Video: Gary Rubinstein Uses Data to Smash Teacher Data Reports, Introduced by Julie Cavanagh

Did you know that the always awesome Gary Rubinstein is running with MORE as an AFT/NYSUT Convention delegate?

In this video, Gary uses statistics to expose TDAs in a WOWSER performance. As Julie points out, Gary is another one of the amazing crew who have young kids at home, enforcing a  next-gen MORE theme: we are teachers and parents.

You should never miss Gary Rubinstein's Blog where, as a 20-year TFA alum he exposes so much of their propaganda that the people running that joint consider him a major threat since he attracts TFA readers. Gary will tell you right up front that it was the 20th Anniversary TFA event in Feb. 2011 where ed deform reigned that opened his eyes.

GEM had our own TFA spy, who is also running with MORE for Exec Bd,
there who blogged directly from that event -- click the tab at the top of this blog to read all her reports.

I'm sure it is due to the UFT role in the ed eval fiasco that turned Gary into a MORE supporter. Too bad we have little chance of winning as in a future world Gary could be at a next year's version of this weekend's NYSUT event our dues are paying for so he could explain to our city and state union leaders what a losing proposition Unity has signed onto.

Well, I'll let you watch Gary's videos I taped last April at the same event with Carol Burris and Leonie Haimson and others. This was Julie's last hurrah before going into last trimester hibernation. I'm sure Unity slugs expected her to be at the DA while delivering.

http://vimeo.com/40754465



GEM/PAA/CSM Teacher Evaluation Forum: Gary Rubinstein from Grassroots Education Movement on Vimeo.

Video: Leonie Haimson at Teacher Evaluation Forum

The more I watch these videos from the GEM/CSM/PAA forum we held on April 17, the more impressed I am  --- 2 hours packed with insights. I broke them up into sections.

In this one Leonie Haimson points out that class size has not been taken into account in Teacher Data Reports and in fact class size has an impact on teacher ratings. She also talks about differentiation of instruction and how class size is ignored. It is obvious that the ability to differentiate instruction is absolutely dependent on class size. She eviscerates Dennis Walcott on his response on gifted and talented, really pointing just how pathetic and know-nothing a shill he is. And so much more.


Teacher Evaluation Forum - Leonie Haimson from Grassroots Education Movement on Vimeo.
Sponsored by GEM, Class Size Matters, Parents Across America.

See all videos from the forum

Leonie Haimson: http://vimeo.com/40760269

Carol Burris: http://vimeo.com/40748945

Khalilah Brann: http://vimeo.com/40758701

Gary Rubinstein: http://vimeo.com/40754465

Arthur Goldstein: http://vimeo.com/40740344

Q and A: http://vimeo.com/40772352

Brooklyn Teacher Reacts to Teacher Data Report in Letter to UFT Leader Mulgrew

...were teachers to be rewarded for their classroom's performance on the state test or alternatively, sanctioned for low performance many of these teachers would have demonstrated quite different results on a low-stakes test of the same subject.  Importantly, these differences need not be due to real differences in long-run skill acquisition…

Teacher effectiveness on high- and low-stakes tests - Corcoran/Jennings/Beveridge

I won't make any comments at this time as to whether Lynda's plea to Mulgrew will have an impact given that the UFT record on making a stand on these reports has not been good. But the letter is very powerful and illustrates the folly of flawed teacher ratings systems as indicated in the Corcoran/Jennings/Beveridge report from which the above quote comes - see more below Lynda's letter. Lynda touches on all the evils of data mania – of teachers abandoning testing grades and teaching solely to the test while ignoring some of the most important elements of a good education.

Also check out Jose Vilson.

From Lynda Costagliola, PS 3 Brooklyn

Dear Mr. Mulgrew,


I am a veteran public school teacher of 33 years and have taught a variety of subject areas and grades during my tenure. I began as a middle school special education teacher and am currently a licensed teacher for the Gifted and Talented Program, grade 5 . I have an exemplary record and have contributed in a positive way to many, many students most of whom I still keep in contact via that technological wonder, Facebook!

I received my Teacher Data Report on Wednesday, April 13 and was demoralized beyond words. I was rated an "average" teacher in both E.L.A. and Math and "below average" in one area of the math. I sat and stared at the computer screen reading through tears of frustration insisting that someone made a terrible mistake. I am NOT "an average/below average" teacher!


In June of each school year, parents line up outside my principal's office begging to have their children in my class. If I was such an "average/below average" teacher, why would parents do that? Over the years many of my fifth grade students have been accepted into such prestigious middle schools as DeLaSalle Academy, Medgar Evers Prep School, Mark Twain Middle School for the Gifted and Talented, Philippa Schulyer Middle School and the Prep for Prep Program. I prepare all my students to take these entrance exams as well as introduce them to the interview process. I don't think an "average/below average" teacher's students would be able to pass such rigorous entrance exams.


My principal told me to rip up my Teacher Data Report as she does not give it any merit, especially in my case. As a teacher of the Gifted and Talented, many of my students enter my class with perfect E.L.A. and Math scores. Where can I move them? What if my principal leaves and I am at the mercy of some Tweed Operative who only deals with statistics?


I hope my Union, one that I have supported and believed in since the days of Albert Shanker, will alert the public to the offensive nature and inaccuracies of these Reports. Fight their release and get rid of them! My livelihood is being challenged on the basis of two exams, which are administered over four days. Three hours of testing can measure a teacher's worth?


My evenings and weekends are consumed with paperwork. My preps? My lunch periods? I coach the Oratory Team and am the coordinating teacher for The Stock Market Game. I also coordinate many of the senior activities at my school. Should I give this all up and focus on test-taking? Teaching in Brooklyn certainly has it advantages. I have taken my class on many school trips to concerts, plays, museums and art galleries, all related to various areas of the curriculum. Should I stop and just focus on test-taking activities? Should I stop molding my students into becoming well-rounded young men and women and just focus on test-taking skills? If the answer is yes, then I fear I may have to retire.


Please Mr. Mulgrew. Get the word out that Teacher Data Reports are flawed, inaccurate and do not measure the worth of a competent, motivated teacher. These Teacher Data Reports do not take into account students who have to overcome incredible obstacles just to make it to class every day. What about students who, through no fault of their own, arrive at school late, hungry and unprepared? A teacher can only do such much in the course of a day, a week, a month and a school year. Many of my colleagues are reconsidering teaching the testing grades and are applying for lower grade positions or out of classroom positions.


I do not deserve such abuse. I have dedicated my life to the children who have passed through my classroom door. Please help me.


Lynda Costagliola, PS 3 Brooklyn

AFTERBURN

Teacher effectiveness on high- and low-stakes tests_

Sean P. Corcoran

Jennifer L. Jennings

New York University

Andrew A. Beveridge

Queens College/CUNY

April 10, 2011

http://homepages.nyu.edu/~sc129/papers/corcoran_jennings_beveridge_2011_wkg_teacher_effects.pdf

This study finds that teacher effects are 15-31% larger on high stakes tests than low stakes tests, that the value-added results of the same teacher on the two types of tests are only weakly correlated, that teaching experience matters more over a longer period of time in terms results on the low-stakes tests, and that teacher effects on high-stakes test decay at a faster rate.

We find that only 46% of teachers in the top quintile of effectiveness on the TAAS/TAKS reading test [high-stakes test] appear in the top quintile on the SAT [low stakes] reading test. More than 15% of these are in the bottom two quintiles on the SAT. The same asymmetry is observed for the bottom quintile of TAAS/TAKS teachers.

Here only 48% of bottom quintile reading teachers also appear in the bottom quintile of the SAT. One in eight (13%) ranked in the top two quintiles according to the SAT. A similar pattern is observed in math, though the quintile rankings are a bit more consistent than in reading…

To summarize, were teachers to be rewarded for their classroom's performance on the state test or alternatively, sanctioned for low performance many of these teachers would have demonstrated quite different results on a low-stakes test of the same subject.  Importantly, these differences need not be due to real differences in long-run skill acquisition…

In terms of experience level, there appears to be positive returns for up to 21 years of teaching experience in low-stakes math exams (as opposed to high-stakes exams, where the value of experience levels off sooner): “If anything, teachers with 21 or more years of experience have the greatest differential over novices (at 0.131 s.d.).”

For reading, there are gains for 16-20 years of experience (though these graphs only go up to 11 years).

Very interesting paper and one well worth reading for all sorts of implications on ed policy. A good corrective to the highly misleading paper put out  by Gates on the same subject. -- Leonie Haimson

***************

Check out Norms Notes for a variety of articles of interest: http://normsnotes2.blogspot.com/. And make sure to check out the side panel on right for news bits.

My Article on Teacher Value-Added Data Dumping in The Indypendent

John Tarleton asked me to write this a few months ago for The Indypendent but held it waiting for the court case to be decided. We had to make it tight for the print edition so I left a lot out. His excellent editing made it more readable. An even shorter version will run in the Jan. 17, 2011 print edition. And a reminder - help support the work of The Indypendent, which has done so much great work in reporting on the ed deformers and the resistance.

Note: We haven't had the time to add the links on some of the studies mentioned. Will try to update but if any of you find them send them along to normsco@gmail.com.

On the web: http://www.indypendent.org/2011/01/11/teacher-test-scores

Judge Rules in Favor of Releasing Teacher Test Scores; Data Dump Would Promote a Flawed and Cynical Method of Accountability

By Norm Scott
January 11, 2011 | Posted in IndyBlog | Email this article
 

Would you gauge the effectiveness of individual doctors by the percentage of patients who live or die under their care? Should firemen be held accountable when a building burns down? Should individual soldiers in Afghanistan be compared to each other on the basis of “success” or “failure” in controlling the Taliban in a given area?

Any effort to do so would spark a major outcry. But when it comes to teaching, there is a different standard.

On Monday Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Cynthia Kern ruled that the NYC Department of Education was obliged to release the names of individual teachers with “value-added” test score results that purport to measure teacher effectiveness. Judge Kern brushed aside arguments by the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) that the release of unreliable data would unjustly harm teachers’ reputations writing “there is no requirement that data be reliable for it to be disclosed.”

The data dump will affect more than 12,000 classroom educators in Grades 4 to 8. The UFT is expected to appeal. There is some irony here as it was the UFT that signed off on the use of value-added in the first place after Joel Klein promised the results would not be made public, while many skeptical critics in the union raised questions about that deal and warned it would turn into a disaster for teachers and the union.

Feeding Frenzy

If the value-added data is ultimately released, expect a feeding frenzy as teachers are judged and shamed on an individual basis in the media. The larger purpose of such a data dump by DOE would be to further erode public support for teachers and force their union to renounce a seniority-based system just as Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his new Schools Chancellor Cathie Black are talking about having to lay off thousands of teachers due to budget shortfalls.

Ironically, it was only six months ago that the NY State Department of Education revealed that years of test score advances by city students had turned out to be a mirage causing Bloomberg and his former Chancellor Joel Klein a good deal of embarrassment. No matter – the Mayor is ready once again to wield unreliable test scores as a political weapon and most media in this city have deliberately short memories, having all too often been active partners in attempts to eviscerate teachers.

The value-added approach is the latest attempt to undermine teachers, the teaching profession and the teacher union by measuring teachers based on the performance of their students on standardized tests from year to year.

Crucial backing for such initiatives has come from private foundations led by billionaires like Bill Gates and Eli Broad who assert that data-driven models in the private sector can be transferred to public schools.

Their dream of using data to accurately measure the effectiveness of individual teachers is rooted in a vision of the school as a factory in which teachers are assembly line workers and rising student test scores equals rising workforce productivity. At long last, value-added supporters claim, good teachers will be rewarded and the poor ones forced to improve at risk of losing their jobs.

In reality, value-added measures are seriously flawed. They don’t fully account for external circumstances such as poverty or family turmoil that can affect a child’s performance from year-to-year.  Nor can they account for the fact the same child can take tests on different occasions and under different conditions and the results will differ.

A study by Mathematica Policy Research done for the US Department of Education showed that one-fourth of average teachers will be mistakenly identified for special rewards while one-fourth of teachers who differ from average performance by three to four months of student learning will be overlooked.

A recent study by Sean Corcoran of NYU  demonstrated that the New York City teacher data reports have an average margin of error of 34 to 61 percentage points out of 100. The National Academy of Sciences has also warned of the potentially damaging consequences of implementing these unfair and inherently unreliable evaluation systems. Even the NYC Department of Education’s own consultants have warned against using data for teacher evaluation.

Perverse Incentives
Value-added measures can not only be in error but they provide incentives for teachers to manipulate scores by using large amounts of classroom time practicing for tests or engaging in various forms of cheating. To the extent a teacher cuts corners one year to deliver improved test scores, a student’s next teacher will face that much greater of a challenge to deliver similar or even better results.

Teachers under the gun of having their very lifelihood threatened will be very careful about working with troubled children who could drag down their value-added ratings. Accountable Talk” wrote about dealing with a request to take a class full of difficult students:

“I did something I am still not proud of. I quit,” Accountable Talk wrote. “No, I didn’t quit teaching. I just quit volunteering to teach the very children who needed me most. When my AP [assistant principal] asked me to take them on again (which he would not do unless he knew I’d been successful), I said no. This year, those kids are with another teacher who has difficulty just getting them to sit in their seats.”

One of the political goals of the value-added approach is to break teacher unity by pitting them against each other. The competitive, zero-sum logic of value-added also undermines the spirit of collaboration which is essential to them refining and developing their craft. If sharing tips with fellow teachers will help them improve their value-added rankings, is it prudent to reach out and help teachers you are competing with?

The downside of a value-added approach doesn’t faze leading proponents like Eric Hanushek, a Stanford economist who has written that teachers’ scores should be made public even if they are flawed.

Several news organizations including The New York Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have filed Freedom of Information requests for New York City teacher test score data with which the normally secretive NYC Department of Education has been eager to comply.

Still, it is wise to remember that not everything that counts can be measured and not everything that can be measured counts.

Norm Scott worked in the New York City public school system from 1967 to 2002. He publishes commentary about current issues in New York City public education at ednotesonline.blogspot.com.

Here are some news story links I copied from Gotham:

• A judge said the city can release teachers’ value-added ratings. (GS, Times, Post, DN, NY1, WNYC, WSJ)
• The teachers union is planning to appeal the release, so it won’t happen yet. (GothamSchools)
• The Post says union president Michael Mulgrew is wrong to appeal the judge’s ruling.

Spread the word:

 

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Below the fold: A list of some of the great pieces on ed that ran in The Indypendent

More Highlights from the Indy's 2010 Education Coverage

Did Mulgrew Abandon ALL UFT Resistance to Judging Teachers On Student Data?

This Gotham Schools report on the Tisch/Moskowitz/Mulgrew/Williams panel last week had a few tidbits:

Tisch calls on charters to take on city’s worst high schools

Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch yesterday called on city charter school operators to move away from elementary education and take on the problems of fixing large failing high schools.

Speaking at Hunter College, Tisch said that charter schools have benefited from being the political “darlings” of the city and state, blessed with the most qualified teachers and some of the highest-achieving students. Instead, Tisch said, charter schools need to branch out to serve more struggling high school students, English language learners and special education students.

Tisch also said that she was confident that the ban on linking student achievement data to teacher tenure decisions, a state law observers speculate may disqualify the state from the competition, would not be renewed after it sunsets in June. “I do not believe there is an appetite legislatively to extend or prolong that law,” Tisch said.

Mulgrew, the president of the teachers union which originally fought for the insertion of the law into the state budget, did not contradict Tisch’s projection.

We have always maintained that the law was a farce in the first place because an nontenured teacher can be let go for a bad haircut. The law gave no real protection but was all about PR from the union to the members. So Mulgrew's abandonment of the law means nothing. What needs to be questioned was the strategy in the first place, a strategy that wasted political capital and became a national issue used by the ed deformers to attack the power of teacher unions. If you are going to get slammed anyway, then try to get a law that really provides protection.

Then there is the other contradictions on the part of the UFT when it comes to narrow data being used to measure teachers and schools. Support for merit pay, even if not for individual teachers - yet! The UFT cooperation in the Gates project to come up with ways to measure teachers (they say beyond standardized testing) will lead to that anyway.

The UFT and the Gates Project to Evaluate Teachers

The UFT attempt to portray Bill Gates as some benevolent force just looking to find an innocent way to evaluate teachers is one of the great misleads in a sea of UFT/AFT/Unity Caucus obfuscations.

Mulgrew's response to a complaint from a teacher is priceless:

As you have so rightly stated public education is under attack but more importantly to me our profession is under attack.

He then goes on to say:

As for the Gates foundation they are funding the project but please don't confuse them with chancellor. When Gates finished the small school project they determined that it was not a success and that curriculum and school supports were more important than a school structure which was very ethical considering that the small school movement originated with them.

You mean the same Bill Gates who is one of the leading forces in undermining public education? Some think the union leadership is just stupid. Not so. They know exactly what they are doing. They soften the membership up and weaken their defenses to allow the virus into the ranks.

By the way, guess who also embraced the small school movement despite repeated attempts by Ed Notes, ICE and TJC to discuss the important aspect of undermining and closing the large comprehensive high schools? Your corporate friendly UFT. No mea culpas from the UFT on this one. Or any other of the ocean of disasters they have supported, including one of the mothers of all – allowing the use of high stakes test data to judge teacher performance.

There have been some interesting comments on our post "Teacher Evaluations: Bill Gates and the Unity/UFT,...".

Witness Melody, who seems to agree with Ed Notes on most issues:

"I think the UFT is right on this one. The teacher measurement & accountability issue is a train coming down the track, and I don't think laying our bodies down in front of it is a realistic option, because we WILL get run over."

The big problem with the neoliberal agenda when it comes to education is that it wants accountability on the cheap...

Melody doesn't really understand the full measure of the neoliberalism free market/government is bad philosophy, led by Bill Gates and his money. Gates, by the way, complains about the pubic school monopoly and calls for choice in schools while making his money by running the Microsoft monopoly and doing everything he could to deny choice in operating systems, browsers, data bases, spreadsheets, etc. And by the way, there's a great fortune to be made for Microsoft in the large urban school systems the Gates foundation supports. Check how many Gates supported schools have Apple computers (not based on any real knowledge like most conjectures here, but on my own paranoiac instincts.)

Anon responded to Melody (read all responses at the original post):

Re: the train analogy... In general, ICE and other opposition groups advocate fighting, which I would argue is the opposite of laying bodies down in front of an oncoming train.

It should be obvious to EVERYONE that there are massive problems with our union participating in a study funded by the Gates Foundation. The UFT’s position should be that, for a myriad of obvious reasons, we should not be using ANY student data to measure teachers. And once again, not only has the leadership capitulated to the idea of these measurements, but they are actively supporting the Gates Foundation's CONTROL of the measurement system!

It is extremely naïve to think that teachers will be allowed in ANY way to influence the results of a study sponsored by a private company with a vested interest in the privatization of education. If you read Mulgrew's letter carefully, the "participation" he asks from teachers amounts to nothing more than allowing them to be the subjects of the study. Nowhere does he mention any kind of input from the participating teachers. Instead, "Gates-funded researchers" will be "collect[ing] information about their teaching from a broad variety of sources." It seems, from this letter, that the teachers and the UFT leadership will have zero control over how students will be tested, let alone how the results are used – and the UFT leadership is perfectly fine with that.

Clearly, the main purpose of this study is to deal with the revealing fact that the majority of students in charter schools are performing equal to or worse than other New York City public school students on standardized tests. This must be humiliating for the privatization effort, because they are part of the same agenda that touts these tests as accurate measures of student achievement. If not for this fact, if kids in charters were doing as well or better than kids in other schools, you can bet that the Gates Foundation would be holding up the results of the ridiculous standardized tests we have now as "proof" that their schools (and their teachers) work better, and they would have no reason to even consider alternative methods of measuring teacher ability. Instead of exposing the charter school scam and supporting its own teachers, the UFT leadership embraces it.

I am not the tiniest bit surprised that the Unity caucus came on here and implied that their opposition is just a small group of petty teachers. Their goal is to make those who demand that they actually [gasp!] defend the membership feel that they are small in number and isolated. Ignore this particular tactic of theirs. It’s old, tired, and smacks of desperation… they know they’re fooling fewer and fewer people every day.

Pallas Parses Cerf and Klein on Teacher Data Initiatives

Pallas:
I’ve been skeptical of New York City’s Teacher Data Initiative for some time. As I’ve commented previously here and here...

Lurking in the background is the fear that the Teacher Data Reports will be used to evaluate teachers. “Absolutely not,” is the steady refrain from Chancellor Joel Klein. “The Teacher Data Reports are not to be used for evaluation purposes. That is, they won’t be used in tenure determinations or the annual rating process,” wrote Chancellor Klein and UFT President Randi Weingarten, in a joint letter last October. I think that this is the primary purpose of the Teacher Data Reports, but they are being cloaked in rhetoric that describes them as a professional development tool.

It turns out that there’s a smoking gun. Today’s New York Times feature story on Chancellor Joel Klein makes mention of a recently-published book by Terry Moe and John Chubb for which he wrote a book-jacket blurb, entitled “Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics and the Future of Education.” The book has a brief section on New York City, drawn, a footnote tells us, from the public record and an interview with Deputy Chancellor Chris Cerf. Here’s what Moe and Chubb write:

“The district aims to use the [value-added teacher effectiveness] indicators to make major personnel decisions. Most important, it wants to take tenure decisions out of the hands of principals and base them instead on three years of value-added assessment data. By sorting the wheat from the chaff at tenure time, the district’s goal is to slowly but surely upgrade the quality of its teachers. Unfortunately, that goal cannot be met in the near future-for as we discussed in Chapter Three, the teachers union went straight to the New York legislature in protest, and used its political power to engineer new legislation that prevents the city school district (and indeed, all school districts in the state) from using student performance data as a factor (even if one of many) in teacher tenure decisions.”

Excerpt from The Smoking Gun by Aaron Pallas

Posted at Gotham Schools, May 22

Given the role Randi Weingarten plays in this drama, at what point do classroom teachers declare her bogus role as a union leader null and void?

Bronx Chapter Leader on NYC Teacher Data Initiative

Dear Teachers:

For those of you unfamiliar with NYC’s Teacher Data Initiative I strongly urge you to “do your homework” as soon as possible. (Google NYC+Teacher-Data-Initiative and you will find a wealth of information.) In a nutshell… it is the DOE’s way of ranking you based on your students’ test scores. You will be compared to other teachers throughout the City with similar student populations including the teachers you work with in your own school. For now it only applies to testing grade teachers but eventually it will apply to all of us.

There are many problems with this type of (false) accountability. This initiative begs the immediate question: If I am being compared to my neighbor across the hall -- then we are indeed competitors rather than collaborative colleagues -- so, why should I share my wealth of knowledge and secrets to success with you if - in the end - you use what I taught you to “outrank” me, and as a result my ranking falls? This initiative has made me realize that it is now in our individual best interest NOT to share with each other. BloomKlein has made this a competition. Do you think the Philadelphia Eagles shared their playbook with the NY Giants?

Do you think Barack Obama shared his campaign strategies with John McCain?

I could write volumes about this and more but for now I want to focus on that overused buzzword….ACCOUNTABILITY. It’s time to remind all administrators from our AP’s right on up the ladder to BloomKlein that they too are accountable. It’s time to document every time someone else fails our students.

Throwing accountability back into the faces of the “higher-ups” is now a matter of self preservation. As per NYC’s Teacher Data Initiative you are being asked to use your students’ scores as a way to answer the following questions that I copied and pasted from the DOE website:

“How is your work affecting particular students? For the purposes of learning and growing, how do you compare to other teachers? What are your biggest strengths and successes that you could share with your colleagues? What could you learn from your colleagues that could help you fine tune your skills?” How have special education students and English language learners fared in your classroom? How are you doing with students in the bottom of the class or the top of the class? What are other English and math teachers in similar circumstances doing successfully and what could you learn from them? What are your biggest successes that you could share with your colleagues—whether they’re other teachers in your school or teachers through the City?”

BloomKlein has made it all about you. “These reports, instead, are designed to help you pinpoint your own strengths and weaknesses, and empower you, working with your principal and colleagues, to devise strategies to improve.”

I bet you feel all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that Joel Klein et al really care about your professional development. I’m going to send him a note of thanks as soon as I’m finished typing this. Ironically they want YOU to improve your craft while they drive our schools into the abyss.

Accountability is a two-way street and every time you fail to document how someone else is failing your students - you are placing a nail in your own professional coffin. After all it doesn’t matter that Johnny never does his homework – it’s all about you as the individual player in the sport of education.

It doesn’t matter that Carlos constantly disrupts your lessons so the other children can’t learn. It’s all about you.

It doesn’t matter that Jane is 13 years old having been left back twice and sitting in your fifth grade class without ever having been referred for an evaluation.
It’s all about you.

It doesn’t matter that no one ever followed up on your recommendation to get your student tested for support services.

It doesn’t matter that you have children in your CTT class who truly belong in a small class setting but the City keeps them in the larger class because it’s cheaper.

It doesn’t matter that Alex has been absent 36 times. It doesn’t matter that Peter has been shipped from shelter to shelter and hasn’t been in school for over a month until he arrived in your class.

It doesn’t matter that Jasmine never seems to pay attention even though you constantly remind her to stay on task.

It doesn’t matter that you are being judged on your ELL students’ performance even though they receive their ELL services in a windowless storage room in our gym where the temperature reaches 90+ degrees and ELL teachers are constantly pulled off program for testing.

It doesn’t matter that you believe that the reading or math programs we use are insufficient.

None of this matters because you haven’t made it matter.

All of the above and then some need be documented on a daily basis. This teacher refuses to be anyone’s scapegoat. And the day my ‘Teacher Data Report” is available is the day that my Administrative Data Report will be produced using all of the wonderful anecdotes, letters, emails and phone call logs I so diligently kept. That’s how you throw accountability back. Imagine if everyone did this. Imagine how powerful our compiled record of administrative/parental failures might be if Joel Klein et al gets the bug to close our school or use those data reports in an attempt to fire you.

Who has the time for more paperwork? We better make time. Like I said….self preservation.
Gone are the days of real teaching (Newbies, I’m sorry you missed it….teachers and students had fun and the children learned.) Real teaching doesn’t leave much of a paper trail. Real teaching is organic and fluid and the best teachable moments are unplanned. Rubrics, process charts and beginning sentences with “Children, good readers [ad your own TC lingo here]….” are nonsense.

Ask any real teacher. Educrats constantly coin new catch phrases and lame ideas to create the false need for professional development from people who are so far removed from the classroom that they probably think a piece of chalk is a suppository. The one thing these educrats are good at is loading their bank accounts with our tax dollars. Gone are the days of collaborating with colleagues, picking their brains for ideas, or sharing your own failures in an honest way so you can truly hone your craft. It’s now about the data and you as the individual competitor. For those of you on the testing grades…you’re on your own. Share your “playbook” at your own peril.

Sometime in the spring I will hold a series of morning union meetings to discuss ways in which you can specifically throw accountability back. I hope you attend and learn how to protect yourself from the clipboards and data.

Roseanne McCosh PS 8 Dist 10 - Bronx
February 26, 2009

Read more on TDI from Ed Week
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/teacherbeat/2009/03/teacherdata_reports_in_new_yor.html

Rise and Fall Back Down: Charter School Comments Galore

Diane Ravitch at Politico.com on Obama and charter schools
President Obama's enthusiasm for charter schools is baffling. Doesn't he realize that they are a deregulation strategy much beloved by Republicans? Deregulation works brilliantly for some schools as it does for some firms. But it produces many losers too. If he thinks that deregulation is the cure for American education, I have some AIG stock I'd like to sell him.
http://www.politico.com/arena/

The Klonsky Brothers are all in a twit over Diane's critique of Obama's ed policy.
Mike writes: What a joke! Obama has done more to save public education in one month than the entire Bush regime did in 12 years.

Ravitch, who high stakes test resisters used to despise, has been one of the strongest voices in NYC on the impact of BloomKlein. We have also seen her in her debates with Debbie Meier seem to move beyond the narrow local issue to the wider view of the impact testing regimens have and how the scores can be misused. Some people on ICE mail who are, and continue to be, critical of Ravitch, have also wondered exactly where the Klonskys stood during all the years of the Chicago school reform model. But we'll leave some of those comments for another time.


Comment on Lorri Giovinco-Harte Examiner post on Charter Schools
I am a public school teacher who is now interviewing with charter schools. I am not impressed.


Susan Ohanian, arm in sling, goes slingin'
Read about the start- of-school hazing procedures enforced by this KIPP leader. And much child abuse. Fresno charter school in furor: Unusual punishments, testing violations alleged as principal resigns from the Fresno Bee posted by Susan:
http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=8427

More on charter schools at ed notes.


Randi Weingarten said she considers Michelle Rhee’s recent kind words “an apology.” (Washington Post)
Randi watchers know she is looking for a reason to make nice with Michelle. My view is this dance was all worked out in advance. Randi: Michelle, I can't sell out the DC teachers until you tone down the rhetoric.
Thanks to Gotham Schools for the lead.


On Obama's speech
Pissed off has words for Obama
I'm sitting here listening to Obama talking about education and I am thinking how totally clueless he is when it comes to this topic.

Miss Eyre had a cogent comment on our post on the speech
Did Obama Fail His Ed Test?
Obama did say that "post-high-school education" includes community college, vocational training, and the military...I see nothing wrong with encouraging students to complete education beyond high school, as long as the "beyond high school" option is right for the student.

Bracey: On Education, Obama Blows It


Chapey finishes 3rd for City Council Seat in Queens (including Rockaway).
Too bad. We wanted her to get ZERO votes. I voted for my fellow Wave columnist Lew Simon, who at least would have brought an air of comedy (unintentional) to the Council. Still glad to see Lew more than doubled Chapey's vote. Read my WAVE column on how she pulled a Rudy B by trading her vote for a seat on the NYS Board of Regents for her mom. Ulrich, the winner, is about 12 years old, so they better have some video games at Council meetings. Who does he know?

32nd CD (Queens, with 82.73 percent of eds reporting):
1. Eric Ulrich: 2,820 2. Lew Simon: 1,368 3. Geraldine Chapey: 607 4. Mike Ricatto: 541
Thanks to David Quintana for the numbers.


Follow-up: Great meeting last night with the Justice Not Just Tests NYCORE group. Two soph college students studying to be teachers were sent by their instructor. With old retirees Angel G and myself and 2 teachers late in their first decade of teaching, it made for a great mix. Yesterday's ed notes post on the abuse of teacher data reports dovetailed with our petition campaign, which we will gear up. Focus on the March 25 Delegate Assembly. We need an army of people out there to get signatures. Join us. We're also working on an ICE/JNJT conference. Save the date: Saturday, March 28. We follow up tonight at the ASC-ICE meeting.

Trying to be a reporter and an organizer can interfere with the easy life style of a retiree.


More: reading great book by Iain Pears: The Dream of Scipio
There is a lot of discussion on the fall of civilization in 3 eras. And lots of Vichy stuff. I'm more convinced than ever that the actions of New Action vis a vis Unity and the actions of Unity/UFT vis a vis the ed reform movement are analagous to the rationales of Vichyites - we're just saving civilization from the Nazi barbarians by collaborating. This concept deserves a separate post.

Teacher Data Reports Misused at MS 321 Updated

UPDATED: SEE LEONIE HAIMSON IMPORTANT COMMENT BELOW ARTICLE

The Justice Not Just Tests group ICE has been working with has been asking teachers to petitions calling on the UFT to end its fateful agreement to issue teacher data reports based on their students' test scores. One of the members of the JNJT group sent us this story of the way one principal has used this test by handing out copies to the entire staff for comparison purposes. As far back as the early 80's my principal used to put up all the score over the time clock with the teachers' names and circle in red the names of those whose classes scored below what she expected, so I've seen this game before.

Click on the image to enlarge

I posted the text of the JNJT petition on Norms Notes and if this story doesn't get teachers to circulate it, nothing will. Copy and paste it or email me for the pdf. By the way, JNJT meets today at 5:30 at CUNY, 34th and 5th Ave, rm 5414. Come on down and join the struggle.


A teacher reports from MS 321M

I'm a teacher at MS 321, a grade 6-8 middle school in Washington Heights. My school is being "phased out" (read: closed down) over the next two years. The first discussion of these Teacher Data Reports came at the meeting when the announcement of our school closing was made. At this meeting, a DOE representative pointed out that the Teacher Data Reports "would be out there" when we apply for new jobs. As our school closes, we will become part of the teacher reserve and will have to apply for new jobs, so the implication is that principals will use these reports in the hiring process.

Our principal then "rolled out" the use of Teacher Data Reports at a recent faculty meeting. She explained that whether we like it or not, education is becoming a business and these data reports will hold us accountable according to a business model. It was pointed out by staff members that according to the UFT/DOE agreement: 1) the reports are supposed to be kept between you and your principal and 2) they cannot be used for the sake of evaluation. She did not contest these points, but also claimed that this data can be shared with other principals, so when we apply for new jobs principals will look at these reports while deciding whether to hire or not.

This was bad enough, but despite verbally agreeing that these reports were supposed to be private, she handed out all ELA and Math teachers’ data reports to every faculty member, stapled and compiled together, apparently for the sake of comparison. This is in clear violation of the UFT/DOE agreement that the reports were to be private.

Many people in the staff were outraged and several of us called the district representative from our union that night. The next day a union meeting was held with this representative. Everyone at the meeting (about 2/3 of the UFT chapter) signed a letter expressing our outrage, which was forwarded to the leaders of the UFT and the DOE.

After a couple of weeks, a superintendent from the DOE came in to apologize. Notably, our principal was absent and has yet to directly apologize to the staff. The superintendent said that all principals were given professional development outlining the use of data reports and that it was very clear that reports were to be handed out only in individual meetings.

She claimed to be considering disciplinary action against my principal, but refused to guarantee this or state exactly what that action would be. We must demand that swift and dramatic action be taken, lest other principals feel that they can get away with sharing the reports publicly or amongst themselves.

When questioned, she stated that administrators could not share these reports with other administrators. This new position is definitely a welcome development, as statements from the UFT and DOE have been unclear on this issue. Nonetheless, what is to stop principals from discretely sharing the data and this data informing hiring decisions?

The incident and discussion by my principal about these reports show that the notion that they are a tool for professional development is absurd. The effect of the reports can only further encourage teachers to spend weeks of teaching students how to take the test, poring through old exams and dumbing down instruction to only cover the types of problems on previous tests. And in practice, we can expect principals to threaten to use these reports as evaluative tools either explicitly or otherwise.

Despite the implications of the superintendent, I doubt that my principal was really acting as a “lone wolf”. More likely she got the idea that these reports are a “tool for accountability” from somewhere up the chain. It is only because we came together as a united staff that the DOE felt the need to change the tone of the conversation with our staff.

Finally, we need to argue that the Teacher Data Reports should be abolished immediately. It serves no useful purpose for professional development. There can be no effective mechanism to prevent the data’s misuse amongst administrators, either through sharing it with staff or other administrators or using it, in practice, as a tool for teacher evaluation.

Just an isolated case? We know full well that if there had not been concerted response on the part of the chapter, the UFT would have done little. With so many chapters loaded with young teachers without tenure, fear reigns and most would have done nothing. For 2/3 of the teachers to sign a petition shows a higher degree of union consciousness at MS 321. That is not due to the UFT as much as to the political activity of some of the teachers, some of it connected to groups opposed to the Unity Caucus leadership.

The UFT will now try to claim "victory." But the victory belongs to the staff of MS 321. Below, our teacher reporter does some broader analysis, placing the larger role of the UFT in context, some of which may appear in a publication.


Neoliberalism, privatization, charter schools, merit pay, data reports
- and the UFT
by Anonymous teacher at IS 321M

Across the country, the neoliberal educational model continues to be pushed. Privately managed and publicly funded charter schools are multiplying. In public schools, teachers are being forced to teach narrowly to standardized tests and there is a push to deny union rights like seniority and tenure in favor of standardized test-driven evaluation and merit pay.

The examples of such moves abound. All union teachers were fired and more than half of New Orleans schools became charter schools following Hurricane Katrina. In Washington, D.C., hundreds of teachers have been fired and at least 21 schools have been closed, and Michelle Rhee, the chancellor of DC schools proposed ending teacher tenure and seniority for a performance-based system, though this proposal has since been withdrawn. Dozens of other examples could be cited.

New York City is no exception. Advertisements for charter schools are being sent out in mass to residents of Harlem and placed in subway cars. Each year the push to tailor instruction to fit standardized tests is stronger, complete with breakdowns and analyses of previous years' tests, so as better to teach to the test.. The number of periodic assessments, which eat into instructional time and cause immense amount of stress on students, continues to rise.

Shockingly, some of the most dramatic moves toward a neoliberal educational model have been agreed to by the leadership of my union, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT), and even proclaimed as victories! The oft-stated justification by union leadership for these concessions is that accepting neoliberal-lite proposals will allow for the union to have a say and head off the more draconian versions.

The UFT opened its own charter school in the fall of 2005, which is proudly proclaimed by the union as the “first union-operated charter school in the country”. In the fall of 2007, the UFT agreed to a “pilot”, “voluntary” school-wide merit pay scheme, which my school has been chosen for.

The justification from our union leadership is that if we are going to have charter schools anyway, let them be union-run. If merit pay is coming anyway, let it be group merit pay instead of individual merit pay. But this gets it backwards. The privatizers see such examples as victories! Charter schools are a step away from public control, and for that reason are mostly non-union. We should be fighting to keep public schools public, not jumping on the charter school bandwagon. Where there was no merit pay scheme, there is one now.

The logical conclusion of all of this is that more of our educational funding will go towards these schemes, which will undermine public education and union rights. For example, while the stimulus bill includes a welcome $54 billion for education, the New York Times reports that, “Programs that tie teacher pay to performance will most likely receive money…” in the bill. In fact, a February 19 NYC Department of Education announcement states that, “New York City can also apply for grants to expand its Schoolwide Performance Bonus Program, which rewards educators for improving student achievement, from the $200 million Teacher Incentive Funds.” This money could be better used to prevent budget cuts, lower existing class sizes or to increase teacher salaries across the board.

Most recently, this fall, the UFT agreed to “Teacher Data Reports” for grade 4-8 English Language Arts (ELA) and Math teachers. They break down the performance of each teacher's students on the New York State Math or ELA test in grades 4-8. Chancellor Joel Klein and UFT President Randi Weingarten jointly announced these reports as, “a "new tool to help teachers learn about their own strengths and opportunities for development". They even had the audacity to claim that the idea came from teachers themselves! The letter states, “…many of you have told us how useful it would be to better understand how your efforts are influencing student progress.”

I have heard of teachers complain of lack of mentoring, support and materials (including basics like books and copies), but never of not knowing or having a breakdown of our students’ scores on standardized tests. We are already subjected to countless breakdowns of such “data”, and most teachers would agree that none of this data analysis improves our pedagogy.

At the same time, the letter spells out clearly that, “the Teacher Data Reports are not to be used for evaluation purposes” and in another UFT statement it is made clear that the reports are a private document to be shared with each teacher and their principal. Again, our union leadership proclaimed a victory in keeping the data private and fending off attempts to use such data for evaluation.

But if the reports are not useful in teacher training and development, what are they useful for? Especially given the context of this push towards performance-based evaluation and merit pay, it is impossible to see these reports as anything but a foot in the door towards teacher evaluation on the basis of test scores, and ultimately publicly releasing this data.

Leonie Haimson sent this comment on the story:

Given the tremendous errors in the class size data, the reports may have incorrect evaluations of a teacher’s effectiveness – even assuming the formula is correct (which I’m sure its not.) Every teacher should demand the class size data being used for his or her data report to check it for accuracy.

The teachers should demand that the formula used in the report be disclosed, as well as the research study mentioned below and the identity of the independent panel of experts that supposedly approved it.

THE DOE CLAIMS BUT WON'T REVEAL NAMES:
A panel of technical experts has approved the DOE’s value-added methodology. The DOE’s model has met recognized standards for demonstrating validity and reliability. Teachers’ value-added scores from the model are positively correlated with both School Progress Report scores and principals’ perceptions of teachers’ effectiveness, as measured by a research study conducted during the pilot of this initiative.