Archives for category: Teacher Evaluations
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The Secret Strategy of Corporate School Reform?

By dianeravitch
January 25, 2013 //
80

I want to test out a theory. I invite you to tell me what you think. It’s a thought experiment but very close to reality.

Suppose you wanted to destroy public education.

Suppose you wanted to make it so unpleasant to be a teacher or a student in a public school that everyone began to long for a way out. What would you do?

Let’s see. You would subject kids to tests repeatedly to the point that their parents complained bitterly. You would take away art and music, maybe physical education too, to make more time for testing. You would open a few charters, which would scoop up the best students, the strivers, and exclude the troublemakers. You would leave the public schools as refuges for the kids rejected or unwanted by the charters. Wouldn’t it be likely that all the motivated parents would clamor for a way to get their kids out too? Then there would be charters for the “good” kids and the public schools would be the dumping grounds.

Do the same for teachers but in different ways. Threaten them with termination if they don’t comply. Tell them their experience and education don’t count. Tell them their quality will depend on their students’ test scores. Watch their spirits droop as their best students leave for charter schools. Be sure to put non-educators in charge and lecture them regularly about how they are responsible if any child should fail. Snap the whip to keep them on their toes. Never treat them as professionals but as lazy time-servers who need constant reminders of their inadequacy.

In time, public education would be stigmatized and avoided by all who could get away. Is this where Race to the Top is going?

These thoughts, which have been percolating, were inspired by the following comments from a reader.

She wrote:

I was pleased to learn, thanks to Diane Ravitch, that the head of the principals’ association here in NC came out against testing last week. Ironically, my state superintendent just announced that NC will be paying (millions, I assume) to Pearson, a British company, to create tests that I and other NC teachers will have to give. NC is a nightmare to teach in right now. There have never been unions, so teachers have always been asked to do things administration could never get away with in a union state, but every work day this year is devoted to Race to the Top. My next semester begins on January 23 and the work day on the 22nd is occupied with RttT instead of finalizing my grades or planning for new students and courses. One of our RttT workshops involved using string, tape, spaghetti, and marshmellows to construct something. We also watched 30 second Disney/Pixar clips which were referred to constantly as “authentic texts.” I have been teaching English since the 1970s, and I have never seen anything like the direction public schools are going in now. I know Ms. Ravitch is strongly against charters, but I am for anything that is exempt from this madness that has over-taken public education. Public education is apparently for sale, and teachers and students are the victims. Like the Titanic, I am not sure it can be saved.

Categories Budget Cuts, Privatization, Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

How Phony Reform Destroys Teacher Morale: “I Quit”

By dianeravitch
January 24, 2013 //
24

A reader sent this sad commentary on the state of education today. When you read dozens of letters like this from districts around the country, you have to wonder if the “powers that be” are trying to force experienced teachers out of the classroom, to make room for the young teachers who don’t know enough to think differently, who won’t stay around long enough to get a pension, who won’t question the New Order of testing and submission. Maybe the greatest act of defiance is to stay and fight for what is right. Because the end of the “reformers'” time in charge draws near:

 

I QUIT and I did not send a letter…One day’s notice ….as I have one life to live and had rather rake yards, mow lawns, and even clean houses thasn to walk in any of these schools..

I am exhausted from trying to figure out what to teach for the next county test……then state test.

I am tired of the CLAWS that come at you and the Ugly Faces of the Powers that be when your class of 33 can not make an A on one of those SO BAD BAD TESTS!!!.

Those “Frowny Powers that Be” people may not know it but they will die early and have so many wrinkles form those Ugly Ugly Facial Gestures!!!

I am so tired of the hiring of all of the coaches that nag and nag and nag the veteran teachers and pretend to know more…but they do not..

I am tired of the Professional Learning whatevers where teachers discuss TEST SCORES for a kid with a 58 I.Q….while an administrator that has never taught more than one year takes notes back to the Super Powers…or they have some person whose position has been created to sit there and take notes to take back to the Super Powers..

NY…..NC….should call those meeting-”TESTER MEETINGS”
I know that those States test and test and test and test and test and test!!!!

I am almost positive that the Powers that be will be in the future mandating Pregnant Women to test their Embryos for Gene Defects in order to get a Head Start on any problems the child may have for Future Testing…

I am tired of not having a book…but am asked instead to get all of the material on the web….run off enough material to kill all of the trees in Pennsylvania…..all of the trees in the National Forests.,…etc…

I can not believe that the State is asking for activities that the teacher creates to put on their website for this Common Core..
If I were that teacher..I would charge the state $500 for each and every activity after I had copyrighted the activity…

What the Educational Super Powers have done is to Drain teachers of any motivation and creativity…

The media has turned their heads on this one…unless someone comes to school with a gun or a knife, you never hear of any news of the Destruction of Public Education.

What a shame..

Categories Corporate Reformers, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Teaching in an Age of Injustice

By dianeravitch
January 23, 2013 //
63

Not long ago, I published a post by Carol Jago, a former president of the National Council of Teachers of English, about how to teach the Common Core in English.

The discussion that followed her post was disturbing. Several teachers said that in their school or district there was a strong mandate to cut back on the teaching of literature. This is absurd, and nothing in the Common Core says there should be less literature. Indeed, if you look at reading across all subject areas, the amount of time devoted to teaching literature in the English class should be untouched.

But even more disturbing were several comments by a teacher in Arkansas named Jamie Highfill. Jamie is in her 11th year of teaching in the schools of Fayetteville, Arkansas. Her students have achieved outstanding results. According to her profile on the district home page, her students consistently outperform district and state averages, and 77% scored advanced in 2011-2012.

In 2011, she was selected as Arkansas’ Outstanding Middle Level English Language Arts Teacher by the Arkansas Council of Teachers of ELA.

Read her resume. The plaudits and commendations go on and on. She is also a veteran of the U.S. Navy in the Gulf War of 1991, where she won many medals for her achievements. She is a leader.

But here is the kicker, which I learned from the comments: This remarkably accomplished teacher has been placed on an “improvement plan.”

How is this possible?

Offline, I emailed Jamie and asked her why she was put in the doghouse. She replied:

I was told that I “failed to properly administer the first quarter writing assessment.” 
 
The “assessment” spanned eight class days, and was to coincide with the lengthy paper the students were required to write under the PARCC Content Model Frameworks.  My principal told me that my students’ papers were “unscoreable,” but I was never given the papers back, nor did anyone explain to me what “unscoreable” meant.  My principal also told me that she would have the district’s ELA facilitator meet with me to explain it.  She never did, but she said she told me that “this cannot happen again.”
 
For the second quarter’s writing “assessment” (which lasted twelve days), my students papers were flagged because they were “too similar,” and “too good.”  My principal told me during the meeting where she put me on improvement status that she was afraid my students were “going to finish the year behind.”
I guess it “happened again.”
 
I have Co-Directed the Northwest Arkansas Writing Project since my own Fellowship in 2004, and have taught writing workshops to my students every year, with the result that my students consistently score among the top students in my state, but standardized testing scores aside, I TEACH my students to write.  Now I’m being told that I cannot teach them to write during joint workshop-assessments.

We live in mean times. We live with laws and policies that are meant to break the spirit of students and teachers.

We must not comply with injustice. When a teacher like Jamie Highfill is told that she needs to be on an “improvement plan,” you know that her school, her district, her state is on the wrong track.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Bobby Jindal’s Campaign to Smash Public Education in Louisiana

By dianeravitch
January 21, 2013 //
33

This day, set aside to honor the egalitarian message and life of Dr. Martin Luther asking Jr., is an appropriate time to consider the efforts by Governor Bobby Jindal to dismantle public education in Louisiana and replace it with a free market of choices, one with for-profit schools and no unions.

This plan will benefit the haves while harming the have-nots. It is an affront to the legacy of Dr. King. It will be implemented by people elected with the support of economic royalists. It is the work of elitists who shamelessly call themselves reformers as they grind the faces of the neediest into the dirt.

The Jindal plan includes vouchers, charters, for-profit online schools, and for-profit vendors, as well as a teacher evaluation that assures that few teachers will get or keep tenure. They will never have the protection of academic freedom, a concept unknown to corporate reformers.

Jindal’s state commissioner John White, who taught for two years as part of Teach for America and has never evaluated a teacher, says that the his standards will make it very difficult for teachers in Louisiana to win tenure.

In response to the new evaluation system, there is massive demoralization; the rate of teacher retirements has spiked by 25%. Superintendents say they are having a tough time replacing veteran teachers who are bailing out of White’s dystopian state.

Surely, teachers with years of experience in Louisiana public schools must think they are living in a madhouse, when the state superintendent has so little experience, and White has put the evaluation system in the hands of a 20-something with two years of teaching experience and an expired teaching license.

Meanwhile, John White has recommended a change in state board policy so that schools no longer will be “required” to have a librarian, a library or counselors. He wants the language to be changed to “recommended,” so that principals have the autonomy to decide if they want to spend their diminishing funds on a librarian or something else. Will this improve education?

Was it as a member of Teach for America or a member of the unaccredited Broad Academy that Commissioner White developed such contempt for public school teachers and American public education?

Here are the proposed changes:

Teachers, parents, and students need to know the proposed changes Superintendent John White is asking the BESE board to approve next Tuesday.

Two large changes will result in the possible removal of all counselors, librarians, and libraries.

Comprehensive Counseling (1125) no longer requires secondary schools to have counselors, only that “It shall be recommended that …” they have them. Libraries and Librarians (1705) have been reworded similarly: “It is recommended that each secondary school have [them]…” (All italics are mine.) This will allow school systems to eliminate these highly valuable and necessary individuals.

“Carnegie Unit and Credit Flexibility” (2314) allows students to earn credit in two ways. The traditional path involves passing a course with a 67 or greater. The new path is for students to demonstrate proficiency in one of three ways. 1) They can pass a nationally-recognized test, though no definition of such a test follows. 2) They can pass a locally developed test of proficiency, with, again, no definition following. 3) Lastly they can submit portfolios that meet a list of requirements to demonstrate proficiency. Students can now attend any amount of time they wish, because should they demonstrate proficiency, they can still earn the Carnegie credit.

This is only a sample of other changes.

  • · No school system is required to participate in a School Accreditation program (311) every five years and receive a classification.
  • · The school will no longer be sited for having staff not holding a valid Louisiana teaching certificate or for having physical facilities that “do not conform to the current federal, state, and local building fire, safety, and health codes.”
  • · One section (1103) states a high school student shall be in attendance a minimum of 167 days out of 182, but later Section 2314 says the minimum number of minutes required is 7,965, whic! h can be achieved in 159.3 days in a 7-period day, and in 133 days in a 6-period day.
  • · Section 2313 for Elementary Program of Studies (covering K-8) has been stripped of its suggested outline of content areas. Any school can design any curricula it deems appropriate.
  • · The section on Summer Schools (2501 and 2503) have been gutted of most of their requirements, including minimum instructional hours and class size limits.
  • · One person without a valid teaching certificate could teach hundreds of students in one class taught for one week if the school superintendent approves it.
  • · Section 1703 also allows local educational agencies to use state money to purchase textbooks that BESE has not approved.

Please contact the BESE board and strongly voice your objections to these proposed changes by Superintendent White and Governor Jindal.

No one could seriously believe those changes will improve education in Louisiana.

Vincent P. Barras, educator

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Louisiana, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Is This the Broad Academy Playlist?

By dianeravitch
January 20, 2013 //
13

A reader offered this comment in response to the post about school closings in Sacramento:

A “Broad” superintendent who follows its “play-list” to “capture” the school board and privatize the district as much as possible:

– Convinced the board of education to turn all the power over to the superintendent.

– Keeps secret all the contracts and consultants hired by the superintendent. In fact, it’s been said that the latest consultant working with the superintendent was the principal of Kevin Johnson’s St. Hope H.S. None of this information can be found on the district’s web site. Even the organization chart with unfilled positions is dated July 2012.

– Consistently and knowingly breaches the contract to keep the union busy with grievances and court procedures.

– Whittles away at teacher tenure by creating a class of teachers in the district’s “priority schools” whose jobs are protected from last hired, first fired. (Yes, the union is
grieving this.)

– Increases class size to 30+ in all grades except those in “priority” schools.

– In “failing” schools the district insists on split grades rather than keeping class sizes
low.

– Forces remedial programs (more test prep on top of test prep) onto “failing” schools
without any input from the teachers and wastes hundreds of thousands of dollars on
consultants and test prep companies.

– Closes the neighborhood schools under the pretext that there are too few students in
the school. But in fact, it’s because they are “failing” (read: poverty and neglect.)

– “Allows” a private charter school to locate in the former “neighborhood ” school.

– Parents who want and need a neighborhood school drop out of the public school and send their kids to the charter.

– Pink slips for union teachers.

Categories Broad Foundation, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Poverty, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

NY State Commissioner King Threatens NYC Children

By dianeravitch
January 19, 2013 //
28

New York Commissioner of Education has warned New York City that if the union and the mayor don’t reach a deal on teacher evaluation, he will withhold over $1 billion, in addition to the $250 million already at stake in Race to the Top funding.

He is holding the children and their education hostage unless the parties submit to his will.

With his long (two year) history in a charter school, he knows all there is to know about how to evaluate teachers. His Uncommon Schools charter is known for incredible suspension rates. Does that affect evaluations? He doesn’t say.

How dare he cripple the education of 1.1 million students unless the teachers do as he tells them. Revolutions have happened for less.

Categories Accountability, Bloomberg, Michael, New York, New York City, Teacher Evaluations, Unions

Wake the Town and Tell the People

By dianeravitch
January 18, 2013 //
3

If we all speak out based on our knowledge and experience, we can turn this privatization movement around. It is led by people who know nothing about teaching or children. They are obsessed with data and incentives and punishments. Their bad ideas keep failing.

From a reader:

Hi Diane.

This is the first time I have commented on your blog but I have been reading your posts since the blog’s inception. Please know that you inspire me and keep me going. The reason being, you give me hope that we, as public school teachers, have a voice out there fighting for us.

I have been teaching for 12 years in a small upstate New York city school. We are ravaged with 75% poverty and developmentally innappropriate expectations for our kids from the Common Core. There is no “soft bigotry” of low expectations, just expectations WAY out of the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky).

I have seen the corporate reform agenda taking shape for years and have seen main stream media’s narrative of it’s benefits. It’s demonization of us public school teachers. It frustrates me to such a degree that it is hard to have hope for change. You give me that hope. You inspire me to get the message out to my collegues. To speak up at meetings and generally be the voice of dissent in this otherwise brainwashed, “duped” society. Thank you for that. And thank you for continuing this fight against the monster that is the pritization movement. Enjoy your break. It is well deserved.

Categories Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reformers, Teacher Evaluations, Vouchers

Value-Added Measurement Is Unstable

By dianeravitch
January 17, 2013 //
11

Data hounds continue to search for a measuring stick to identify teacher quality.

They can’t believe they are on a fruitless hunt, like trying to find a barometer or yardstick to say which piece of art is best, which doctor is best, which…… as though human judgment means nothing.

Here is Matt Di Carlo summarizing the research on the instability of VAM, meaning that the best teacher this year might be only average next year, or vice versa.

Categories Teacher Evaluations

UFT Leader Blames Mayor for Failure to Reach Deal on VAM

By dianeravitch
January 17, 2013 //
14

Apparently the mayor and the union in NYC did not reach a deal on teacher evaluation.

Too bad. VAM Is junk science. It should not be legislated or imposed anywhere.

Here is the UFT press release. Count on seeing the mayor blame the union for not accepting a lousy scheme that has no basis in evidence or experience.

STATEMENT BY UFT PRESIDENT MICHAEL MULGREW:

I am sorry to announce that I have notified Governor Cuomo and other state officials that — despite long nights of negotiation and a willingness on the part of teachers to meet the DOE halfway – the intransigence of the Bloomberg administration on key issues has made it impossible to reach agreement on a new teacher evaluation system.

It is particularly painful to make this announcement because last night our negotiators had reached agreement – but Mayor Bloomberg blew the deal up in the early hours today, and despite the involvement of state officials we could not put it back together.

Thousands of parents have gotten a lesson this week, as the Mayor’s “my way or the highway” approach has left thousands of schoolchildren stranded at curbs across the city by the school bus strike. That same stubborn attitude on the Mayor’s part now means that our schools will suffer a loss of millions of dollars in state aid.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, New York City, Teacher Evaluations

$50 Million. 3 Years. No Clue.

By dianeravitch
January 16, 2013 //
41

Gary Rubinstein, the brilliant math teacher at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, has done it again.

He has dissected the Gates MET study–the one that says test scores are better at determining teacher quality than observations–and he says that the data in the study don’t make the point that has been widely reported.

Gene Glass, Research Professor at the University of Colorado, takes apart the MET study, and like Gary, says that the $50 million was a waste.

I wonder when Gates will abandon his mission to find the perfect metric to measure teacher quality. It isn’t working anywhere; it has perverse incentives; it is inaccurate and unreliable.  How long will he stick with this failed idea?

Just think how many musical instruments that $50 million would have bought, how many librarians could have been rehired, how many after-school programs might have been funded.

 

 

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing
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