Archives for category: Teacher Evaluations
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Expert: Why Cheating in DC Was Never Investigated

By dianeravitch
January 10, 2013 //
29

Mary Levy is a veteran civil rights lawyer and budget analyst in Washington, D.C., who has reviewed developments in the D.C. Public schools for more than 30 years. She wrote the following description of the D.C. cheating scandal, which was revealed by USA Today in March 2011 but never subject to a full and independent investigation:

Re: the U.S. Department of Education Inspector General’s “investigation” of cheating in the DC Public Schools on D.C. standardized tests

It is always interesting to watch power and ideology corrupting people’s judgment, in this case the belief that Michelle Rhee’s approach to education reform must be shown to be effective. There have been no meaningful investigations of the evidence of widespread cheating on DC’s state tests between 2008 and 2010. The ED IG’s statement implies that he relied on the DC IG, who only investigated one school. How could either know about the 102 other DCPS schools flagged for possible cheating? And why is the Department of Education so casual about test integrity? Why did Arne Duncan not ask his IG for a broader investigation?

I’ve studied DCPS data, policies, budget, and history for over 30 years. People with personal knowledge of what occurred during the testing aren’t talking to me any more than to anyone else, but my own data analysis supports the need for a real investigation. Among the top 10 DCPS erasure schools (over one-third of their classrooms flagged over a three year period), scores plummeted at all but one by 2010. At four-fifths of the top 20 erasure schools, scores fell by ten percentage points or more. These are schools with one quarter or more of their classrooms flagged. The bottom dropped out by chance at all those schools?

Contrary to Michelle Rhee’s assertion of “dozens and dozens of schools [with] “very steady gains” or even “some dramatic gains that were maintained,” DC CAS test scores rose significantly after 2008 at only a small number of schools (I counted). Ironically, several of those have been closed or are on the current closing list. Security was only tightened gradually, and is still vulnerable to exploitation, so we’re not at the end of the possibilities even now.

Over the months of preparing the Frontline documentary broadcast on Tuesday, January 7, John Merrow tried very hard to break through on investigating the evidence of cheating. He asked me and my colleagues for contacts and data often, and he actively and persistently sought out witnesses. But witnesses aren’t talking. They’re afraid. People in authority tend to dislike and distrust not only whistleblowers, but critics, even the friendly ones. Principals in DCPS serve at will, and the IMPACT evaluation system makes it easy to terminate teachers who displease their superiors. And after all, since cheating is so unimportant to the Department of Education and the leadership in DC, those who could bear witness can expect no result but retaliation.

Mary Levy
January 9, 2013

Categories Philadelphia, Rhee, Michelle, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, U.S. Department of Education

Gary Rubinstein: Gates’ MET Study Is Wrong

By dianeravitch
January 9, 2013 //
30

Gary Rubinstein took a close look at the new Gates’ study of teacher evaluation and says it is wrong. The media takeaway is tat in evaluating teachers, test scores are more reliable than observations. But Gary, who teaches mathematics at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, says it isn’t so.

Bill Gates has put $50 million into finding the ideal way to evaluate teachers.

Gary concludes: “It seems like the point of this ‘research’ is to simply ‘prove’ that Gates was right about what he expected to be true. He hired some pretty famous economists, people who certainly know enough about math to know that their conclusions are invalid.”

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teacher Evaluations

What Did Rhee’s Report Card Actually Measure?

By dianeravitch
January 8, 2013 //
11

G.F. Brandenburg, retired math teacher, has done a close analysis of Michelle Rhee’s. state report card.

He calls it a “Brave New World-type Orwellian fantasy,” in which words mean the opposite of what they say.

Her ranking does not measure whether states have high test scores or high graduation rates. it does not measure whether states have laws and policies that have encouraged better teaching and successful schools. It des not measure anything that matters.

Read the full story on his blog to see how and why Rhee gave out her abysmal grades, in which almost every state gets a D or an F except those run by her rightwing buddies.

Here is a sample from Brandenburg, stating first what Rhee claims she is measuring, followed by Brandenburg’s short explanation of what she really measured:

■ Reduce legal barriers to entry into teaching profession and permit alternate certification programs to provisionally place teachers in the classroom (Brandenburg: In other words, make a 5-week summer program like TFA, or no program at all, the legal equivalent to a traditional one- or two-year professional teaching license system.)

■ Pay structures based on effectiveness and performance pay (Brandenburg: In other words, make teachers’ pay dependent on the score from an arcane mathematical algorithm that no one understands (VAM) and which jumps around widely and wildly from year to year for the same teacher; and which correlates with nothing else. BTW, none of the many studies conducted on performance pay has yet shown that ‘performance pay’ for teachers does anything to help students. What’s more, many teachers in jurisdictions that have bonuses for teachers who score high on these formulas refuse to accept the bonuses, because of the ‘poison pills’ attached to the bonuses.)

■ Parental notification and parental consent for student placement with ineffective teachers (Brandenburg: in other words, public shaming of teachers who happen to end up on the short end of the VAM yardstick; this is part of Rhee’s Orwellian use of the phrase “Elevate the Teaching Profession”)

■ Remove arbitrary caps on public charter establishment and establish alternative authorizing and fast-track process for high-performing public charters (Brandenburg: We now know that charter schools are frankly aimed at destroying public education, not improving it. We also know that in 5/6 of the cases, charter schools do the same as OR WORSE THAN their peer public schools. We also know that the few charter schools that have good student achievement records do so by winnowing out all of the problem students — who are sent back to the public schools — and by having longer days, longer years, and summer programs, all of which cost more money.)

■ Provide comparable funding and prohibit authorizers from charging fees from public charter schools for oversight and administration (Brandenburg: In other words, make sure that charters get MORE money per pupil than the regular schools, since just about all charter schools receive large private donations. My administrator friends in DCPS and elsewhere tell me that private donors essentially refuse to give anything to regular public schools these days, no matter how worthy the program.)

Categories Charter Schools, Privatization, Rhee, Michelle, StudentsFirst, Teach for America TFA, Teacher Evaluations

AIR: VAM Not Ready for Prime Time

By dianeravitch
January 6, 2013 //
23

We have been saying it for months, no, since 2009, when Race to the Top started.

Value-added assessment or value-added-modeling is not ready for prime time.

Now we have a technical paper by American Institutes for Research that says it:

VAM is not ready for prime time.

Here is the takeaway:

“We cannot at this time encourage anyone to

use VAM in a high stakes endeavor. If one

has to use VAM, then we suggest a two-step

process to initially use statistical models to

identify outliers (e.g., low-performing

teachers) and then to verify these results

with additional data. Using independent

information that can confirm or disconfirm

is helpful in many contexts. The value of

this use of evaluative change results could be

explored in further research efforts….”

Is anyone at the U.S. Department of Education listening?

Hello?

Categories Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Mayor Bloomberg Compares NYC Teachers Union to NRA

By dianeravitch
January 5, 2013 //
34

Mayor Bloomberg is frustrated that the New York City United Federation of Teachers does not agree with his plan to evaluate them by test scores. He has been berating the union, as have the city’s tabloids, for weeks.

But now he hit a new low.

He compared the teachers’ union to the National Rifle Association.

Coming only weeks after the Newtown massacre, this is especially gross.

This is reminiscent of the time many years ago when U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige referred to the NEA as “a terrorist organization.”

Paige had the good sense to apologize. So should Bloomberg.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Teacher Evaluations, Unions

The VAM Mess in Pennsylvania

By dianeravitch
January 4, 2013 //
18

Value-added assessment is all the rage since te introduction of Race to the Top.

Before then, everyone understood that teachers, families, school resources and the student herself (or himself) were the determining factors in student test scores.

But RTTT set off a movement to use scores to evaluate teachers, hoping to identify laggards and fire them.

The only problem: VAM is junk science. The low ratings tend to go to teachers of ELL, special education, and troubled kids. The scores, it turns out, measure WHO you teach, not teacher quality.

VAM isn’t working anywhere, yet our nation will squander hundreds of millions, maybe billions, trying to make it work.

Now we hear from a great blogger in Pennsylvania: VAM is sure to be a mess there, as everywhere else.

Junk science is junk science.

Categories Pennsylvania, Teacher Evaluations

School Board Showdown in Los Angeles

By dianeravitch
January 4, 2013 //
10

Steve Zimmer is an alumnus of Teach for America.

He is not your typical TFA-er.

He was elected to the Los Angeles Unified school board in 2009, after seventeen years as a public school teacher.

He will be opposed by Kate Anderson, who has endorsements and major funding from the powerful charter school lobby.

Zimmer, because of his experience as a teacher, has become an outspoken, articulate supporter of students, teachers, and public education.

He has tried to slow down the value-added assessment juggernaut; he wants multiple measures.

The charter folks want to get Zimmer off the board because a few months ago, he offered a resolution calling for a higher level of accountability for charters, better auditing and reporting, more collaboration with public schools, and a moratorium on the opening of new charter schools until the new accountability measures are created.

Los Angeles is a major target for the charter lobby. It now has more than 100,000 children in charters, about 15% of the children in the district, more children than in any other district in the nation.

In light of the rapid growth of charters and their uneven performance, Zimmer said it was time to step back, establish reasonable oversight, and frame a reasonable policy for oversight and future growth.

Superintendent John Deasey said Zimmer’s resolution was “unnecessary.”

Two thousand charter parents turned out to hoot and ridicule Zimmer’s resolution.

And now the charter lobby is poised to knock him out.

Kate Anderson is a lawyer who has worked for Democratic officials. She is a mother of young children who attend public schools. She has pledged to support more charters.

Davis Guggenheim, director of “Waiting for ‘Superman,'” is holding a fund-raiser for Kate Anderson at the Sony Pictures commissary.

Steve Zimmer has the wisdom that comes from his 17 years in the classroom. He has the audacity to post on his website an article that showed that Los Angeles’ public schools outperformed the charter schools.

If the charter lobby manages to defeat him, it will be a very bad omen for the future of public education in Los Angeles.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Los Angeles, Privatization, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

The Dichotomy Between Corporate Reform and Real Reform

By dianeravitch
January 4, 2013 //
14

Anthony Cody has written a crisp analysis of the differences between what corporate reformers want and what supporters of public education want.

People like Anthony and me are often told to be accommodating, to be more receptive of the corporate style ideas.

But, as Anthony shows in this article, there are genuine differences.

Public education is facing an existential threat to its existence from people who support privatization.

They do this in a clever way, by talking about civil rights while advocating privatization.

They say it’s “for the children,” but somehow there are adults who seem to benefit more than the kids.

“They can’t wait,” but it’s not their life and career that is sacrificed while they impose risky schemes.

Yes, there is a dichotomy, and we cannot quietly acquiesce.

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

FOUND: One Brave Superintendent in Connecticut!

By dianeravitch
January 3, 2013 //
26

Earlier today, I posted Wendy Lecker’s article, in which she said she was in search of one brave superintendent in Connecticut, who would stand up against the data-driven, test-obsessed climate of the times.

I have found him.

He is Thomas Starice, the superintendent of the Madison, Connecticut, public schools. Superintendent Scarice consulted with his school board, parents and the local community. He has shown leadership in responding to the state’s recently passed legislation about linking teacher evaluations to test scores.

I am happy to add Thomas Scarice to the honor roll as a champion of public education.

Like Superintendents Heath Morrison in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, North Carolina, and Joshua Starr in Montgomery, Maryland, Scarice has courageously stood up for the best interests of children as well as his educational ideals. His leadership has made it possible for parents and the local community to express their own concerns and values about what is best for their children.

The Madison community wants its students to be prepared to think and be creative, not just to be good test takers.

One parent in Madison, who teaches in another district, said, “We are lucky [in Madison] to have a superintendent who is pro-active, with a vision,” he said.

According to the article from the local press, Scarice’s vision “holds teachers accountable, while at the same time encouraging and supporting them to help nurture creative, adaptive thinking, was reinforced by a Madison Education Summit held Nov. 28 at the Madison Senior Center. Dozens of community members, including librarians, pre-school teachers, business leaders, moms and dads, coaches, town and state officials, and one nun, gathered to talk about the future of education in Madison.”

Here are the minutes of the December board meeting where the state evaluation system was discussed.

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

A Newspaper with a Split Personality

By dianeravitch
January 2, 2013 //
18

Two days ago, the New York Daily News published a beautiful tribute to the heroes of Sandy Hook, both the dead and the living. The newspaper called them its Heroes of the Year. The editorial was written with such eloquence and feeling that it brought me to tears.

I admit I was surprised by this editorial because the Daily News is known for its stridently anti-teacher, anti-union editorializing. (On the other hand, its reporters are unfailingly fair, and the newspaper publishes the amazing Juan Gonzalez, whose column has exposed numerous scandals.)

Today, the New York Daily News resumes its regular flaying of teachers and their union with one of the world’s dumbest opinion pieces. This one was written by a teacher who belongs to Educators4Excellence. She says she moved from Denver, where test scores count for 50% of educators’ evaluations, to NYC because of the Big Apple’s reputation for innovation. The Colorado law was written by a young state senator who is an alumnus of Teach for America.

Based on this teacher’s opinion piece, we may safely assume that Denver was not innovative enough to keep her there nor was the lure of its fabulous teacher evaluation program.

She says that she really, really wants to be a better teacher but she can’t be unless she is evaluated by her students’ test scores. Does she not know her students’ test scores now? This is puzzling indeed.

Please, someone, send this young woman the report by the National Academy of Education and the American Educational Research Association on the inaccuracy of value-added assessment. Or the statement by leading researchers published by the Economic Policy Institute.

For the uninformed, here are a few details about Educators4Excellence. The organization is two years old. In its first year, it had grants and contributions of $339,031.00. That’s pretty amazing for a start-up.

Even more amazing, E4E had receipts last year of $1,926,028. About one-quarter of the total came from the Gates Foundation.

I wish E4E would share its secrets about how a small group of teachers raised nearly $2.4 million in only two years. Inquiring minds want to know. Think what we could do to support public education if we had their fundraising secrets.

Its mission seems to be to demonstrate–in testimony before legislative bodies, advertisements, and opinion pieces like this one–that teachers want to be evaluated by test scores, and they don’t want tenure. And above all, don’t pay any attention to experienced teachers. Listen to the kids who have taught for a few months or a few years. They know best.

Categories Colorado, New York City, Teach for America TFA, Teacher Evaluations
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