweets began to fly claiming that Ratliff supported paying teachers by student test scores. Some worried that she had crossed over to the side that opposed her in the election.

Whoa!

I wrote Monica Ratliff, we had a candid conversation, and Monica advised that we should judge her by her votes as a board member, not by tweets that did not come from her.

She wrote:

“Dear Diane,

“When I advocate for fixing the LAUSD teacher evaluation system and professional development system, I am NOT advocating that we link test scores to monetary gain for teachers or administrators.

“Across LA, there are public schools where scores have been rising over the years sans any monetary gain for teachers or administrators. If we link test scores to monetary gain, I have no doubt that we will see some increases in test scores but at what cost and by what means?

Sincerely,

Mónica Ratliff

Categories Education Reform, Los Angeles, Merit pay, Teacher Evaluations

Who Distorted Charlotte Danielson’s Message?

By dianeravitch
June 16, 2013 //
51

A reader comments:

“I was present when Dr. Danielson spoke in depth during the formulation of the current Maryland evaluation system and at a Maryland State Education Association Convention. She stated that there was no research to measure teachers using student test scores. In fact, she stated that if a teacher was fired due to students test scores there could be possibility of litigation.

Charlotte Danielson is the real deal! Her research has been co-opted (did I spell that correctly?) by Gates and company. Please do not disparage her.”

Categories Teacher Evaluations

The Problem with Teacher Evaluation

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2013 //
34

Michael Weston of Hillsborough County, Florida, explains what is wrong with teacher evaluation:

“Of course we use the Danielson rubric in Hillsborough County Fl, where it forms one of the three pillars of the Gates funded “Empowering Effective Teachers”. The second pillar is value-added, the third is duplicity / deception.

Quite frankly, whether Charlotte is spelled Charlatan, whether her rubric is valuable or trash, whether her resume is padded…..none of this matters to me. What matters is what it is being used for. Teacher evaluation. Not a good use of money.

Teachers are not the major problem in education. The major problem in education is quite simple, well researched and accepted by everyone except Michelle Rhee.

The problem is the income gap.
The income gap causes an achievement gap.
The achievement gap causes efforts to close it.
The efforts to close it are misguided, destructive and tainted by greed and politics.

The pain, effort and treasure spent on teacher evaluation will produce miniscule returns, if any. The higher likelihood is that teacher evaluation schemes will have a negative net effect. The morale issues are huge and have yet to be quantified.

Most unfortunately, here is where the third pillar, duplicity / deception comes in to play. These schemes are “doomed to succeed”. Why? Because the big money behind them demands they succeed. How easy is it for the Gates Foundation to publish its own results. Very easy. How many School Districts will admit to having poisoned the well of education?”

Categories Teacher Evaluations

Carol Burris Reviews John King’s Evaluation Plan and Finds It Wanting

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2013 //
14

Principal Carol Burris of South Side High School in Rockville Center, Long Island, spent her Saturday analyzing State Education Commissioner John King’s Educator Evaluation plan. Here is her review:

“When I took a look at the details of the plan imposed by Commissioner King on NYC, I was taken aback. The first thing I noticed was how low the points in the Effective range in the final 60 (other measures) were. These are the points assigned by the principal according to the rubric. I could not understand how the points in the Effective range could be as low as 45. A teacher could be rated effective in the first component, with a growth score of 9 points, effective in the second component the local measure with a score of 9 points and receive 45 points in the effective range established by the commissioner in the final 60 (see page 70) here http://files.uft.org/teacher-evaluation/13%20Attached%20Documents%20to%20NYCDOE%20APPR%20Plan%20Review%20Room%20Submission%20-%20Teachers%20and%20Principals.pdf , but she would be rated Ineffective overall.

“If you add up the points, 9+9+45=63.
In other words, the teacher is rated INEFFECTIVE overall, even though she is Effective in all three categories. At least that is what the statute 3012c would say.

“Let me explain. 3012c, which you can find here: http://www.regents.nysed.gov/meetings/2012Meetings/March2012/312bra6.pdf states on page 46 the following when describing points awarded for the local measure:

“(ii) an Effective rating in this subcomponent if the results meet district-adopted expectations for growth or achievement and they achieve a subcomponent score of: (a) 9-17 for the 2011-2012 school year, and for the 2012-2013 school year and thereafter for teachers and principals whose score on the State assessment or other comparable measures subcomponent is not based on a value-added model; or (b) 8-13 for the 2012-2013 school year and thereafter for teachers and principals whose score on the State assessment or other comparable measures subcomponent is based on a value-added model.

“In other words, if the teacher receives a score of 9 – 17 on the local measure, prior to VAM, she is in the Effective category. After VAM, it changes to 8-13. That is defined in the statute. Now look on pages 35 and 36 of the plan imposed by the Commissioner:

Click to access 13%20Attached%20Documents%20to%20NYCDOE%20APPR%20Plan%20Review%20Room%20Submission%20-%20Teachers%20and%20Principals.pdf

“On these pages you will find matrices that award points on the local measure. However, a score of 9 is not in the Effective range as 3012c requires. Rather, a score of 9 is in the Ineffective range. A teacher has to accrue 15 of the 20 points to be Effective without an approved VAM, and 13 out of 15 if there is an approved VAM.

“The entire section is confusing, because it has typographical errors, as it tries to explain the ratings with or without VAM. However, even if VAM is approved this year, the statute does not change. In fact, Effective moves down to 8 points., according to the 3012C.

“Unless I am missing an additional conversion chart, it appears to me that this plan violates 3012C. It gives a weight to test scores that was never intended, and it explains why the points are so low in the final 60. They can be low because John King raised the bar in the local measure, expecting very high student performance, for a teacher to be rated effective in that measure, and that is not in accordance with the statute passed by the legislature.”

Categories New York, Teacher Evaluations

RRatto on Teacher Evaluation

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2013 //
36

I agree with the following comment by RRatto. If checklists for teacher evaluation were so great, how come they are never used in the nation’s elite private schools? They are a remnant of factory thinking, and unworthy of any profession. Checklists are great for auto mechanics and home builders. They are distinctly non-professional.

RRatto writes:

“anyone who claims they know how to measure a teacher’s effectiveness is full of #%^.

Because of our immensely diverse population and the need to differentiate I can tell you most teachers must change the way they teach almost daily. There is no magic rubric that can measure that.

Once we start aiming to check off the must do’s of a rubric we are no longer are teachers. We become circus monkeys performing for our masters.”

Categories Teacher Evaluations

Alan Singer: Who Is Charlotte Danielson?

By dianeravitch
June 15, 2013 //
57

Charlotte Danielson is the leading guru of teacher evaluation. Alan Singer asks who she is, what is her background, and why will so many teachers be evaluated by her rubric.

Categories New York, Teacher Evaluations

New York’s Evaluation Nightmare

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2013 //
25

Arthur Goldstein, aka Néw York Educator, describes the vain and convoluted effort to create a teacher evaluation system in Néw York. A pinch of this, a heavy dose of testing, and the computer will tell us which teachers are great and which are the stinkers.

Categories New York, Teacher Evaluations
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