Yesterday, California's application for federal Race to the Top school funding was denied for a second time, and the LA Times reported that US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will repeatedly single out LA Unified in his speech today. This is likely to heat up the already heated controversy around the LA Times' threatened publication of a value-added analysis linking individual teacher performance to their students' standardized test scores. Why does this matter?
Nobody thinks that teacher evaluation should be based entirely on standard test results. The LA Times, the LAUSD, the teachers union, the Secretary of Education, and the National Academy of Sciences all agree on one thing - that judging teachers based on their students' standardized test scores alone is not a complete measure of teacher performance.
Still, federal funds are tied to whether schools link teachers performance to their students' standardized test scores. In the text of his speech today Arne Duncan tied California's failure to secure $700 million in federal Race to the Top funding in part to the fact that LAUSD does not use standardized test scores as a factor in teacher review and evaluation.
And, the value-added method used to analyze the teacher data is controversial. There are legitimate questions as to whether the value-added method used to analyze teacher data is a fair measure of how effective individual teachers are in preparing their students for standardized tests. A thorough discussion of this is posted on the NEA website and in John Rogers' recent piece on HuffPost.
Good reporting jumpstarted an important union negotiation. The LAUSD had years of raw data that could link teachers to their students' standardized test scores but they never evaluated it: Arguably, because they were afraid of the teachers union. Now with the LA Times analysis of that data, and threatened publication of the results, the teachers union agreed to reopen contract negotiations putting the use of standardized test scores as a factor in teacher evaluation back on the table.
Here's the rub, the LA Times plans to publish 6,000 elementary teacher rankings by name. An assessment of the pros and cons of value-added analysis is complicated and reasonable people disagree on how it should be used to assess teacher performance. And yet, it is looking more and more likely that the names of 6,000 Los Angeles elementary school teachers and their rankings will be published on a spectrum from least effective to most effective. The extent of the personal and professional injury that publication could cause these elementary school teachers is impossible to predict, but it's fair to say that publication would publicly embarrass some teachers. It would also likely spur parents into lobbying for one teacher over another based on a performance evaluation that is acknowledged by everyone to be limited and incomplete at best.
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Clay Boggess
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There has to be ganas on the teacher side and student side; also the parents and community.
You don't need a 600M dollar campus. Jamie could have taught in an alley. But he had ganas and he instilled ganas.
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A generation of children was thus sacrificed at the altar of job security for lousy teachers. (The good ones, generally, would have survived and thrived under a system that included vouchers.
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No kidding, I am darn near crying just thinking about the tragedy.
Education is not learning to take tests. It is learning skills and information about a subject. No where in life do we take tests the way we take them in school to evaluate our performance. There are a few tests in interview situations to see how well we can operate certain computer programs for instance, but these usually speak very directly to the needs of the job at hand. In most situations, we can refer to books, articles, dictionaries, etc. to refresh our knowledge on details but the original block of what we know is knowledge acquired through real learning.
Testing has become the bane of the educational system. Children are not taught a subject. They are taught how to take a test in a subject. Certain areas are emphasized, others ignored. This is not teaching. This is not learning.
I know there are a lot of students and there has to be some handy way to evaluate them but as our reliance on tests grow, actual education suffers. Race to the top is a really crappy idea and while I am in favor of improving our pool of teachers, relying on student test scores is not an accurate measure of their skills either.
I hope they are sued into bankruptcy. If I were a teacher in LAUSD I'd be the first one to sign up to sue the Times for defamation.
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But as to suing, LAUSD would have been bankrupt years ago if students could succesfully sue the district for malpractice and failing to provide a decent education.]
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This can't happen for reasons of state sovreignty and public policy. The public policy reason being that LAUSD would cease to exist.
With logic like that I can only assume you yourself are one of the teachers in question.
As an observer in many classrooms, I always struggled with the reality that there is no incentive for teachers to work with low achieving students. They tend to ignore them in favor the the students who are more teachable. Getting results is hard work. And it takes a very special individual to succeed. I often times saw breathtaking genus at work... maybe that is why I am so critical.
My kids moved on to college, where they have become very high achievers. Two have already graduated from elite universities with excellent grades. Unfortunately, it took hard work at the community college level to prepare them. Like most California students, they were remedial upon graduation from high school.
Looking at test scores is a great way to begin holding teachers accountable. We can insure that every student counts.
My guess is it was a lazy administrator not doing his job. I've seen it. I've talked to principals who say they won't document a bad teacher to begin the process of firing them because they if the teacher wants to voluntarily leave the school, no other school would take them and he'd be stuck with them.
The blame can be laid at the door of lazy and incompetent administrators that aren't doing their jobs to effectively evaluate teachers and follow the legal process of removing them from the classroom. The unions are doing their jobs of protecting effective teachers from biased retaliation, which happens plenty. An administrator will often try to get rid of an effective teacher that speaks truth to power at a public meeting instead of getting rid of the incompetent teacher that keeps their mouth shut and doesn't make waves.
Start with the administrators. The principal is often the one that determines the test scores of the school. They are the leaders, they set the school climate and are ultimately responsible for the learning policies, implementation and effectiveness of their staff.
It is a huge mistake to make teaching a personality test and demand that, like rock stars, teachers capture all students hearts to make them work for the teacher's approval. Students need to understand that the mere fact that they do not enjoy a class does not mean that the teacher is at fault!
Hold teachers accountable for what they control: their mastery of the subject; their presentation of material; development of appropriate preparation, practice, and production activities (homework); and accurate evaluation of student mastery of the material.
And don't forget management. Administrators should be held even more accountable.
How effective am I going to be when no one remembers who I am or can remember which week I'm going to be there?
It all comes down to money. Americans are cheap and never want to pay for what something is truly worth. They want a Neiman Marcus education at a Walmart Price. They want a free lunch, then complain about it.
The easiest target is the teachers, when in fact they have the least authority to institute any changes that could truly reform education.
Start with the administrators, since they are responsible for the educational climate of a school. Then look at your school board, who set the educational policies. Are they really qualified to do that? And what about your management layer? Is it bloated and sucking money away from the classroom, resulting in shortages of everything from books to toilet paper?
Then there is our government. We have mandates coming from state and federal government agencies but no money to implement them. But they're mandatory. More money be sucked away.
Standardized tests? What exactly do they prove? That you can fill in a bubble? That's a valuable job skill. Teachers are basically paid by the state to support the companies that create the tests.
My youngest child's AP History teacher did not even seem to know why I was complaining about the way the class was taught after she told me how many of her students passed the test. To her, that was all that mattered. Whether or not my child actually learned anything was not even a consideration.
That is why all of this means nothing if you actually think kids should be educated and not just trained to jump through the testing hoops.
I am a strong proponent of year long schooling and paying teachers a fair salary. (The average teacher salary where I live is $43,000.00/year). Can you guess how well our school system works here? The parent involvement here is so high that there very little problem with education as a whole. So, how does this relate to the educational system outside of our school district. I suggest getting the parents to regulate the administration and pressuring them to perform.
We have a system where a parent can go online and access everything our child does. We know what the teacher is doing for that day or week. We can email them at any time and they can email us with any issues. I can look up daily homework assignments to homework turned in and grade of that homework to the test score of that week.
I think our child performance improves with support and encouragement for our child, teacher, and the administration in this exact order. There is no substitute for parents who care for the success of their child!
Although some would argue that there's a fine line between teacher and prison guard in California anyway.
In industry, many jobs are evaluated on the basis of hourly productivity. For instance, factory workers often have quotas. Sales managers are often evaluated solely on the value of sales contracts. Even at the upper end, lawyers are frequently evaluated on the basis of how many hours they bill. Does anyone suggest that these should be the ONLY method of evaluating these workers? No. However, just suggest that teachers should have their compensation LINKED to student performance and you are treated to an unending series of lectures (courtesy of the teachers' unions) of how unfair it is. Aside from dishonestly implying it is the only quality that will be rated, they will make pointless statements such as that home life is a more important factor (but a good teacher should still raise teaching scores above last year, right?), or that not enough in-class evaluations are performed (as if any profession really wants their boss looking over their shoulder constantly). They also tend to ignore the power of statistics, suggesting one dumb kid throws the whole system off.
All parents (read: taxpayers) should demand that student performance be a part of teacher evaluations. Anyone who argues otherwise should be dismissed as not having children's best interests at heart.
But I take issue with your off hand and dismissive statement "they will make pointless statements such as that home life is a more important factor ". If student comes to school without breakfast, that effects concentration and attention. If the parents are fighting and discussing divorce that conflict can create issue such as anxiety, depression, aggression, poor concentration and a sense of hopelessness. If mom is working two jobs and dad is in prison-maybe the student doesn't do the homework, and watches TV or plays video games until midnight, this can lead to inattention, falling asleep in class, poor class performance, etc etc. If you are watching the NBC news now they are talking about teen texting, the girl said she says she stays up late texting. HMMMM, wonder how well she performs in class. She just said she had five hours of sleep in had a test in the morning. So yes student's home life do effect performance.
Also, many kids don't see the importance of the test, so they don't take them seriously. Except the CAHSEE. BTW Teacher are taxpayers also. Spend some time in the classroom before you spout.
Your statement "they will make pointless statements such as that home life is a more important factor" is just plain absurd. In fact, the home is the #1 factor in a child's development.
Lets create curriculum acocuntability - track the curriculum and publisher of each students curriculum so you can measure text book manufacturer performace. As well as compare changes in student performance across teachers when new curriculum is introduced(Are we harming growth changing as often as we do). About every 4-5 years I see my wife go through the 2 year cycle of integrating new curriculums. First year identify flaws try and fill them second year have better materials on hand to fill textbook failures by third year about have it nailed.
Administration accountability - A failure of large amounts of teachers at a school is an indication of the administrations failure not necessarily teachers.
District accountability - SEE above
And finally student accountability - If a student can't meet the knowledge to advance hold them back so you don't penalize the majority that does by forcing a teacher in the next class to teach down. My wife does backflips trying to hold students back only to get overruled by parents whining to administration.
If we want acocuntability lets create accountability not lay it all on a teachers shoulders as an anti union scapegoat. Education is complex every class and school differs some principals are great others lay everything on the teachers shoulders.
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And by the fourth year you're invited to sit on a committee to decide what new curriculum should replace the curriculum you just spent three years mastering.
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Boy, I hate that!!
But hey 400 million for new textbooks each year must be spent. How it became new curriculum well I guess the textbook co lobbyists are real good. New improved with in-services buy it today.
If all students in teacher X's class learn at a faster rate on average than the students in teacher Y's classroom year after year, that's not a factor of parenting. It's a factor of teaching capability.
Your simplification betrays an ignorance of all the factors that can contribute to a situation like you describe. Teacher "Y" may have had a student teacher, more special-education students, started halfway through the year, was a brand-new teacher, or just got "that class" that year. I am all for teacher accountability, let's just be fair to teachers about what they can and cannot control.
In a poor socio-economic area there is the house where the parent(s) know where they kids are, hold them accountable, there are rules, consequences and education is valued.
Next door there are the parents that have no idea where their kid is (gangs, vandalism), don't value school so the kid does not homework or is truant, and if the parent is every contacted defends their kid with "not my kid their all lying". The kid learns he can do anything without consequences and that school doesn't matter to his parents then why should he care.
Some principals put a lot of student A in one teacher's class and a lot of student B in another teacher's class. Usually a teacher they're trying to drive out of the school because the teacher challenges the administration publicly to improve policies or disagrees on methods or curriculum decisions. If the principal wants to socially promote and the teacher wants academic rigor....Oh, I'll give you academic rigor, see what you can do with 37 from column B. See ya!
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And let's not forget that it's not only the parents of a given student who affect the performance of that student, but also the parents of other students who may send extremely disruptive kids to school thus interfering with the education of well-behaved students.