From MUSE: The Problem with Test Scores for Teacher Evaluation

New York announced plans last week to begin using standardized test scores in their teacher evaluation scheme.  Although officially the scores count for only 40% (insisted upon by Gov. Cuomo despite an agreement between schools and unions that they would count for 20%) of the basis for evaluation, it will in fact be the determining factor, according to a report on the language of the law by Diane Ravitch:

The remaining 60 percent is supposed to consist of classroom observations and other measures. All teachers must be rated on a scale from 0 to 100, using these multiple measures. This draconian point system will guarantee that a teacher with a perfect 60 out of 60 on teaching skill will nonetheless be judged "ineffective" if he or she is in the ineffective range on scores. As it now stands, the rating system is so bizarre that a teacher could be rated effective in all three categories and still be rated "ineffective" overall.

The agreement contains this strange sentence: "Teachers rated ineffective on student performance based on objective assessments must be rated ineffective overall." Unless I can't read plain English, this says that the 40 percent devoted to test scores overrides the other 60 percent. In other words, 40 percent is equal to 100 percent. The teacher who doesn't raise test scores is ineffective. Oh, and state education Commissioner John King—who taught for three years and founded charter schools—will have the ultimate authority to review every district's additional measures for rigor and quality.

Not only is the system put in place bizarre and misleading, but the use of standardized testing for teacher evaluation seems to be unsupported by research.  The Economic Policy Institute's April 29, 2010 Briefing #278 details a host of studies showing the unreliability of, the invalidity of, and the perverse incentives created by the use of the most widely used type of data analysis ("value-added modeling" or VAM) in teacher evaluation.  And VAM is used most widely because it is considered the most accurate form of analysis and the one that most effectively takes into account factors other than teacher performance.

Instead of reliance on solely "objective" numbers, which, despite some claims to the contrary, is not the way most professionals are evaluated, the Briefing calls for "[d]istricts seeking to remove ineffective teachers [to] invest the time and resources in a comprehensive approach to evaluation that incorporates concrete steps for the improvement of teacher performance based
on professional standards of instructional practice, and unambiguous evidence for dismissal, if improvements do not occur (p. 20)."

The Briefing is attached here (with my highlighting) and is worth a read..  It contains an excellent and understandable analysis of VAM and a shorter description of the other methods of data analysis.


This post was also published on MUSE '13

The Problem with Test Scores for Teacher Evaluation

New York announced plans last week to begin using standardized test scores in their teacher evaluation scheme. Although officially the scores count for only 40% (insisted upon by Gov. Cuomo despite an agreement between schools and unions that they would count for 20%) of the basis for evaluation, it will in fact be the determining factor, according to a report on the language of the law by Diane Ravitch:

The remaining 60 percent is supposed to consist of classroom observations and other measures. All teachers must be rated on a scale from 0 to 100, using these multiple measures. This draconian point system will guarantee that a teacher with a perfect 60 out of 60 on teaching skill will nonetheless be judged "ineffective" if he or she is in the ineffective range on scores. As it now stands, the rating system is so bizarre that a teacher could be rated effective in all three categories and still be rated "ineffective" overall.

The agreement contains this strange sentence: "Teachers rated ineffective on student performance based on objective assessments must be rated ineffective overall." Unless I can't read plain English, this says that the 40 percent devoted to test scores overrides the other 60 percent. In other words, 40 percent is equal to 100 percent. The teacher who doesn't raise test scores is ineffective. Oh, and state education Commissioner John King—who taught for three years and founded charter schools—will have the ultimate authority to review every district's additional measures for rigor and quality.

Not only is the system put in place bizarre and misleading, but the use of standardized testing for teacher evaluation seems to be unsupported by research. The Economic Policy Institute's April 29, 2010 Briefing #278 details a host of studies showing the unreliability of, the invalidity of, and the perverse incentives created by the use of the most widely used type of data analysis ("value-added modeling" or VAM) in teacher evaluation. And VAM is used most widely because it is considered the most accurate form of analysis and the one that most effectively takes into account factors other than teacher performance.

Instead of reliance on solely "objective" numbers, which, despite some claims to the contrary, is not the way most professionals are evaluated, the Briefing calls for "[d]istricts seeking to remove ineffective teachers [to] invest the time and resources in a comprehensive approach to evaluation that incorporates concrete steps for the improvement of teacher performance based
on professional standards of instructional practice, and unambiguous evidence for dismissal, if improvements do not occur (p. 20)."

The Briefing is here and is worth a read. It contains an excellent and understandable analysis of VAM and a shorter description of the other methods of data analysis.

(Also posted here.)

Library Poem for Erika

Found this in that journal, too.
5-6-10

There once was a brother named Dewey.
Exasperated one day, he said 'Phooey!'
'It seems I cannot
'Find the book that I want.
'These librar'ans are tyin' to screw me!'

A librar'an approached Mr. Dewey
'You're not that far off,' she said to he.
'You're a handsome young lad
'And I'd rather you had
'To come up to the desk and talk to me.'

'I beg you, madame,' said the man,
'Simply tell me as quick as you can
'Where's the book that I seek!
'I'll've no more of your cheek!
'Keep your hands to yourself, I demand!'

Twas the lady's turn now to say 'Phooey!
'I'm afraid, sir, you must misconstrue me.
'You can see for yourself
'The book's there, on the shelf.
'I've another patron to see to me.'

Journal: Set Aside and Re-Discovered

The other day I grabbed a notebook from the shelf to stick in my bag, thinking I might want to write. Today I pulled it out to make a list and discovered an abandoned journal begun in September 2009--a few months before I quit my lawyer job, a few months before I started this blog. I was trying to be observant it seems.

Excerpted from 9-10-09

"The trees move in slow motion and are speckled in sunlight that reflects off the moving surfaces of the leaves. Moments and spaces become momentarily empty of color--full of light--in and out of my vision the facets of green and white light--bobbing, shimmering, rippling liquid. Overexposed, full of camera flares."

and later that day...

"It is amazing and beautiful to think of the millions of people in the world going about their lives. To focus in on individuals, to see them look with understanding or sympathy at another person they pass on the street. The woman hustling her children, laughing at their jokes, thinking of her husband, worrying about something at work Her thoughts are informed and colored by her friends and dreams from childhood, by her father's voice, by the scent of her grandmother's house. This exists in different shades and varying gradations a million times over. Each one as full and rich as the universe inside my head. It is humbling and comforting and awe inspiring."

10-21
"Beach, Bolinas. The world is immense, multicolored, and infinitely beautiful. Why does the thought of that hurt so much? A dull ache like a knife in my heart and my breath caught in my throat."

11-6-09

"Neil Gaiman: 'It was beautiful, a desolate beauty that chimed and echoed with the empty places inside Shadow.'"

April 7, 2010

"Montara State Beach.

Shadowy pockets in the cliff, carved in by ages and the slightest trickle of water oozing out of the rock.

The wall is blue grey and then red
frosted with growing things
ice plant with its pastel blossoms reaching up like adolescent girls
mosses and grasses

lone succulents reach out thick roots into the rock and cling against the wind and the spray
cling despite a lack of soil
pulling mineral out of the richly colored rock and thriving.

Out past it all in that immensity of blue
the cliffs so still
the ocean such a constancy of motion in its new-old dance
ever-renewing
ever-staid
...

even the waves are tinged with the grey of age, of ancientness, the muted blue greens of slow-time, silent in their roar
The sand white beige and mottled
...

The layers and chips in the cliff are intricate as lace
I stop and study them for a while
before they go fuzzy and I am lost in thought
I come to and walk again, the ocean to my right, seeking the sun.
--
Streams flow out to the sea from ceilingless caves at intervals in the cliff
Some trail back into pools of murk and mist, inhabited by water bugs seeking the sun like me
The dart back into the shadows at my approach

Back out on the shore I pick up a rock that crumbles in my hand and spy a spray of ice plant in the sand, broken free from the cliffs
Would it sprout roots if I took it home with me?

From MUSE: National Day of Action for Public Education

This post was also published on MUSE '13

From MUSE: Occupy the Capitol for Public Education: March 5!

This post was also published on MUSE '13

From MUSE: Fictional Truth

Facts are Stupid, Slate

In which a writer discusses two writers and a fact checker and their varying ideas about changing the facts to get at the truth.

I may use this article with my 11th Graders as a bridge between The Things They Carried(especially our discussion of "How to Tell a True War Story") and an autobiographical writing project with 826 Valencia.

Should a writer who claims to be writing nonfiction always stick to the facts and just the facts, ma'am? Or can liberties be taken?  


This post was also published on MUSE '13

From MUSE: The Presidency

Wikipedia Sortable List of Presidential Rankings And this, from Lawyers, Guns, and Money This is an Easy One [ 150 ] February 18, 2012 | Scott Lemieux Ta-Nehisi Coates points us to this President’s Day question, and also gives us the right answer. I’ve discussed this before, but Grant is extremely underrated. Teaching the Presidency this semester, I spent some time with my students going over this handy sortable list of presidential rankings by historians. Grant’s reputation is improving. But it’s hard to get a better example of the pernicious influence of the Dunning School than the fact that in the first Schlesinger poll in 1948, Grant ranked 28th out of 29 — below Buchanan, below Pierce — with Andrew Goddamned Johnson, the man who tried to govern as a Confederate after the Civil War despite not being elected, ranking 19th. …Good point in comments about LBJ; I suppose it depends on the audience, but my sense (generally confirmed by the polls) is that LBJ is getting more of his due from historians. Incidentally, in the informal poll of my students, LBJ was only mentioned a couple times out of 15. JFK ranked 4th, behind Lincoln, FDR, and Washington. This post was also published on MUSE '13

Prior Knowledge and Field Trips

I emailed this article but wanted a permanent place for it: The importance of prior knowledge to reading comprehension.  I also like the short statement of how the teacher uses field trips and field trip follow ups.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/13/nyregion/for-poorer-students-an-attempt-to-let-new-experiences-guide-learning.html


This post was also published on MUSE '13

You guys! T-Rex Teaches Poetry

You should really go to the real page so you can see the mouseover text and all (click on the comic images).  But I wanted them here too. So you can see them both together.  You're welcome.

Oh wait! I just learned to do mouseover text in html, because I am the goddess of the internets (or at least the goddess of those who are married to former software engineers and have taught themselves a little bit of html because its really not that hard, but whatever). 

Oh, hah.  They're already attached to the images.  Well, that was easy goddessing.

Oh, but they have to be small, so go to the real site anyway.  I mean, you should always go there, and now you have another reason.

  


True, I could have edited out the stream of consciousness as my understanding changed, but where is the fun in that?

English Teacher SLAMS Student in Rap Battle

From MUSE: Woo Paolo!

"Teacher preparation should never be reduced to a form of training.  Rather, teacher preparation should go beyond the technical preparation of teachers and be rooted in the ethical formation both of selves and of history. . . . I am speaking of a universal human ethic, an ethic that is not afraid to condemn . . . the exploitation of labor and the manipulation that makes a rumor into truth and truth into a mere rumor.  To condemn the fabrication of illusions, in which the unprepared become hopelessly trapped and the weak and defenseless are destroyed.  To condemn making promises when one has no intention of keeping one's word, which causes lying to become an almost necessary way of life.  To condemn the calumny of character assassination simply for the joy of it and the fragmentation of the utopia of human solidarity.  The ethic of which I speak is that which feels itself betrayed and neglected by the hypocritical perversion of an elitist purity, an ethic affronted by racial, sexual, and class discrimination.  For the sake of this ethic, which is inseparable from educative practice, we should struggle, whether our work is with children, youth, or adults."  Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of Freedom (pp. 23-24) This post was also published on MUSE '13