Vergara Update: Chetty, Chetty Gets Banged, Banged in Teachers College Refute

Over the last decade, teacher evaluation based on value-added models (VAMs) has become central to the public debate over education policy. In this commentary, we critique and deconstruct the arguments proposed by the authors of a highly publicized study that linked teacher value-added models to students’ long-run outcomes, Chetty et al. (2014, forthcoming), in their response to the American Statistical Association statement on VAMs. We draw on recent academic literature to support our counter-arguments along main points of contention: causality of VAM estimates, transparency of VAMs, effect of non-random sorting of students on VAM estimates and sensitivity of VAMs to model specification... TC Record

How nice to see Raj Chetty, who was a witness against the teachers in the California case, taken down. Do you think someone will call for him to lose tenure due to shoddy research?

Chetty is one of those hired hand research thugs from Harvard who "proved" that teacher quality based on VAM can affect a child's lifetime earnings. Of course their (purposely) shoddy work is coming apart at the seams.

As Ravitch wrote in June:

Chetty and Friends Stand by their VAM

June 2, 2014 //

118

The American Statistical Association released a brief report on value-added assessment that was devastating to its advocates. ASA said it was not taking sides, but then set out some caveats that left VAM with no credibility. Can a school district judge teacher quality by the test scores of his or her students? ASA wrote this: “VAMs are generally based on standardized test scores, and do not directly measure potential teacher contributions toward other student outcomes.

I imagine hitman lawyer for Campbell Brown, David Boies, will be smart enough not to use Chetty in the NY case. Someone even suggested Chetty, given testimony along the lines of "if only California had better tenure laws as good as NY", be called for our side. But union lawyers have often proved to be dumber than dirt, so don't expect a rigorous defense of tenure. In fact, look for them to plead that they will figure out ways to help get rid of teachers, continuing a long tradition, as Eterno points out over at ICE, where our own union has helped weaken the tenure laws (LETTER TO PROTECT TENURE FROM PEOPLE WHO WEAKENED IT).
Like, does anyone think it is only 3 years when half the people get extended, sometimes for more than one year (I recently met a guy who was in his 7th year as a teacher and only got it by getting away from the witch who was his principal.

Read the report below the break.

MORE Rally Video and Photos at UFT DA, Jan. 17

Some Ed Deformers at actually pitting the militant MOREs vs the E4E slugs, claiming they are a majority.

even if it angers younger, more reform-minded teachers who are the majority of rank-and-file members and seek high-quality evaluations 

Count the numbers of younger MORE (real) reform-minded teachers in the video.

See full dumb statement below pics.



Posted at: http://youtu.be/-EmpYubKraQ

A few photos (thanks to Pat Dobosz)

More MORE Videos - Chants

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQn1ZWY5Lnw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFzWD0iOaaU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xtjfd1zQ0chttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNY2q8nAEU8

On TV:

ABC: MORE Elem school VEEP Candidate Sam Coleman, PS 24K

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local/new_york&id=8957466

CBS: MORE Elem Ex Bd candidate and CL Jia Lee with gang from Earth School
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=8202344

Dropout Nation

the most-radical of traditionalists within the rank-and-file want a leader who resembles Mulgrew’s colleague in Chicago, the infamous Karen Lewis; blowing off a deal with the district appeals to both Baby Boomers (who may not want to be subjected to performance management under which objective student test score growth on Empire State tests account for between 20 percent and 40 percent of evaluations), and more-militant retirees (who made up 39 percent of the votes in the AFT local’s last election four years ago. The fact that Mulgrew gets to score a victory of sorts against the outgoing Big Apple mayor (even if it angers younger, more reform-minded teachers who are the majority of rank-and-file members and seek high-quality evaluations)

Video: Merit Pay, Teacher Pay, and Value Added Measures

http://youtu.be/uONqxysWEk8

Gates Report Touting "Value-Added" Reached Wrong Conclusion

Gee, expect an honest accounting from anything associated with Bill Gates? This comes from Susan Ohanian and is worth reading. Also check out my piece on value-added in the Indypendent, which seems to have gotten a number of hits beyond the usual. (My Article on Teacher Value-Added Data Dumping in The Indypendent.)

Susan Notes: http://susanohanian.org/show_research.php?id=392

NOTE: After reading my introduction here, please click through to the National Education Policy Center site. Rothstein's review reads better there. I post it  here, for historical purpose. My intent, as always, is to keep a record of assaults on public schools. But go read it at the National Educational Policy Center site. They are doing excellent work on the behalf of public schools, and we want their "hits" to soar.

In a wowser of a technical review, Rothstein finds that The Gates Foundation study on teachers' value-added performance "is an unprecedented opportunity to learn about what makes an effective teacher. However,"there are troubling indications that the Project's conclusions were predetermined." [Emphasis added.] This, of course, comes as no surprise to teachers across the land, but it's good to have a respected scholar, somebody with no horse in the race, say it. Rothstein finds:

In fact, the preliminary MET results contain important warning signs about the use of value-added scores for high-stakes teacher evaluations. These warnings, however, are not heeded in the preliminary report, which interprets all of the results as support for the use of value-added models in teacher evaluation.

And more:

The results presented in the report do not support the conclusions drawn from them. This is especially troubling because the Gates Foundation has widely circulated a stand-alone policy brief (with the same title as the research report) that omits the full analysis, so even careful readers will be unaware of the weak evidentiary basis for its conclusions.5

Rothstein characterizes the Gates report conclusions as "shockingly weak" and points to how the part they released to the press hid this weakness.

Is it any surprise that the Gates study doesn't even bother to review existing research literature on the topic? When one's results are "predetermined," (Rothstein's term), such a review would, of course, be a waste of time.

AND "[T]he analyses do not support the report's conclusions. Interpreted correctly, they undermine rather than validate value-added-based approaches to teacher evaluation."[emphasis added]

Review of: Learning About Teaching
by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
December 10, 2010
Reviewed by Jesse Rothstein (University of California, Berkeley)
January 13, 2011

Summary - MORE http://susanohanian.org/show_research.php?id=39

Check out Norms Notes for more on this issue.

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:

 

For ten years, The Indypendent has printed truth in the face of power. With political and economic systems faltering, there is an opportunity for real change from the bottom up. But this means having a vibrant independent media. Consider supporting The Indypendent as a monthly sustainer, donating as little as $5 a month. Please visit indypendent.org/donate. 

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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

Parsing Mulgrew on tenure, teacher effectiveness, teacher evaluation, value-added: What he should be saying, but won't

Just heard Mulgrew on Brian Lehrer in relation to Cathie Black's positions opposing tenure and last in first out (LIFO) for layoffs. Talk of teacher effectiveness and cost effectiveness.

Not the latter is a newer wrinkle of the ed deformers - the argument that given 2 roughly equal teachers it is more cost effective to get rid of the one who makes more money. They can even argue that if a teacher who makes 100G is superb, it is still more cost effectie to keep two 3rd year teachers making 60G.

Now if you are running a business that idea looks good. But is it really cost effective over the long term when you are dealing with an entire profession that would react poorly - even the younger teachers who hope to put in a long career and one day get paid accordingly? Other than real newbies who have no plans to stay - think Teach for America - the shock troops of the ed deform movement - the degrading aspect of this attack undermines the profession and weakens teacher effectiveness over the long run. I would bet most teachers from 3rd year on would be absolutely opposed to weakening of tenure and the end of seniority for layoffs - which are a pretty rare affair. Many teachers I know starting around 1969-70 were excessed at least once - and in '75 we had massive layoffs by seniority and call-backs by the same means - an orderly system instead of the chaos the ed deformers are calling for.

Of course we heard none of this argument by Mulgrew who instead talked about the fact that tenure is due process not life-time jobs and that if there are ineffective teachers the principals should have gotten rid of them before it was time for layoffs. Good points for him - he even talked about how tenure is not a contract provision but state law long superceding the lifetime of the union. (By the way - tenure as people talk about it as a lifetime job is more aligned with college teaching though even that is based on some due process system). He also talked about the fair funding formula - the tactic tha charges principals for the costs of the teachers instead of lumping all salaries into a central fund - and how it encourages principals to get rid of of more expensive teachers. So not terrible even though he could have been much stronger - but as we know- the UFT is partway on the ed deform bandwagon - or wants it to appear that way.

When Brian brought up the release of individual teacher evaluations, Mulgrew was weak I thought in not arguing how they should never be released for all sorts of reasons that have been argued. Instead he attacked the accuracy of the value-added results at this point and seemed to argue that when they were accurate it would be OK to release them.

I think there have been enough arguments about VA and the narrow tests they are based on. We think there is a lot more to a teacher than can be expressed in a number. The union should be making that case instead of bragging how they are willing to cooperate in their own members' demise.

For the kind of defense we would like to hear from out union - but never will read this at Modern School:

Value Added & Performance Pay Scams Weaken Teacher Pay and Autonomy

Stephen Krashen, from Schools Matter, has an excellent posting on the idiocy of Value Added teacher assessments and performance pay: Seniority and Teacher Layoffs: A Red Herring

Like so much of Ed Deform: It's all about money. Senior teachers are higher on the pay scale and cost districts more money than younger inexperienced teachers. Krashen argues that this is the only rational argument for dumping experience over youth since veteran teachers generally do a better job. They have more years of on the job practice. They have more experience from workshops, professional development, and collaboration with peers.

However, there is one more reason to dump older teachers: Control

Experienced teachers are less likely to go along with every hare-brained ed deform plan concocted by their administrators. This is one reason why charter schools like KIPP are able to get their teachers to work weekends and summers and be on call well into the night. 

Retired UFT Bronx HS District Rep Lynne Winderbaum on the NYCEDNews Listserve said:

Of all the words used to describe Cathie Black, "parrot" may be a new one. But it seems that after her listening tour of Tweed, she has now come out repeating the tired old propaganda that has been adopted by the Department of Education for the last nine years.

This morning at 6:15 AM on NPR Cathie Black announced that she "has a problem with the practice of granting 25-year-olds tenure, insuring them a job for the rest of their lives for just showing up to work everyday".   Also, she "has a problem with laying off the 'last in' first".  She stated that she could never run a company successfully if these practices existed and that these practices would never be accepted in business.

Frightening to see that her ignorance regarding these issues had been replaced by the misrepresentations she is being taught. First of all, there is no practice of granting 25-year olds tenure. Anyone of that age who does achieve tenure has already served three years in a classroom and has been trained during that probationary period to work on techniques and strategies to improve their pedagogy. At any time during the three year period, if the teacher does not show improvement or an aptitude for the job, he or she can be summarily fired--no questions asked. It is called a "discontinuance of probation" and it is used frequently. After three years, if the teacher has been satisfactory rated, only then is tenure granted. And if an administrator has any doubts about granting tenure, there is the option to extend probation for an additional year...no questions asked. 

Cathie Black is also showing her ignorance of the fact that tenure is not a "job for the rest of their lives for just showing up to work everyday." Tenured teachers can be fired under the terms of state education law Section 3020a. That's all tenure gets them: a due process proceeding. It does not mean a job for life. It is just a guarantee of a fair hearing, with evidence presented and with representation. Private sector workers would love to have such security, but apparently a successful business cannot incorporate fairness according to Black. A tenured teacher cannot be summarily fired for any reason as a probationary teacher can. That's all tenure means. And if Cathie Black is unquestioningly passing along the false myths that we expect of a person who simply repeats what she hears without any independent research, we should fear what lies ahead in her decision making process.

May I add that without tenure, teachers risk discrimination, being punished for their political leanings, and they will rightly fear exposing wrongdoing or questioning violations such as failure to follow special ed or ELL laws, for example. It is just protection Cathie, not a lifetime guarantee. Get out of your cocoon.

"Last in, first out" was never a policy that was debated until the wholesale closing of schools left many veteran teachers without jobs. Before that, the only teachers in excess were those with one or two years experience. Suddenly there were hundreds of employees who had given their lives to the children of New York City, twenty or thirty years in many cases, who had no place to work, through no fault of their own. They were also the most highly paid. So, despite the fact that many are fine teachers, Tweed looked for a way to paint them all with a negative brush and build a pr position around firing them. Black says the practice would never be accepted in business where the model is to have the power to hire and fire at will. But first she must make a convincing argument that the basis of retaining teachers will never be favoritism or silence about problems at schools. Seniority is a fair way to fight favoritism and nepotism. Do away with seniority and tenure and watch what is unleashed in our workforce. After her week of listening to folks downtown, the breadth of her understanding of the issues may be a mile wide but it is a quarter inch thick.

That does not bode well for anyone in the school system.

Value-Minus for Bill Gates

David Pogue writes on tech in Thursday's NY Times:

With the money Microsoft has spent on failed efforts to design hardware, you could finance a trip to Mars. Its failures make up quite a flop parade: WebTV. Spot Watch. Ultimate TV. Ultra Mobile PC. Tablet PC. Smart Display. Portable Media Center. Zune. Kin phone. If this were ancient Greece, you’d wonder what Microsoft had done to annoy the gods.

And then there's this: Office for Mac Isn’t an Improvement

Office 2011 for Mac, the first new version of Microsoft's software suite in several years, is disappointing.

So, isn't this the same guy who is telling everyone how to run the nation's schools? He looks familiar. I think I ran into him hanging out with Randi in Seattle at the AFT convention.

Blood on Their Hands

Last Updated: Monday, Sept. 27, 6:55 am

LA Teacher Dead of Suicide: Was One of LA Times' Victims

Here is a news report

Earlier today this email came across from a teacher in LA:

Rigoberto Ruelas is missing.  He is one of our own, a long-time teacher and TA at Miramonte Elementary in South Los Angeles.  With all of my heart, I hope he is well and will make contact soon with his family.  I know all of us feel the same way and will keep him in our hearts untill he is safe again. He called the sub desk on Sunday night to request a substitute for Monday and Tuesday.  He talked to his brother on Sunday and his father on Monday.  He didn't return to school this week and no one has heard from him.  Reports are that he was stressed out from work.  In particular, Mr. Ruelas had been called less than effective(or however they put it) by the L.A. Times valueless "value-added" data base. This for a teacher who had always enjoyed a great reputation at the school.

Of course there could be many, many reasons for his disappearance.  How much of a role the Times played is pure conjecture at this point.  I do not fault those that would say to bring it up for discussion without the facts is perhaps irresponsible or self-serving.  I would ask us to consider the deeper ramifications before leaving it at that.  The UTLA home page calls the Times use of "value-added" data "reckless,destructive."  I do not want to imagine how destructive in the matter of Mr. Ruelas.  Do we really have to wait any longer to point out how awful, not just this latest attack on teachers is, but the entire immoral climate brought on by a well-financed campaign to scapegoat and discredit teachers?

I sincerely pray that the unthinkable does not have to happen before those behind the blame-the-teacher barrage stop and assess the damage.  The wounds to teachers' reputations pale in comparison to the harm already done to thousands of our students. Their stress endured, the blame assigned imprints not just them but their families. These are flesh and blood human beings.  Schools designated low-performing because of the tyranny of testing do, in fact, feel shame. A culture of hate and fear serves no positive purpose. To those who seek to privatize and charterize, however, the instability is key to their tactics.  Simply put, Mr. Gates, Mr.Walmart, Mr. Broad, Mayor Villaragosa, Mr. Cortines(and too many others to list), when is enough, enough?


Mat Taylor English teacher, Elizebeth Learning Center  UTLA South Area Chair

Rest Peacefully, Mr. Ruelas. (Or, #NBCFail, Part II) 

Awesome ubber blogger Sabrina at Colorado-based Failing Schools reports:

September 26, 2010

by Sabrina

I could talk here about my frustration with being subjected to yet another hour of conversation dominated by the same people who hog the normal conversation about ed reform– Michelle Rhee, Geoffrey Canada (in whom I’m sincerely disappointed as of late), and Randi Weingarten.

I could talk about my frustration over the irresponsible “journalism” NBC is practicing by creating a public forum just participatory enough to include rapid-fire snippets of a useful conversation, but not participatory enough to ensure proportionate representation of those whose futures depend on the outcome of this conversation.

I could talk about my frustration at watching a network  wonder aloud about “why shouldn’t we use money to inspire teachers?”. (ETA: Apologies for language, I’m just so angry about this…)
 
I just learned about this a little while ago, and obviously I don’t know all of the circumstances of this man’s life. But it bothers me profoundly that when this man went missing, the first thing his family thought of were his complaints about his stress at work.


To the spectators and grand-standers in this conversation, especially those who make six- and seven figures a year while teachers toil in some of the toughest places in our country for a mere fraction of that; who send their kids to tony private schools while poor, hungry children sit 35 to a room in public schools that are falling down; who have the leisure time and disposable income to show their children the world, or hire others to help them when they’re unavailable; who can’t imagine why more money couldn’t inspire someone to work harder; who can find a sympathetic ear when they complain of their troubles at work and  beyond, and don’t know what it’s like to be accused of not caring when you give your ALL at a job for which you receive little to no appreciation; who casually reduce children and teachers to test scores, and blame poor parents for not making more hours in the day to read to their children after coming home from scrubbing their floors; who can’t imagine the kind of desperation regular people feel when facing the prospect of losing their life’s work– in any field:


Is this just a game to you, or what? For those of us in the trenches, it most certainly isn’t. Enough is enough. Deal with the real issues, approach us from a place of humility and respect, and offer genuine support. Put up, or SHUT UP.


My heart goes out to Mr. Ruelas and his family. I hope he finds some peace, wherever he is, and that he’s no longer suffering the kind of pain and turmoil that would drive someone to such a desperate act. May you be the last to suffer so.

South Bronx School reports on the breaking news in LA:

There is sadness in education today. Unfortunately, this day was all too inevitable. It had to happen, it had to come to fruition. What is sad it was all too avoidable. Today, Rigoberto Ruelas killed himself. According to KABC-TV, Ruelas was found dead about 9 a.m. Sunday in the Angeles National Forest, and a teacher ratings report by the Los Angeles Times did not score Ruelas well. Family members said the teacher evaluation scores may have caused him to go missing.

There is a whole list of people SBS charges with having blood on their hands. Check out the list.
Blood On The Hands Of Jason Felcha And Richard Buddin

This great piece came in overnight:

Dear Norm, A short while back, I sent your post about stoning teachers with low test scores to our union rep...thought it was amusing, then... I will be teaching kindergarten tomorrow, and I am blessed and so fond of my students this year, each one...but I can't sleep for thinking about Rigoberto Ruelas, a young man, obviously conscientious, fighting the odds in the LA Public Schools for fourteen years with almost perfect attendance, taking what must've seemed like the weight of the world upon his shoulders, teaching 5th grade, when kids are really developing a strong sense of autonomy.  Probably to many of them, he was someone stable and constant, perhaps even a father figure.  He must've made many sacrifices throughout the years, as all conscientious teachers do...and then to have his life and reputation sullied by questionable "value-added" standardized test scores surely was stressful, painful, humiliating.  What if the tables were turned and the Billionaire Boys, the hedge fund managers, the privatizeers and education deformers were suddenly to be appraised based on their sense of humanity, of loyalty to country, of devotion to democracy?  Would they dare for one night to take down their guard and unlock their doors?  How must it feel to always have to hide from the people you are destroying?  What if the greater picture were to be seen by looking at the families affected by outsourcing and job loss, by foreclosure and lowered wages?  Would there be any links found between the pain of families, the struggles of students and their teachers, and the policies promoted by WalMarts and the rest of the business world?  What if we were to give them multiple choice, bubble-in tests to measure their knowledge and understanding of the masses they mean to manipulate, for example: 1.  Mark the BEST definition of a teacher:  O  Interchangeable widget, same as any worker O  Dedicated, educated public servant   O   Bad, commie unionist criminal O  Stupid person, most likely female 2.  What is a Parent?   O  Someone who a company we invest in has probably laid off O  A consumer of educational programs  O  Another cog in the big machine of capitalism O  All of the above. 3.  What is a Student?   O  A sentient, growing human being with unlimited potential O  A person who is learning and working toward self-development  O  another brick in the wall   O  Anywhere from $5 to $15K per head. 4.  What is Democracy?   O  Something to be erradicated ASAP  O  One voice, one vote per person  O  Equal opportunity for participation   O  Our biggest threat and nightmare. 5.  Who was Rigoberto Ruelas?   O  A conscientious 5th grade teacher  O  A father figure to kids who needed one  O  a 14 year veteran educator with nearly perfect attendance O  Just another irrelevant nobody to us, same as everybody. Rest in peace, Mr. Ruelas.  The LA Times is not the final judge!

VALUE-ADDED ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT QUALITY RUBRIC

See NY Times piece by Sam Dillon on value added.

By the way, can we see value added results from education reporters?
Do they get demerits when they misreport stories constantly?

From Susan Ohanian: http://susanohanian.org/show_commentary.php?id=831

VALUE-ADDED ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT QUALITY RUBRIC

Publication Date: 2010-08-25

By NYC Teacher: 

Name Withheld Due To Concern About Potential For Intimidation, Harrassment, and Capricious....

 

How about rubric tit-for-tat? Surely, as leaders of the building, administrators will appreciate feedback. 

Professional Evaluation Standards Value-Added to Teacher by Administration The evaluator actively engages the teacher through ongoing professional dialogue and practical observation, focuses on the diverse needs of specific students, inquires about teacher's perception of his/her support needs, professional background, student baseline performance, efficacy of current teaching practices, prior training, and utilizes this information to address specific goals that are objectively achievable, and supported by the professional teaching knowledge base. The evaluator models recommended practices. Support of Teacher Knowledge And Use Of Curriculum [expected value-added = 15 points] Support of Teacher Knowledge And Use Of Methodology [expected value-added = 15 points] Support of Teacher Knowledge And Use Of Assessment [expected value-added = 15 points] Support of Teacher Knowledge And Use Of Interpersonal Skills [expected value-added = 15 points] Evaluation Quality Indicators Engages In Ongoing Prof. Dialogue = 2 Addresses Student Diversity = 2 Addresses Teacher Support Needs =2 Accounts For Student Baseline Performance = 2 Understands Teacher’s Current Practices = 2 Models Sugg. Practices, Where Appropriate = 1 Connects Goals To Prof. Knowledge-Base = 2 Goals Are Objectively Achievable = 2 Evidence:______________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ Evidence:__________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ Evidence:__________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ Evidence:__________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ ___________________________________________ This report will remain on file, alongside its corresponding teacher evaluation, in the event that the teacher evaluation is used to make high-stakes decisions regarding my professional standing with this organization. ____________________Signature ____________________Homeland Security Witness

Pallas Responds to Tisch on Teacher Quality Issues, Value-Added ---and more

When data rating teachers based on student outcomes comes up in conversation and on blogs, the first thing I hear teachers say is, "How can I be compared to teachers who teach at schools like Stuyvesant?" When I raise the value-added concept, most pretty much have no idea what I am talking about and I blame the UFT which does not do education, but propaganda.

Value-added attempts to remove the difference between kids' poverty levels and other issues by trying to compare performances by similar students - apples to apples. At some point teachers can even be compared to each other based on how the same kids performed in their particular classes. Supposedly. But all issues point to flawed models.

An excellent essay by Aaron Pallas at Gotham addresses many of these issues. (For those not aware, Pallas was a Jennifer Jennings (Eduwonkette) mentor at Columbia and blogged under the Skoolboy mantle.) There's so much meat here, that I pretty much took a few excerpts at random. Read it all.

"I trust that Chancellor Tisch and Commissioner Steiner are not seduced by claims that the single most important determinant of a child’s achievement is the quality of his or her teachers, because that’s simply not true. Family background continues to be the dominant factor. But the quality of teachers is, at least in theory, something that is manipulable via education policy initiatives, and it’s a lot more tractable than addressing the fact that one in five children under the age of 18 in New York State live below the poverty line.
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it’s striking that the recommendations single out value-added student assessment data as components of both the portfolios of candidates for professional certification and of the profiles of certifying institutions. Simply put, the technology for using value-added student assessment data for these purposes is not ready for prime time, and likely will not be for many years to come. One major obstacle is the lack of reliable and valid measures of student performance that can serve as the basis for value-added assessments of teacher effectiveness.
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I’m saying to Commissioner Steiner and Chancellor Tisch, “Clean up the state assessment system — and take the time to do it right. Then we can talk about value-added assessment.”

But beyond the many questions about value-added effects on students’ test scores, we should be asking, how do we assess a teacher’s contributions to other learning outcomes? Surely we care about more than test scores. What are good measures of a teacher’s contributions to preparing students to be competent citizens in our democracy? How much are the Board of Regents and the State Education Department willing to invest in creating measures that will capture how well teachers teach students to think, question and act?

A brief vignette may reveal the challenge. It’s January, and Ms. Bilsky, a fourth-grade teacher in the Bronx, is teaching a math lesson. The subject is geometry, and the lesson is about how to classify angles as either acute or obtuse. The topic is a standard from the state’s math core curriculum. In the middle of the lesson, Rashid, a boy in the class, audibly aims a racial slur at his classmate Javier. Ms. Bilsky hears it, but she chooses to ignore it, instead plowing ahead with the lesson. At the end of the year, the students in Ms. Bilsky’s class did a bit better on the state math assessment than the students in other fourth-grade classrooms in the Bronx.

Now, is that good teaching?

The value-added assessment will tell us that it is good teaching.

Now this essay is what I call good teaching by Professor Pallas. I hope Regent leader Meryl Tisch and new State Ed commish Steiner learned something, but somehow I doubt it.

I might also add this question: How come college professors like Pallas and parent activists like Leonie Haimson can do so much effective defenses of teachers than the UFT and AFT?