Anthony Cody calls out John Merrow for inconsistency on the Vergara decision. Merrow, Cody notes, has become increasingly outspoken as a critic of high-stakes testing, et fails to appreciate that his support for the Vergara decision is support for bubble testing as the ultimate judge of teacher quality.

Cody writes:

“The Vergara decision follows the poorly founded logic of the Chetty study, which makes dubious claims of future student success based on differences in test score gains between teachers. What is the effect on teachers and students when “student performance” becomes a factor in teacher evaluation – as Merrow advocates here? Student performance is almost always measured by test scores, and we already have many states that have gone down this path, and are using Value Added Models to predict what student test scores should be, resulting in poor evaluations for teachers whose students don’t grow as fast as the VAM system predicts they should. English learners, special ed, and even the gifted and talented tend to perform poorly in these systems, meaning that teachers who work with these students are likely to suffer from poor evaluations. And ALL teachers will be obligated to make whatever tests are used for these purposes central to their teaching, to avoid being terminated.

“Merrow closes his post with this statement:

“The effort to blame poor education results on teachers and unions is misguided and malicious. It’s scapegoating, pure and simple, but-it must be said-protectionist policies like those in California play into the stereotype.

“Let’s think about what this stance suggests we ought to do.

“In spite of the fact that the effort to blame poor results on teachers and unions is totally wrong, we should capitulate to the central demands of the “reformers.” Get rid of seniority. Base evaluations – and the decision as to who is terminated — more on student performance (test scores) and principal judgment.

“The result will be to make a profession that has become less and less desirable, even less so.

“Turnover has already been on the rise. Charter schools already are demonstrating the model at work, and have significantly higher teacher turnover to show for it. Moving public schools in this direction will drive turnover upwards there as well. Turnover has been shown to have a strong negative effect on student performance. This report should not be forgotten. It found that:

“For each analysis, students taught by teachers in the same grade-level team in the same school did worse in years where turnover rates were higher, compared with years in which there was less teacher turnover. 


“An increase in teacher turnover by 1 standard deviation corresponded with a decrease in math achievement of 2 percent of a standard deviation; students in grade levels with 100 percent turnover were especially affected, with lower test scores by anywhere from 6 percent to 10 percent of a standard deviation based on the content area.


“The effects were seen in both large and small schools, new and old ones. 


“The negative effect of turnover on student achievement was larger in schools with more low-achieving and black students.”

Cody maintains that low-performing schools need a policy of teacher retention, not teacher firing.

Jesse Rothstein, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley, tested for the defense in the Vergara trial.

In this article in the New York Times, Rothstein contends that the elimination of tenure–the goal of the multi-millionaire (or billionaire) behind the lawsuit–might make it more difficult to recruit teachers for schools that enroll poor and minority children.

Judge Rof Treu compared his ruling to earlier cases about desegregation and funding, trying to portray himself as a champion of “civil rights.” But, Rothstein writes:

“…there is a difference between recognizing students’ rights to integrated, adequately funded schools and Judge Treu’s conclusion that teacher employment protections are unconstitutional.

“The issue is balance. Few would suggest that too much integration or too much funding hurts disadvantaged students. By contrast, decisions about firing teachers are inherently about trade-offs: It is important to dismiss ineffective teachers, but also to attract and retain effective teachers….In fact, eliminating tenure will do little to address the real barriers to effective teaching in impoverished schools, and may even make them worse.”

In his own research, he found that “…firing bad teachers actually makes it harder to recruit new good ones, since new teachers don’t know which type they will be. That risk must be offset with higher salaries — but that in turn could force increases in class size that themselves harm student achievement.”

He concludes:

“The lack of effective teachers in impoverished schools contributes to [the achievement] gap, but tenure isn’t the cause. Teaching in those schools is a hard job, and many teachers prefer (slightly) easier jobs in less troubled settings. That leads to high turnover and difficulty in filling positions. Left with a dwindling pool of teachers, principals are unlikely to dismiss them, whether they have tenure or not…..Attacking tenure as a protection racket for ineffective teachers makes for good headlines. But it does little to close the achievement gap, and risks compounding the problem.”

In response to the debate in the New York Times “Room for Debate” about the Vergara decision, teacher H.A. Hurley commented on the historical perspective I offered, showing that tenure was part of women teachers’ struggle against the pervasive gender discrimination of superintendents and school boards.

Hurley writes that gender discrimination persisted long into the 20th century. She writes:

“Diane, outlining the history of the need for tenure in teaching was important. For many of us, the abuse of power by administrators of young teachers has not been so long ago. I remember the invasive questions of my marriage plans, pregnancy plans, birth control questions and having to provide answers to personal questions when taking a sick leave day or a personal day. Salary questions were discussed when answering questions related to why a woman worked if the husband worked. One system refused to honor my hyphenated last name, so did a major university in GA. Not that long ago!

“In one school, teachers had to provide all medical diagnosis and medications taken – 1998 in GA. Not long ago! Frightening! No protection!? Many more stories…

We were not able to wear pants, even if we were expected to sit in the floor, restrain BD students, or worked in cold climates.
Administrators were males and almost all teachers were women when I started in the late 1960s. Male Chauvenism was a new diagnosis and many men in authority were outraged and took it out in their female staff.
Job protection from abuse of power by authority was not awarded easily and is still fought in many states – not much has changed.

Michael Petrilli has no idea, about many things. Lots of slap Schtick generalizations, opinions and zip substance. Funny he is not, because Deformers use his airhead comments as gospel.
He operates all cylinders with personal attacks and bias. A scholar he is not and never will be. He reminds me of those administrators I wrote about at the beginning of this comment.
Unions, regs, lawyers and fear were the only reason some of these archaic ways changed. Only long enough to quickly rear their ugly heads with California rulings & more to come.

Frightening is an understatement. Women must speak up and tell their stories. Tenure has its history in gender discrimination.