Archives for category: Teacher Evaluations
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Hamburg Teachers: Stop Threatening Us

By dianeravitch
January 16, 2013 //
6

The Hamburg (NY) teachers union has refused to agree to a deal on teacher evaluations that would give all power to the superintendent; they want an independent person to make the final judgment when a teacher appeals a bad evaluation.

Negotiations broke down when an administrator threatened that teachers would be fired if no agreement was reached.

Remember that the deal is about getting $450,000 for the district to comply with Race to the Top, which requires that teachers be evaluated by the scores of their students. New York has an evaluation plan whose own designers (AIR) have said is not ready for prime time.

By agreeing, the teachers agree to be judged by a methodology that is JUNK SCIENCE.

Be strong, Hamburg Teachers. Minimize the damage to teachers, and you protect your students and your schools against churn and demoralization.

Categories Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Blasts Rhee Report Card

By dianeravitch
January 15, 2013 //
14

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch tore apart Rhee’s shoddy report card, recognizing tat it is nothing more than an effort to foist her personal political preferences on the nation’s schools.

Unfortunately the newspaper admires some of her bad ideas–like evaluating teachers by test scores–and is unaware that her IMPACT program in DC hasn’t made a difference. And it accepts her mistaken notion that teachers are the problem, not poverty, not inequitable resource, not overcrowded classes, not bad policies like the ones she is pushing.

The good news is that her act is wearing thin, even with a paper that is inclined to agree with her.

They write: “…issuing arbitrary report cards followed by back-slapping news releases from politicians who have — or will shortly — receive campaign donations is a cynical way to go about standing up for children.”

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

Denver: So Much Reform. So Little Success.

By dianeravitch
January 15, 2013 //
10

Jeannie Kaplan is an elected member of the Denver Board of Education. She has been critical of corporate-style reform and of the heavily-funded effort to persuade the public that it is successful. When she heard that Jonah Edelman of Stand for Children told an audience in Tulsa recently that Denver was a national model of success, she decided to review the score card for the district. (Stand for Children boasts of its civil rights credentials but supported a slate of Republican candidates for the state legislature in 2012, as part of its campaign for corporate reform).

Kaplan wrote for this blog:

So Much Reform. So Little Success

Denver, Colorado is a poster child for much of what reformers like to see: standardized testing, teacher accountability, charter schools, choice, co-location, and oh, did I mention testing? Denver Public Schools is trying or has tried almost all of them. Why, even Jonah Edelman, founder of one of the most well-funded, prominent reform organizations, Stand for Children, just today, January 10, 2013, pointed to Denver as a leader in reform because of its “portfolio” of school choice led by its charter schools. So, how is reform really working in Denver?

Let’s start by focusing on achievement, meaning test scores, since that is the focus of all things reform. (This post will have a lot of data since reform and data go hand in hand these days, especially data that can be spun). Denver Public Schools have been rated by the Colorado Department of Education as “Accredited with Priority Improvement Plan,” for the last three years. Out of five grades this is the second to the bottom. To be fair, DPS is inching toward the next category, “Accredited with Improvement plan.” The cut point is 52% of eligible points; Denver is at 51.7%. I am not sure how meaningful this data point is, since the GROWTH points count for 35 points out of 100 and ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT, meaning proficiency, counts for only 15.

Colorado now places enormous emphasis on “the growth model.” While no one would contest you need to have growth to get to proficiency, I believe this model masks what is really happening, and so the data I am citing is all about proficiency. To further emphasize how growth can mask proficiency, allow me to quote from one of Denver’s most ardent reformers, Alexander Ooms, who said on in a commentary on EdNewsColorado:

“Denver can celebrate academic growth for years to come without making much progress in the exit-level proficiency of students. And that is simply not the right direction. Growth is means, not end.” http://www.ednewscolorado.org/2012/05/23/38581-commentary-our-unhealthy-obsession-with-growth to read his entire commentary.

I could not have said it better. The data I cite are proficiency numbers, not growth numbers.

In 2005, when reform was in its infancy, Denver Public Schools hired its first non-educator superintendent: Michael Bennet, former businessman/lawyer, former mayoral chief of staff . Mr. Bennet’s childhood friend and fellow businessman, Tom Boasberg, was hired to replace him when Bennett became a Senator. Denver has been experimenting with reform since then. Oh, and BTW, Jonah Edelman grew up as Tom Boasberg’s neighbor in Washingon, D.C.

After 8 years, what academic changes has reform produced?

The following data is from 2005 through 2012, according to Colorado standardized tests. Here is the website for a deeper delve into the data

http://www.schoolview.org/performance.asp

ACHIEVEMENT:

8 yr increase–% incrse per year–% chnge from ’11-’12–% proficient

Reading – — 12———-1.5 ———– 3 –————— 52

Math — — 10———–1.75————–2———————-46

Writing —- 11——— 1.375————2———————41

Science —– 11 —— 1.375 ——— 4 ——————31

Lectura -10 /—–// -1.25 /// -3 /// 46
Spanish Reading

Escruita 4 ////—/ .5 ///// -3 ////// 47
Spanish Writing

We can’t leave achievement without looking at the State of the Union shout-out school, Bruce Randolph. Bruce Randolph Middle School in 3 years of state tracked data shows a gain of 2% in reading to 28%, stayed at 19% in math, increased by 3% in writing to 17%, and increased 7% in science to 17%. It is tied for last in proficiency – 52nd – for all of Denver’s middle schools.

Bruce Randolph High School has declined 10% to 33% in reading, declined 3% in math to 10%, declined 2% in writing to 14% increased 1% to 12% in science. Bruce Randolph is 24th out of 27 high schools in academic achievement.

ACHIEVEMENT GAP increases based on 7 years of CSAPs/TCAPs

Elementary School

Reading 4.17
Writing 5.78
Math 6.46

Middle School

Reading 3.23
Writing 4.71
Math 6.72

High School

Reading 3.01
Writing 5.82
Math 6.30

According to DPS data, the gap between FRL and paid-lunch students has widened by 9% since 2005. In 2005, percent proficient for FRL was 29%, paid was 58%. In 2012 the numbers were 41% for FRL, 79% for paid. The gap has grown to 38%.

ACT RESULTS: (A composite score of 21 is generally accepted as a college readiness benchmark)

From a DPS presentation of September 2012​

2005 17
2012. ​17.6

GRADUATION for 2011 – we are still waiting state numbers for 2012 but the number of students graduating increased from 2,642 in 2005 to 3,414 in 2012, for a total of 772 more graduates in 8 years…or an average of 96.5 more graduates each year.

Here is how Denver Public Schools compares with the state:

State​​ 73.9%
Denver ​ 56.1%

REMEDIATION (from Fall of 2010)

From the Fall of 2007, when this data was first available to the Fall of 2010 (the latest data available, remediation numbers have increased from 57.1% to 59.7%. The state of Colorado is at 31.8%.

This is the achievement for 8 years of reform.

Need I say more?

Categories Accountability, Colorado, Education Reform, Privatization, Stand for Children, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

A Good Explanation of VAM for Non-Experts

By dianeravitch
January 14, 2013 //
19

Mercedes Schneider prepared a paper explaining value-added modeling, now widely promoted for evaluating teachers. She wrote it for legislators in Louisiana, who have been passing laws mandating VAM without understanding how inaccurate it is. This paper could be used to brief legislators in every state. Also policymakers at your State Education Department, also the U.S. Department of Education.

She introduces the paper as follows:

“Dear Lousiana Senators:
I have written a paper explaining value added modeling (VAM) issues based upon an examination of the Noell and Gleason VAM study presented to the Louisiana legislature in February 2011. I based my paper in part on a detailed Power Point presentation I gave as guest speaker at the Louisiana Association of Parish Textbook Administrators (LAPTA) conference in November 2012. In this current writing, I have removed some of the technical language in order to provide a smoother read.
VAM is highly problematic. I thank you for your time in reading the attached paper. Please contact me if I can offer any additional clarification.
Thank you.
–Mercedes K. Schneider, Ph.D.
Applied Statistics and Research Methods”

Categories Teacher Evaluations

Kasich Pulls a Fast One

By dianeravitch
January 13, 2013 //
15

A reader sent this notice of a major change in teacher evaluation in Ohio, slipped into legislation at the last minute, with little discussion. The governor is determined to follow the Rhee script and bombard teachers with test-based accountability, despite evidence to the contrary. I have a suggestion for Governor Kasich: How about if you take the students’ end of course exams and publish your test scores?

The bottom line:

If you’re not familiar with legislative language, here’s the summary 

HB 555 radically changes the method of calculating evaluations for about 1/3 of Ohio’s teachers. If a teacher’s schedule is comprised only of courses or subjects for which the value-added progress dimension is applicable – then only their value-add score can now be used as part of the 50% of an evaluation based on student growth. Gone is the ability to use multiple measures of student growth – ie Student Learning Objectives or SLO’s.

Teachers and school districts have spent countless months collaborating on the development and implementation of an evaluation system originally detailed in HB153 – only to now find the rules of the game changed at the 11th hour. Furthermore, the change is regressive. We have detailed the growing list of research that demonstrates the very real and serious problems with heavy reliance on value-add, and the need to offset these problems by using multiple measures of student growth.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Ohio, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Add Carnegie Corporation to Billionaire Boys Club

By dianeravitch
January 12, 2013 //
2

The Carnegie Corporation doesn’t have as much money to throw into the corporate reform movement as the Walton Foundation, the Broad Foundation, and the Gates Foundation but it is definitely on the same page as the big guys. Here is its report on 2011 spending. The education grants begin on p. 24. And there they are: charter schools, Jeb Bush’s favorite “digital learning,” Common Core, Race to the Top policies, and the usual reformy organizations.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Kudos to the Teachers of Hamburg Central School District!

By dianeravitch
January 12, 2013 //
29

When teachers stand together and refuse to be bullied by the powerful, they deserve our commendation.

The teachers in the Hamburg Central School District in New York voted overwhelmingly to reject a bad deal on teacher evaluation. In the plan at issue, the school superintendent would have been the sole arbiter on any appeals of a teacher’s rating. The teachers held out for an independent arbiter. They voted 217-82 not to accept the deal.

They will be hammered and told that they are costing the district $450,000 in Race to the Top funds, but they know not a penny of that money may be spent to reduce class size or hire social workers or guidance counselors or librarians or anything else that would meet the needs of students.

They also know that New York State has an untried evaluation system designed by AIR, whose researchers warned that value-added methods are not ready for high-stakes uses, such as determining the fate of teachers.

Someday in the future, people will look back on this era of teacher-bashing, this insatiable thirst for metrics, and wonder if our society succumbed to collective madness.

Thank you for your courage, teachers of Central Hamburg.

Stay strong.

Your colleagues support you.

Categories Honor Roll, New York, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Ballard High School Teachers Say NO in Solidarity with Garfield Teachers

By dianeravitch
January 12, 2013 //
13

The revolt against the inappropriate use of standardized testing is spreading in Seattle.

Teachers at Ballard High School in Seattle voted not to administer the MAP test and to support their colleagues at Garfield High School.

“Whereas

The MAP test is a resource expensive and cash expensive program in a district with very finite financial resources,

The MAP test is not used in practice to inform student instruction,

The MAP test is not connected to our curricula,

The MAP test has been re-purposed by district administration to form part of a teacher’s evaluation, which is contrary to the purposes it was designed for, as stated by its purveyor, making it part of junk science,

The MAP test has also been re-purposed for student placement in courses and programs, for which it was not designed,

The MAP test was purchased under corrupt crony-ist circumstances (Our former superintendent, while employed by Seattle Public Schools (SPS) sat on the corporation board of NWEA, the purveyor of the MAP test. This was undisclosed to her employer. The initial MAP test was purchased in a no-bid, non-competitive process.)

The MAP test was and remains unwanted and unneeded and unsolicited by SPS professional classroom educators, those who work directly with students,

The MAP test is not taken seriously by students, (They don’t need the results for graduation, for applications, for course credit, or any other purpose, so they routinely blow it off.)

The MAP test’s reported testing errors are greater than students’ expected growth,

The technology administration of the MAP test has serious flaws district wide which waste students’ time,

Therefore

We, the undersigned educators from Ballard High School do hereby support statements and actions of our colleagues at Garfield High School surrounding the MAP test. Specifically, the MAP test program throughout Seattle Public Schools ought to be shut down immediately. It has been and continues to be an embarrassing mistake. Continuing it even another day, let alone another month or year or decade, will not turn this sow’s ear into a silk purse.

Ballard High School teachers

Categories Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Washington State

This Superintendent Is Doing It Right

By dianeravitch
January 11, 2013 //
18

Last week, Wendy Lecker wrote an article in the Stamford Advocate saying that she was in search of one superintendent in the state of Connecticut who was doing the right thing for kids, teachers, and the community. Wendy had read here about the courage of Joshua Starr of Montgomery County, Maryland, and Heath Morrison of Charlotte-Mecklenburg, two superintendents who bravely have spoken the truth about the corrosive effects of the misuse of testing.

Was there one such stand-up superintendent in Connecticut?

I posted her plea and that very same day, I was able to identify Tom Scarice, superintendent of Madison, Connecticut, as the one. He brought together his community, parents, and teachers, examined research, and reached agreement on the best path forward for Madison.

I named Superintendent Scarice to the honor roll as a champion of public education.

Wendy Lecker investigated, and she agreed: Tom is the real deal!

She writes here about his leadership, which involved collaboration, not dictatorship or coercion:

“The district sought volunteer educators and administrators to develop a teacher evaluation plan that adhered to the core principles of the recent state legislation. But one component of the state’s proposed teacher evaluation plan is Value Added Measurement (VAM), a highly controversial system that uses student test scores in part to rate teachers’ effectiveness. The 45-member advisory council studied three areas: the efficacy of VAM, the impact of VAM on teachers and students and the impact of VAM on the quality of education. The overarching guiding principle was the goal of preparing Madison’s students to succeed in our complex world.

“After reviewing extensive research, the council concluded that VAM is unstable, unreliable and of questionable validity. To the council, “[s]tudent learning is too central to our beliefs to rely on unreliable data when making decisions.” This conclusion is consistent with the vast body of research on VAM. Just last month, the American Institute of Research joined the growing chorus of educational experts in advising against using VAM in any high-stakes situation precisely because of its many flaws.

“The council found that VAM has a destructive effect on both students and teachers. The narrow focus on standardized test scores heightens anxiety and leads to children who are less creative, expressive and excited to learn. VAM also negatively impacts two essential components of effective instruction: teacher collaboration, and the ability to meet individual students’ needs. Furthermore, the council determined from the research that VAM’s focus on test scores is detrimental to a quality education because it narrows the curriculum and marginalizes the development of the skills Madison decided were vital to successful life outcomes, such as critical thinking, problem solving and ethical decision-making.”

Read more: http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news/article/Wendy-Lecker-A-town-doing-it-the-right-way-4187399.php#ixzz2HiaxSJz7

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Connecticut, Honor Roll, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Teachers of Garfield High School in Seattle Say No!

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2013 //
83

By unanimous vote, the entire faculty at Garfield High School in Seattle voted not to administer the MAP test of reading and mathematics.

This is the first time, to my knowledge, that the faculty of an entire school refused to give mandated tests.

The action of the Garfield High School faculty could have national ramifications because it shows other teachers that there is strength in unity and that they do not have to endure unethical demands with passivity and resignation.

For their courage, their integrity, and their intelligence, I add the faculty of Garfield High School to the honor roll as champions of public education.

The teachers agreed that the tests are a waste of time and money. Students don’t take them seriously because they don’t count toward their grades. But teachers will be evaluated based on the results of these tests that students don’t take seriously. Even the organization that created the tests say they should not be used for teacher evaluation, but the district requires them anyway.

I hope that the example set by Garfield High School will resonate in school districts across the United States and around the world. High-stakes testing is bad for students, bad for teachers, and bad for education.

This is the statement by the teachers of Garfield High School:

SEATTLE – In perhaps the first instance anywhere in the nation, teachers at Seattle’s Garfield High School will announce this afternoon their refusal to administer a standardized test that students in other high schools across the district are scheduled to take in the first part of January.  Known as the MAP test, it purports to evaluate student progress and skill in reading and math. The teachers contend that it wastes time, money, and precious school resources.

            “Our teachers have come together and agree that the MAP test is not good for our students, nor is it an appropriate or useful tool in measuring progress,” says Kris McBride, who serves as Academic Dean and Testing Coordinator at Garfield.  “Additionally, students don’t take it seriously.  It produces specious results, and wreaks havoc on limited school resources during the weeks and weeks the test is administered.”

            McBride explained that the MAP test, which stands for Measure of Academic Progress, is administered two to three times each year to 9th grade students as well as those receiving extra support services.  The students are told the test will have no impact on their grades or class standing, and, because of this, students tend to give it little thought to the test and hurry through it.  In addition, there seems to be little overlap between what teachers are expected to teach (state and district standards) and what is measured on the test. 

            Despite this flaw, McBride states, results of the MAP tests will be used by district officials to help evaluate the effectiveness of instructors who give the test. “Our teachers feel strongly that this type of evaluative tool is unfair based on the abundance of problems with the exam, the content, and the statistical insignificance of the students’ scores,” she says.

            Refusing to administer a district-mandated test is not a decision the school’s teachers made casually, or without serious internal discussion.

            “Those of us who give this test have talked about it for several years,” explained Mallory Clarke, Garfield’s Reading Specialist. “When we heard that district representatives themselves reported that the margin of error for this test is greater than an individual student’s expected score increase, we were appalled!” 

            After the affected faculty decided unanimously to make a stand against the MAP test, they told the rest of Garfield’s faculty of their decision. In a December 19 vote, the rest of the school’s teachers voted overwhelmingly to support their colleagues’ refusal to administer the test. Not a single teacher voted against the action. Four abstained from voting. the rest voted to support it.

            “We really think our teachers are making the right decision,” said student body president Obadiah Stephens-Terry.“I know when I took the test, it didn’t seem relevant to what we were studying in class– and we have great classes here at Garfield. I know students who just go through the motions when taking the test, did it as quickly as possible so that they could do something more useful with their time.”  History teacher Jesse Hagopian said, “What frustrates me about the MAP test is that the computer labs are monopolized for weeks by the MAP test, making research projects very difficult to assign.” Hagopian added “This especially hurts students who don’t have a computer at home.”

            The $4 million MAP test was purchased by Seattle Public Schools during the tenure of former Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson, who left her position in 2011 and sadly passed away in 2012. Goodloe-Johnson sat on the board of directors of Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), the company that markets the MAP test. At the time, some pointed out this potential conflict of interest for Goodloe-Johnson, but the district went ahead with the purchase nonetheless.  NWEA itself warns that districts should not use the map test to evaluate teachers.  We teachers of Garfield High School believe that the NWEA is right—this test should not be used to evaluate teachers.  For secondary teachers the test cannot provide useful information about students’ skills and progress.  Still worse, this test should not rob students of precious class time away from instruction. “We believe the negative aspects of the MAP test so outweigh the positive ones that we are willing to take this step,” said Language Arts teacher Adam Gish.

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Categories Education Reform, Honor Roll, Support for public schools, Teacher Evaluations, Testing
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