Ravitch/Rubinstein Savage Study On Long-Term Teacher Impact

Diane Ravitch on NYCEDNEWS listserve:

I don't understand why NY Times gives such breathless, admiring treatment to a study that has not been peer reviewed.
I have a few questions.
How were they able to generate value-added measures for 2.5 million students over a 20-year period when no district was collecting value-added data? This was probably generated from NYC data, given the large number of students.


More important, perhaps, how were they able to gain access to individuals' income? And how were they able to match test scores, teachers' names, and income over a 20 year period?
Did they include selective schools?
Did they account for pupil mobility?
I hope peer reviewers will explore these issues.
Meanwhile, I am astounded that economists would confidently conclude that it's best to start firing more teachers sooner rather than later.

Value- added be damned: Study in NY Times an political hit job
I do not know one teacher who thought that their impact on student test scores would affect their lifetime earnings. So how nice/sad to find out in the front page NY Times Friday article that my teaching contributed to the long term high/low incomes of my former students, thus having a positive/negative impact on the US economy.

The great Gary Rubinstein (who daily proves that Teach for America CAN produce amazing teachers) chimes in with a powerful piece (The ‘three great teacher’ study — finally laid to rest) - a must read:

The New York Times​ story frustrated me since I know that value-added does not correlate with future student income. Value-added does not correlate with teacher quality. Value-added doesn’t correlate with principal evaluations. It doesn’t correlate with anything including, as I’ll demonstrate in this post, with itself.

Don need no stinkin' research
They should have used my school on Bushwick Ave. where most teachers spent their careers there despite teaching in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. Classes were grouped homogeneously by reading scores, we often rotated from top to middle (when there was a middle) to bottom class - except when the principal wanted to reward the pets with the top class year after year.

I could do the study for them using my own students. When I had top classes with better readers - even though they were all free lunch these kids often came from more 2 parent homes with someone working - from anecdotal evidence I can say that my teaching helped the American economy move forward. When I taught the bottom class, alas, my efforts helped sink America - including causing a rise in the prison population. (One Thanksgiving I got a call from 2 former students in the same cell block. They told me there were 9 former students from my school there with them.)

Now I was a special case in that the principals didn't care for my style of teaching which did not focus on test scores - yes Virginia, from my earliest days of teaching in the last 60's test scores DID count for administrators and teachers - I didn't totally ignore prepping kids but did not make it the main focus like lots of other teachers did. And they wanted to put the teachers who could produce the highest scores - by hook or crook - in the top class.

Thus I only had top classes - which is funny since we often only had 2 in the grade - twice - and the 2nd time I had to really fight for that class with a principal who hated me - she even diluted the top scores by making it the only heterogeneous class in the school (along with my colleague in the other class) - students from those classes that I run into or hear about are doing quite well. I would pat myself on the back but I had little to do with it. But go ahead and blame me for the kids who died on the streets or went to prison. I'll take the hit.

Questions from Josh Karan on the NYEDNEWS Listserve:

I would like to see more analysis and commentary on the anecdotal experience of some of the long time educators who posted on this article that they believe standardized tests are necessary to evaluate student progress, and that without them students of limited English language, of poverty, and facing racial discrimination would continue to be left behind.

Some of the educators who left comments to the alternet article admit that school funding is critical, and I expect that they would agree that class size reduction is also critical. They also try to distinguish between the tests themselves and the way they are used.
Still they believe that these tests are a valuable tool for measuring basic competency in math and english, which too many of our students never obtain.

In my experience, when my daughter attended a "progressive" elementary school 15 years ago, prior to the extensive utilization of tests that are employed now, the outcomes for students who did not enter kindergarten with the same verbal fluency that my daughter did was that they never participated in class to the same extent and graduated to what were considered lower performing middle schools, which may or may not have prepared them for higher level academic work. Anecdotally I perceived that they were never challenged with rigor.

The front page NY Times article of yesterday, citing a study that purports long term gain in both academics and life for students whose test scores increased over time is also something I would like to read more commentary on from professional educators of the Time Out From Testing/Fair Test orientation.

Josh

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