Archives for category: Teacher Evaluations
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Outlook for Common Core: Turmoil Ahead

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2012 //
11

Researchers usually find that students flourish where there is stability in the school, with an experienced staff, clear expectations, small classes, and a rich curriculum.

In Kentucky, first state to implement and test the Common Core, student scores fell and achievement gaps widened.

This teacher in Connecticut foresees rough weather ahead as the state and federal government launch a massive experiment:

I wonder about the impact specifically in Connecticut where we are rolling out a new comprehensive teacher evaluation system at the same time [as Common Core]….so we have teachers learning new standards, possibly new curriculum, new evaluation processes, new observational rubrics for lessons, teaching and then setting learning goals based on results of one type of test in 2014, and then another online, common core test in 2015…how many schools will fail? How many teachers will not make gains with their students? How many will be fired? How many schools will be taken over? How will the students handle all the stress and change in the schools? It sounds to me like a lot of people will benefit – private companies waiting to take over schools, publishers, trainers, RESCS, but the hands-down, biggest loser will be the students. It is going to be a rough ride in Connecticut for a few years as this experiment unfolds.

Categories Charter Schools, Common Core, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Technology, Computers, Testing, US Education

How to Become a Teacher in Need of Improvement

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2012 //
32

A teacher explains how she went from effective to “in need of improvement”:

“I too have been highly effective for the 13 years I have been in the classroom, until last year, that is. I am now a teacher in need of improvement, not due to my teaching or my rapport with my students, but because I didn’t have my learning goal posted next to my rubric and I didn’t put descriptive feedback on 100% of the papers in portfolios )I missed 3 papers out of the 100+ that were in there). I didn’t refer to my rubric at the beginning, middle and end of my 15 minute small group lesson and when dealing with a child on the autism spectrum, I didn’t ask him to recall what the rule was for sitting on the carpet, I used the cue that I had discussed with him instead. This VAM is ruining the psyches of teachers and making us feel like we just fell off of the turnip truck. Way to make us want to stay in the career we love…tell us we suck every day!”

Categories Accountability, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Joshua Starr: “Stop the Insanity”

By dianeravitch
December 11, 2012 //
8

Joshua Starr is the superintendent of Montgomery County’s public school system, the 17th largest district in the nation. He says that the “country needs a three-year moratorium on standardized testing and needs to ‘stop the insanity’ of evaluating teachers according to student test scores because it is based on ‘bad science.’He also said that the best education reform the country has had is actually health-care reform.”

He said that evaluating teachers by test scores is a very bad idea.

Starr said that “a good way to create assessments for Common Core-aligned curriculum would be to crowd-source the development and let teachers design them rather than have corporations do it. He criticized policies that help make public education ‘a private commodity.'”

Starr said that schools have been asked to make too many changes at the same time.

Joshua Starr was named as a member of the honor roll on September 1, 2012, for refusing to accept Race to the Top funding to judge his teachers by their test scores.

Superintendents across the nation have told me they share Starr’s views. If only they all said so in public, we could reclaim American education from the miasma of bad ideas.

Categories Education Reform, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

Mayor Bloomberg: Beware of Junk Science!

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2012 //
30

New York City’s Department of Education (meaning, Mayor Bloomberg) and the United Federation of Teachers are wrangling about the formula for rating and ranking teachers and how much of it should be determined by test scores. The mayor still wants to publish the names of teachers along with their ratings so that parents will know which teachers to avoid and which to seek out. Imagine the chaos in schools when everyone wants to be in Ms. Smith’s class and no one wants to be in the classrooms of Mr. Jones, Ms. Green, or Col. Mustard.

It is important to remember how untrustworthy these formulae are.

Here is a good reminder. Aaron Pallas describes the “worst” eighth grade math teacher in New York City.

And here is the story of the “worst teacher” in the city of New York.

The New York Post plastered her name and picture in its pages, but it turned out that she teaches new immigrant students who cycle in and out of her class. The value-added ratings for her were meaningless.

Categories Accountability, New York City, Teacher Evaluations

Florida Superintendent: VAM Is Garbage In, Garbage Out

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2012 //
12

Dan Boyd, the superintendent of Alachua County Public Schools in Florida, explains what a mess the Florida value-added assessment program is.

Sixty-seven counties are each using their own formulas to rate teachers.

In his own county, 75% of the teachers are not teaching subjects or grades that are tested, so they are evaluated based on the scores of students they never taught and on subjects they don’t teach.

He writes:

“Alachua County is sending up a revised plan. The DOE will still have to approve it and it will still have to comply with the law. And there’s the rub, because any way you slice it, this system is badly flawed. It’s inconsistent, it’s unfair and it’s unscientific. Worst of all, there’s no proof that it does anything to actually help students.”

More intelligent and courageous public officials like Dan Boyd, and the public will understand the harm that these fake reformers are inflicting on children, teachers and public schools.

Categories Accountability, Florida, Teacher Evaluations

Mayor Bloomberg: Time to Hold Teachers’ Feet to Fire

By dianeravitch
December 8, 2012 //
31

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided that rating teachers by their test scores and publishing their names in the paper is the last hill he will stand on in his struggle to establish a legacy. He says it is time to hold teachers’ feet to the fire. He would rather cut the budget than let teachers “off the hook” on teacher evaluations.

The mayor is a busy man. We can’t expect him to know anything about education research. He is making his judgments based on his gut instincts. It’s a shame that no one at the New York City Department of Education will tell him that what he believes in doesn’t work. The teachers of English language learners, special education students and gifted students are likely to look like bad teachers. I’m guessing no one at Tweed has the nerve to speak up. They are all in awe of him.

As his third term dwindles down to its closing days, the public has lost confidence that he can reform the schools. In the latest poll, only 25% approved his stewardship of the schools.

I wish he would call me. I could help him.

Categories Bloomberg, Michael, Budget Cuts, NYC, Teacher Evaluations, Unions

Florida Botches New Teacher Evaluation Reports

By dianeravitch
December 6, 2012 //
15

Florida’s Department of Education rolled out its much-anticipated teacher evaluation reports, and only hours later, withdrew them. Most teachers were rated effective or highly effective, but the reports had numerous errors.

At some point, after hundreds of millions of dollars have been wasted trying to standardize a process that requires human judgement, after thousands of excellent teachers have abandoned a profession they once loved, someone will finally admit that this nutty idea doesn’t work. A chorus will grow from sea to shining sea: teacher quality can’t be judged by student test scores.

Categories Florida, Teacher Evaluations

Baker: New York Educator Evaluation Is Fundamentally Flawed

By dianeravitch
December 6, 2012 //
9

Bruce Baker of Rutgers says that New York state’s educator evaluation system is biased, inaccurate and unfair. Even the consultants who created the system, he writes, acknowledged the high rate of error. But the state says “full speed ahead.” Baker urges educators to “just say no.”

Categories New York, Teacher Evaluations

Jersey Jazzman and a Generation of Mendacity

By dianeravitch
December 4, 2012 //
3

Jersey Jazzman has his plate full just trying to keep up with the nonsense and prevarication now tumbling from the mouths of reformers. . In this post, he corrects a self-proclaimed member of “the new majority,” who wrote in the Washington Post that young teachers are just itching to be judged by the test scores of their students.

He belongs to a Gates-funded group of young teachers who glory in the idea that teachers with less than 10 years experience are “the new majority.” Gates drops a million or more on groups like this who push the unions to endorse Gates’ ideas.

The young fellow corrected here by the Jazzman chastises the Chicago Teachers Union for striking for more pay and tenure, but that’s not why they struck. He might start by getting his facts straight. JJ offers him help.

He might read this to learn more about why 90% of his brothers and sisters in Chicago authorized a strike. That is, 90% of all the CTU members voted to strike, and they were 98% of all those who cast a ballot. Surely, some of that number were young teachers too.

Categories Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teacher Evaluations, Testing, Unions

What Is the True Cost of RTTT Teacher Evaluation Plans?

By dianeravitch
December 4, 2012 //
10

Newsday on Long Island ran an article about the exorbitant cost of new teacher evaluation programs mandated by the state to comply with its Race to theTop grant.

The editorial board of the newspaper opined in favor of the unproven, heavy-handed plans to judge teachers and principals by student scores.

The superintendent of the Southold, Long Island, schools wrote a wise response to the editorial:

What is the true cost of the new teacher and principal evaluation systems?

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
-Albert Einstein

When we look at the cost of principal and teacher evaluation (Newsday Editorial, Teacher evaluations usually not ‘unfunded’ 11/27/12) there is a temptation to look at the numbers and come to the conclusion that the benefits of a new system are worth it, except for the complaints coming from educators. Beyond the dollars and cents lurks a far greater cost for something that is bereft with many untested variables. The public at-large rightfully demands a sound return for their investment in taxpayer dollars—whether local property taxes, or precious resources at the state level. Dig just beneath the surface of the new evaluation system and discover the true hidden costs.

Both large and small school districts face the same dilemma regarding the effective design of their respective educational systems. This is true whether we look at establishing a vigorous curriculum, defining the proper role and use of educational technology, determining how we should preserve school infrastructure, as well as what are effective means to monitor and evaluate all facets of the educational enterprise? Examine any public or private initiative or undertaking and you will find both effective and efficient ways to measure what works; you will also find cumbersome, over-intrusive, and costly designs for such systems of measurement.

The presumption that what works in one sector applies equally to others using the same or similar metrics which renders a determination of where quality lives may in fact be shortsighted at the very least, and detrimental to an organization’s mission at worst. The educational establishment is not, and should not be, exempt from scrutiny, or effective means to evaluate results. The current system, well underway, is not such an effective or efficient means to conduct such an evaluation.

The personal and professional opinions of citizens, policymakers, legislators, and practitioners run the gamut when it comes to a prescription for what ails the educational system. Look in one school and you find a drop out rate that should alarm everyone for what it portends in the way of the true cost to society in the years ahead (reliance on social service support, possible incarceration, let alone the human travesty of lives that go unfulfilled). Look elsewhere and you may see aspiring artists, musicians, and the like being nurtured in their respective school community. The aspiration for career and college readiness is not, and will not be, enhanced with an agenda that over tests and under engages students. Measuring the outcomes under a single banner that accounts for all variables would be difficult at best.

The true cost comes not in what we gain from this new system but what we lose with its narrow focus of effectiveness despite an expansive investment of time and energy to render judgments on what that effectiveness may look like. This time is equatable to dollars, but worse, it drains resources from the true mission of public education—to imbue a clear and compelling sense of purpose for the ideals of our American democracy, our entrepreneurial spirit, and a commitment to preserve our past and find our future. This prescription for measurement would leave the most ambitious and innovative private company ill equipped to compete with a more nimble and creative enterprise that does not find itself in a misguided mode of compliance.

Rather than champion the broad brush approach that is presently being administered throughout every schoolhouse in the state, the editors of Newsday would be well served to critically examine the net effects of this rush to judgment by looking at examples the world over that produce excellent results in school. Countries like Finland and Canada do not use a similar means of evaluation to arrive at an unequivocal definition of success. In fact in some cases you need look no further than right here on Long Island.

David Gamberg
Superintendent
Southold School District

Categories Race to the Top, Teacher Evaluations
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