Archives for category: Teacher Evaluations
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Bruce Baker: the Misuse of the Gates’ MET Study

By dianeravitch
April 11, 2013 //
1

Bruce Baker chides state policymakers for claiming that they are relying on MET, the Gates’ teacher evaluation program.

In his previous post, Baker delves into the ways that state officials are misusing value-added measurement and student growth percentiles. I asked Bruce if he would clarify the difference and he responded as follows (go to the link to see the video):

The key difference is explained in the previous post – which I think needs more attention:

With value added modeling, which does attempt to parse statistically the relationship between a student being assigned to teacher X and that students achievement growth, controlling for various characteristics of the student and the student’s peer group, there still exists a substantial possibility of random-error based mis-classification of the teacher or remaining bias in the teacher’s classification (something we didn’t catch in the model affected that teacher’s estimate). And there’s little way of knowing what’s what.

With student growth percentiles, there is no attempt to parse statistically the relationship between a student being assigned a particular teacher and the teacher’s supposed responsibility for that student’s change among her peers in test score percentile rank.

Quick summary is that value added models attempt, I would argue unsuccessfully, to parse the influence of the teacher on student test score growth, whereas growth percentile models make no effort to isolate teacher effect. It’s entirely about relative reshuffling of students, aggregated to the teacher level.

As I say in the video:

One approach tries (VAM) and the other one doesn’t (SGP). One doesn’t work (VAM) and the other is completely wrong for the purpose to begin with(SGP).

Categories Teacher Evaluations

An Experienced Principal Answers Jay Mathews

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2013 //
33

Jay Mathews wrote that he no longer believes that teachers should be evaluated by test scores.

However, he went on to say that teachers should be judged by their principal, and that principal should have the absolute power to hire, pay, judge, and fire teachers at will. If we don’t like the principals, we should fire them and get others.

Here is the answer to Jay by Carol Burris, who was just named principal of the year by her colleagues in New York State:


The better answer is to put in place systems of supervision and evaluation like [Montgomery County’s] PAR [Peer Assistance and Review]. This obsession that we can ‘fear and fire’ our way to excellence, is nonsense. ‘Give them (principals) the power to hire, compensate and fire staff members as they see fit”. This principal says….bad idea. As is doing the same for principals. That is still putting evaluation by tests scores in a primary place. It will also make schools more political than they already are and create more “Atlantas”.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Is There a Corporate School Reform Movement?

By dianeravitch
April 10, 2013 //
19

As readers of this blog know, there is a healthy discussion about what to call those who now claim to be “reformers.”

In this post, Leo Casey of the Shanker Institute discusses whether there is any such thing as “corporate reform.” Larry Cuban says there is not.

Let’s review what I often refer to as “corporate reform.”

I call it “corporate reform” because the reformers want to use crude metrics to judge teachers and schools. They think that data are better measures of quality than professional judgment. On the basis of standardized test scores, they are happy to label schools as “failing” if their scores are low and happier still to close them for the same reason. The test scores are like a profit and loss statement. The corporate reformers speak about having a “portfolio” of schools, sort of like a stock portfolio, where you keep the winners and get rid of the losers.

When they manage school districts, they invent fancy corporate-sounding titles like “chief talent officer,” “chief knowledge officer,” “chief portfolio officer,” etc. to take the place of school titles like “superintendent” and “deputy superintendent.”

The face of the “reform” movement is Michelle Rhee. She works closely with such figures as Joel Klein and Jeb Bush, John Kasich in Ohio, Mitch Daniels (now ex-governor) in Indiana.

These so-called reformers advocate for private management of schools by charter organizations, whether nonprofit or for-profit.

Some (Jeb Bush, Michelle Rhee, Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, Tony Bennett) but not all of them advocate for vouchers .

They say that our public school system is “broken,” “failing,” and “obsolete.” So to them, it makes perfect sense to replace them with private management.

They advocate for high-stakes testing.

They want teachers and principals to be evaluated to a significant degree by the test scores of students.

They applaud the closing of schools (cf. Rahm Emanuel).

They disdain local school boards, which might slow down the process of privatization of public funds.

They want to remove any due process rights from teachers, so they can be hired and fired at will.

They seek to cut teachers’ pensions and benefits.

They think that “great” teachers need only a few weeks of training. They like to put non-educators in charge of school districts and schools. After all, if someone can market toothpaste, they can also market automobiles or schools.

If you think there is no movement to undermine public education and the education profession, I don’t agree.

If someone has a better name than “corporate reform,” I am all ears.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Congratulations, Carol Burris, New York Principal of the Year!

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2013 //
14

Readers of this blog are familiar with the writings of Carol Burris, principal of South Side High a school in Rockville Center, New York.

Her fellow principals across the state just named her Principal of the Year..

Carol is a dedicated, passionate educator who is a leader of the fight against the state’s educator evaluation system. She and her colleague Sean Feeney created a petition drive and signed up more than third of the other principals in the state to oppose this ill-considered approach. Thousands of parents and fellow citizens signed their petition.

It is not too late. You can sign too.

Congratulations, Carol!

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, New York, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Jay Mathews Reverses His Views About Teacher Evaluation

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2013 //
21

Jay Mathews has been a strong supporter of using test scores for teacher evaluation.

No longer.

He describes his change of view here.

Jay writes:

“I used to think student test score gains were a good way to rate teachers. I don’t think that any more. Grading individual teachers with scores is too approximate, too erratic and too destructive of the team spirit that makes great schools. Rating schools, rather than teachers, by test score gains is better, at least until we find a way to measure deeper indicators of learning.”

And more.

“We would be better off rating teachers the old-fashioned way. Let principals do it in the normal course of watching and working with their staff.”

But here is where I disagree with him, when he would make every principal an autocrat:

“But be much more careful than we have been in the past about who gets to be principal, and provide much more training. Give them the power to hire, compensate and fire staff members as they see fit. If student achievement lags, the principals should be in the hot seat. Give them warnings. Give them help. But if the school doesn’t improve, remove them.”

What is the evidence that schools soar when teachers have no right to a hearing? I don’t know of any.

Categories Teacher Evaluations, Testing

How StudentsFirst Turns Facts into Myths

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2013 //
6

Matthew Di Carlo dissects the latest effort by Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst to sell the idea that evaluating teachers by test scores is accurate, unbiased, and necessary.

Di Carlo analyzes the “myths” and discovers that some of them are facts.

This is embarrassing. Rhee really needs to hire a competent research department.

 

Categories Michelle Rhee, StudentsFirst, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Why I Apologized for Something I Did Not Say

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2013 //
49

A number of readers have written to ask why I wrote an apology to Michelle Rhee when I had not been the one to speak the offending words (“Asian bitch”). I wasn’t even present when the words were spoken.

Frankly, the story focused on the negative, rather than the reasons that the rally was happening. The story presented a false, demeaning, and hostile portrait of the rally. It was akin to the stories about Occupy Wall Street that presented a peaceful assemblage of citizens exercising their First Amendment right to assemble as if they were a dangerous mob. Perhaps we should ask the reporter Michele McNeil of Education Week to apologize for her misrepresentation of the parents and teachers who assembled peaceably to protest school closings, high-stakes testing, privatization, and other abuses, while ignoring our positive message about the importance of providing every school with the resources it needs to succeed–with small classes, librarians, guidance counselors, social workers, the arts, physical education, a full curriculum, and professional working conditions.

Let me explain my apology for a term I did not utter or even hear.

A reader on this blog asked me my reaction to the ethnic slur made referring to Rhee. I wrote a comment, then decided to say it louder in a post.

I don’t play by the same rules as Rhee. She goes around the nation insulting teachers and trying to persuade the public to support reactionary legislatures and governors who take away their right to have a collective voice, cut their pensions and their health benefits, and remove any job security from them. That’s wrong and I will say it’s wrong again and again.

But I won’t condone the use of ethnic or racial slurs.

My rules include civility, courtesy, fairness, and reason. Is it fair that someone who makes $50,000 to give a speech for one hour attacks teachers who make that much in a year? Is it fair that she belittles people whose jobs are so hard and so valuable to society?

I don’t think so. I will argue it, say it, and insist upon it. But without any slurs based or race, ethnicity, or gender.

Categories Rhee, Michelle, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure

Cody: Time to Hold Bill Gates Accountable

By dianeravitch
April 6, 2013 //
22

For the past several years, three billionaires have foisted untested, unreliable, metrics-driven, in humane teacher evaluation policies onto our nation’s teachers.

In this misguided effort to find a yardstick to reduce teacher quality to a number, no one has been more energetic than Bill Gates.

As the anti-high-stakes testing movement grows, and as the wreckage piles up (see Atlanta, El Paso, and DC, for example), the metrics movement looks more ineffectual and more harmful.

Anthony Cody says it is time to hold the authors of this debacle accountable.

He has designed a rubric to hold Bill Gates accountable.

Can you think of things to add to his rubric?

A suggestion for Anthony Cody: how about designing an accountability scorecard for Eli Broad and the Waltons?

Categories Accountability, Broad Foundation, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teacher Evaluations, Walton Foundation

Anthony Cody: Can We Trust Bill Gates?

By dianeravitch
April 5, 2013 //
62

Anthony Cody read Bill Gates’ article in the Washington Post, in which he said it is time to reduce the emphasis on high-stakes testing.

Anthony wondered if Gates means it.

Anthony writes:

“No one in America has done more to promote the raising of stakes for test scores in education than Bill Gates….You can read his words…, but his actions have spoken so much more loudly, that I cannot even make sense out of what he is attempting to say now. So let’s focus first on what Bill Gates has wrought.”

Anthony documents the destructive programs that Gates has funded (read the list, and it is only the tip of the iceberg), and he concludes:

“This amounts to an attempt to distance the Gates Foundation from the asinine consequences of the policies they have sponsored, while accepting no responsibility for them whatsoever.

“This is a non-starter, as far as I am concerned.”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

A Parent Writes the New York State Education Department

By dianeravitch
April 4, 2013 //
13

Just received this:

“Dear Department of Education,

You should be proud of your Administrators and your principals. They are acting in full support of your harmful programs. They are choking out the words “these tests are very useful to your children”, and they “will not be able to determine the academic needs of your child” without them, while giving up countless hours of sleep for acting against their conscience. They sign their names to memos that state little white lies, perversions of the truth, and sometimes flat out falsities, while their stomachs turn and their palms sweat. They are even changing entire school policies that have worked well for years, just so that you can believe they are in full compliance. You should be proud of them. They are acting like good little soldiers and going against their own best interests and the best interests of the students. They are willing to turn on the very parents that are trying to save them and their schools. You should be very,very proud.”

“Jeanette Brunelle Deutermann”

Categories New York, Teacher Evaluations, Testing
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