Clueless: The Dept. of Education Fails Again

I'm a public high school teacher, and when I voted for Barack Obama I thought I was voting for change. Turns out, as far as education goes, I voted for Bush Lite.

According to a recent NY Times article, the Obama Administration is dangling $4.3 billion in education funds in front of the states.

Here in California where our governor has never seen a cop, a firefighter or a public school teacher he couldn't wait to furlough, our Democratic controlled legislature is dying to pass a law connecting test scores to teacher evaluations; that's the president's pre-requisite for gloaming on to some of that free federal largess.

The talk is all about getting rid of bad teachers. I'm all for that. Heck, I sit in the lunchroom with some of these clowns, and I'd be happy to point them out to someone from the federal government to get the ball rolling.

But that wouldn't solve the nation's education woes. Here's the rub the politicians don't seem to get or don't want to consider: there's no frackin' way to quantify what teachers do or their overall effect on students' learning.

Grading and ranking teachers isn't like figuring out a player's batting average. If it were that easy, someone would have come up with that formula decades ago.

Here's why the notion of connecting scores to teacher effectiveness is ridiculous:
The classes we teachers are assigned to are different from one another. Radically different.

For the past 12 years I taught at an LA public high school located in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in America, one that draws its 2600 students from 110 zip codes. English classes were divided between AP students (most of those students would likely attend prestigious colleges), honors students (who would most likely attend state universities and community colleges) and regular students (who would most likely attend community colleges, go straight into the work force or along the way drop out).

AP students functioning way above grade level when they enter the class will eat up these standardized tests. They're in AP classes because they're smart, motivated and good test takers. And so, the teacher assigned to these students will be deemed an effective teacher no matter if he or she teaches with imagination, intelligence and energy or sits in the back of the class smoking a hookah and writing friends on Facebook.

Compare that AP teacher with the teacher whose job it is to prepare the class of regular students whose reading, writing and spelling scores are light years below grade level. This class is most likely populated with several kids whose first language is not English, kids who are poor, kids who have been shuffled from one school to another, kids who might have spotty attendance and are sharing a room with discipline problems and draining their teacher of every ounce of imagination, intelligence and energy.

The game is fixed. Over before it starts. Even if the teacher who teaches the below-average kids is an exceptional teacher and the teacher who teaches the best and the brightest students is mediocre, scores won't reflect the difference between them.

The No Child Left Behind tests, which the Obama Administration won't drop, show numbers and rank. Nothing in those standardized tests speak to the quality of the teacher administering those tests, with the possible exception for the teacher who devoted hours and hours to rote learning rather than including in the curriculum some critical thinking.

If a school wants to honestly judge teachers' abilities based on standardized tests, I have the solution. Run the schools like little league tryouts. Attach a number to each kid's back and allow the teachers to put them through a series of grueling academic exercises. When every student has been tested and observed, teachers would take turns drafting students so that each class is filled with the same percentage of smart kids, average kids and struggling kids.

Once all the students are divvied up, the teachers, like little league coaches, will be allowed to swap students, thus building up their best possible franchises. Schools in wealthier neighborhood may well buy a few "players" from private schools. Under this scenario, the playing field would be level, test scores and their relationship to teachers' abilities might be relevant, and our president may be onto something.

Comments

[johngordon1]

I agree that solely linking test scores to teacher performance is completely misleading. However, I feel it should be one of several indicators to measure performance. No matter how excruciating, at some point school districts should use longitudinal data of every student to determine individual learning trends and expectations as students have different capacities. I feel that the nation generally has it wrong: It shouldn't be about closing the achievement gap. Instead, every student should have the opportunity to learn in an environment that promotes individuals to reach their potential. How to measure that is both tricky and thorny. Nevertheless, it is worth pursuing.

What I find interesting is that Danzinger is quick to acknowledge there are "bad" teachers in the system. I'd be curious to know from Danzinger what kinds of qualities makes them "bad" teachers. I think that is rudimentary argument here. Nobody wants their child to be taught by a substandard teacher. Yet, somehow we skipped a step. There shouldn't be a "Race to the Top" until we closely examine who is in the field. Shorten the field by identifying and eliminating bad teachering/teachers first.

[Dennis Danziger]

Hey John,
Bad teachers come in all sorts of forms. Some are the kind who give assignments and never grade them or return them weeks and weeks later. Others are ones who use sarcasm or scare tactics in order to maintain discipline, rather than teaching in a way that gets through to students. Others just don't know their subject very well. Some are way too lenient and don't enough of the subject. And some teachers who look like they're doing a good job because they're overwhelming their students with work aren't succeeding at their jobs either. Some teachers are repeatedly late, others repeatedly absent. And some spend way too much time endearing themselves to the administration who in most situations are the ones who judge the teachers.

There are a long list of ways to judge a teacher. Problem is it would demand those who are judging to make repeated visits to the teachers' classes, make notes and discuss with the teacher what he or she was attempted to teach. And the problem is, there aren't many schools that have the staff and the resources to adequately make these judgments.

Re: merit pay which is a connected topic. Either everyone in the school should receive merit pay because the school's scores have increased or no in the school should receive merit pay because the school's scores have fallen.

Thanks for writing.

[camb94]

This is a good article, but there are other points to consider. In junior high and high schools, your article is absolutely correct. However, at the elementary level, the classes are more or less equally divided. Moveover, there are "underperforming" schools where APIs have gone up over 100 points in one year. The difference, I believe, is in the teaching, and in getting the teachers to learn what are the most effective ways to learn. I, too, have problems with standardized tests, but here in California, the STAR tests are curriculum based. The curriculum is standards based and the tests reflect that. So, it isn't necessarily "teaching to the test", it is testing to the standards, and if the standards are taught, then the test should be reflective of that. Also, even in poorer neighborhoods, title I schools, etc., the kids are still young enough that they can be "reached". They aren't necessarily jaded, or anti-school. So in these cases it absolutely the role of the teacher.

Maybe they can assess the elementary school teachers based on a connection with test performance and evaluate the junior high/high school teachers differently. For example, a good teacher that had the "bad classes" may not be able to get them to the AP level, but they may be able to encourage them to stay in school -- why not look at long term drop out rates. Or they can increase the average of their tests within their sub group.

[Dave Astor - Huffpost Blogger]

Excellent column. This quote from the piece says it all: "Even if the teacher who teaches the below-average kids is an exceptional teacher and the teacher who teaches the best and the brightest students is mediocre, scores won't reflect the difference between them."

[Dennis Danziger]

Hi Dave, thanks for the kind thought. Glad you get it and appreciate it. Read the comment below yours and then have a good day. Thanks again.

[oustfan]

You have no problem with dividing students up between AP, honors and regular. How are they divided up? Why not hold teachers to the same standards?

[AngelaQuattrano]

Did you even read the article? Classes in schools are inherently unequal, and the effect that the teacher's input has is directly related to a great many factors that have nothing whatever to do with his or her ability to teach. You are pretending that kids are as identical as though they came out of a factory someplace.

Usually regular classes are mixed and full of unmotivated kids who would rather drop out, disciplinary problems whose goal is to disrupt the class, and kids who need personal attention but can't get it in such a classroom environment. The teacher teaching such a class will be penalized if the kids don't get as good grades as the honors or AP kids do.

[Dennis Danziger]

Angela,
Thanks for answering the reader whose post was above yours. I couldn't have possibly said it better to him...and I'm sure I couldn't have said it without getting angry. What I've found writing about education is that a certain % of the folks out there are going to blast teachers no matter if they're good, bad or indifferent. Thanks again for reading and for responding.

[LouisHRMuller]

My father always said "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink". A teacher can only do so much but they can't make students learn. I teach Computer Science at a community college and, though our courses are hands-on lab courses, it is impossible to get some students to buy the lab book and a USB memory stick. In most instances a student's grade is rather independent of which of our staff teaches a course. Motivated students, in most instances, will do well no matter who teaches the course and unmotivated students will fail in spite of a teacher's efforts. I let students sit where they want. In each room I have what I call my "Failure Seats" - those seats where they think I can't see what they are doing and therefore goof off.
Certain hospitals have a higher success rate with cancer or heart cases but that is often because they only accept the most curable cases. The same is true of teachers. It is easy to look good if you get the best students. It is said that "Those who can't do it, teach" but I take it one step further: "Those who can't teach, administrate". Bureaucrats find it easy to give advice but can't show teachers up.

[dwatkins9]

Good points. IQ is real, IQ is largely genetically determined, and IQ is destiny. A teacher cannot change a kids' IQ, any more than a master mechanic can make a Kia go like a Ferrari, and it is unfair to expect her to.

[Dennis Danziger]

HuffPost's Pick

But a teacher, given time and a little flexibility can encourage, teach and get students to go beyond what many have expected of them in the past. Thanks for weighing in.

[Amy Friedman]

Human beings are not machines. Expecting more of a person, encouraging that person, celebrating that person, being on that person's side, always always makes a difference (while celebrating, encouraging and being on the side of a Kia will never turn it into a Ferrari). The great teachers understand this, and they understand how very limited tests and test scores are.