Category: teacher evaluation

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The Education Reform Silly Season

It might be summer, but the education know-nothings are clearly not at the beach. The latest case-in-point is former CNN correspondent Campbell Brown’s incredibly uninformed comments on teacher tenure that, unfortunately, millions of people saw and didn’t stick around for the fact-checking. Her musings come on the heels of a California decision in which a judge ruled that tenure is unconstitutional because it deprives some students of a quality education. There is another case against tenure in New York States and I will assume that many other states will soon join in. It is true that there are some teachers who should not be in classrooms because they are ineffective or burned out, but depriving teachers of a due process right and subjecting them to firing because of issues unrelated to their job performance is the height of irresponsibility.

In Campbell Brown’s case, she quotes the popular half-truth that the teacher is far and away the most important factor in a child’s success, and that if all classrooms had effective teachers, then all students would learn. I suppose we could read this as a compliment for great teachers, but I also read it for the folly of what it implies.

What she and other education know-nothings are essentially saying here is that an effective teacher can overcome poverty, child abuse, hunger, malnutrition, unemployment, dysfunctional and nonfunctional families, drug and alcohol abuse, teen pregnancy, developmental disabilities, ADHD, the autism spectrum, lack of sleep, entitled parents and students, and general ennui and make productive citizens out of every child. This is what teachers see in their classrooms and every one of these factors, or a combination of many of them, is a distraction or an impediment to learning. If effective teachers could negate them and educate children in spite of them, then we also need to elect teachers to Congress and the Presidency because the country clearly needs them.

The truth is that teachers do overcome these obstacles, but not at the pace that society needs in order to help all students. What then happens, and the education know-nothings are quick with the response, the teachers, whose students do not perform well on the latest misuse of data, the teacher evaluation metrics, are labeled incompetent and worthy of firing. Since tenure is in the way, getting rid of it is the know-nothing’s illogical retort.

The proper response would be for those with microphones and cameras to focus their attention on providing living conditions in all communities that allow for jobs with livable wages, responsive public services, adequate public health care, affordable housing, enrichment opportunities for the children, and safe neighborhoods. Those teachers who work in such communities know why their students are more prepared than others. It’s not rocket science, but it is science; and we know how the right wing feels about science.

To further the folly of their arguments, though, the know-nothings have managed to institute teacher evaluation systems throughout the land that will do everything except provide for a valid measure of an effective teacher. They’ve made testing the default activity in schools when there is little research to support a system based on such testing. And for those teachers who don’t teach a testable subject, there’s the SGO, or Student Growth Objective. But now those measures are under review because, surprise, SGOs don’t provide for a valid measure either.

In New Jersey, teachers who have questioned the testing/SGO folly are finally being heard. Tests, which were going to count for 30% of a teacher’s evaluation, will now only count as 10% for the coming school year, and SGO’s will be under scrutiny for how they are used for evaluation. Neither measure has been shown to predict or confirm a teacher’s effectiveness, and putting them under a microscope should confirm that. Of course, with Governor Christie now running for president, the chances of further reform are nonexistent, but perhaps in a few years things will change. Still, many otherwise qualified teachers will be affected by the evaluation system. That’s the shame of it all.

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Domestic Policies Education New Jersey News Politics teacher evaluation

Damn the Teachers, Full Testing Ahead!

So let’s see where we stand at this moment with the brand spanking new teacher evaluation system in New Jersey. This is the law that is going to revolutionize teaching and learning by making sure that students are mastering content and skills and teachers are doing their jobs to ensure learning in the classroom. For those of us not covered by a standardized assessment, the key is the SGO, or Student Growth Objectives, that is supposed to measure student growth (duh).

How are we doing this? By taking the measure of our students at the beginning of the year. Then we’ll evaluate them again in a few months to see how much they’ve learned. In other words, welcome to testing-mania.

The overwhelming majority of teachers in New Jersey have already given an assessment to their students, usually in the form of a test. Most of these tests ask for knowledge and skills that students haven’t been taught yet. The assumption, then, is that when we re-give these tests again in February or March, the students will have learned the information because they’ve been, well, taught it. Students learn, teachers have done their jobs, numbers go up, salaries are paid.

So what’s the problem? Plenty. Most of these tests are low stakes and mean virtually nothing to the students, while meaning everything for the teachers. In addition, there is no measurable data that says that this is a viable method for objectively evaluating teachers. And districts are getting mucho creative with SGOs in ways that even the Christie Administration didn’t envision.

For example, many teachers who plan on taking leaves for maternity or other family concerns, have been told to administer both a pre-and post-assessment in as little as 6 weeks, so the district has a record of their progress. This flies in the face of everything we know about education and assessment, and is using time as the relevant factor and not learning. Why don’t I just do a Monday-Friday assessment cycle and be done with it. I can teach anyone how to write an effective thesis in a week if that’s all I’m going to measure.

It’s also becoming clear, as I speak to colleagues and monitor the news, that administrators and school boards are tying bonuses to the percentage of staff that has an SGO. The law says that classroom teachers must have them, but leaves it up to the district as to whether nurses, guidance counselors and other support staff must have them. Tying SGOs to a bonus virtually guarantees that all staff will be responsible for an SGO, and it’s up to the district to develop one.

Are we connecting student health rates to nurses? How many students come to see them over a three month period? Do we want more students to visit the nurse or fewer? What’s the difference between taking blood pressure and earning a 4 under the Danielson model and earning a 3?

For guidance counselors, are we tying failure rates to counselors? College acceptances? If a child is crying on the way in to the counselor’s office but smiling on the way out, is that an effective SGO?

The dirty truth is that there’s really no way to know. It’s the same for teachers. Once we administer the test/evaluation, then that becomes the default assessment that we’re going to focus on for three months. The tests rule. And it will get even worse come the spring when teachers covered by a state test enter the maelstrom and sweat out their number through the summer.

This evaluation system is taking money, time and resources away from education. It’s not scientifically valid. It wastes time. It’s a step backwards, and it insults teachers everywhere by assuming that they are not effective.

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Domestic Policies Education teacher evaluation

Hurry Up and Wait: Putting the Brakes on Teacher Evaluation

As if educators, including me, several times, haven’t been clear enough that rushing into an untested teacher evaluation system is a terrible idea, along comes our esteemed Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan to finally get the message: schools need more time to implement, experiment and, yes, evaluate the new system before it becomes operative and to see if it does what it’s supposed to do. It won’t, because it has fatal flaws in it, but at least giving teachers, administrators and school boards another year might just uncover the folly of using prescriptive tests for evaluative ends.

In any case, Duncan is allowing states to apply for waivers to their waivers, which would require that the Christie administration to do something positive for teachers and students, so I’m not holding my breath. After all, I’ve sat in a room with NJ Education Commissioner Christopher Cerf and heard him, and other DOE officials, wax rhapsodic about how wonderful this new system is. Meanwhile, the data crunchers don’t have all of the numbers, and the numbers they have are not representative of all types of districts.

Then there is this open letter to the New Jersey legislature from noted Millburn Superintendent James A, Crisfield, who makes a powerful case for letting the 2013-14 school year be a test case for every district in the state. That way we can observe how the system works and look to solve the obvious technical problems that the state seems to be ignoring. These include the funding restraints that will restrict districts from purchasing the computers necessary for all students to be able to take the end-of-year evaluations and the rather obtuse attitude the department has about ensuring that the youngest students have the necessary keyboarding skills to actually show what they’ve learned.

But just in case you think that it’s only bitter teachers who are questioning the efficacy of the system, Crisfield reminds us that concerns reach across the education spectrum:

And speaking of fairness, there really needs to be another discussion about the efficacy of using student test scores to judge the effectiveness of a teacher. We’re moving so fast now that we don’t even have the opportunity to fully vet that very troubling (and in most educators’ opinion, highly flawed) aspect of the new system.

In fact, I can’t even explain to my teachers how, exactly, student test scores will affect their ratings, tenure, and pay (and I certainly don’t have the time to discuss with them the research behind, and/or the wisdom of, such ideas).

I like this guy.

This evaluation system has always been a political issue, not an education issue. If the governor was serious about true reform, he would have included far more public school teachers in the process, and he wouldn’t have exempted private and charter schools. If you are in a position to do so, please contact your legislator. I can tell you from personal experience talking to them, that members of the Assembly and Senate want to know how affected constituents are thinking on the issues. The only thing we have to lose is control over our profession.

Scary.

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Domestic Policies Education New Jersey News Politics teacher evaluation

The Lesson We Never Learn

After 29 years in the classroom, and with a pretty savvy political sense, if I may be so bold, I consider myself a keen observer of most things educational, but this story about Philadelphia’s schools made me shiver with anger from the first paragraph:

Andrew Jackson School too agitated to eat breakfast on Friday, an aide alerted the school counselor, who engaged him in an art project in her office. When he was still overwrought at 11, a secretary called the boy’s family, and soon a monitor at the front door buzzed in an older brother to take him home. 

Under a draconian budget passed by the Philadelphia School District last month, none of these supporting players — aide, counselor, secretary, security monitor — will remain at the school by September, nor will there be money for books, paper, a nurse or the school’s locally celebrated rock band. 

I know that this kind of mindless budget cutting has been going on for years and real reformers, as opposed to the self-styled ones on the right, have been warning us that children are in real danger, but somehow this story caught me. Or maybe it just represents the last straw on my particular camel’s back. Whatever. I have now officially had enough. If that’s the way that Philadelphia’s families are going to be treated, then we need an educational Tahrir/Taksim/self-immolating fruit-seller moment in this country. It’s that bad now, and it’s going to get worse.

Across the river, here in New Jersey, next fall is shaping up to be one of the worst for education since, well, four years ago when Chris Christie promised to destroy collective bargaining, and then made good on it, among other things. All of the polls point to a reelection win for the governor with a slight possibility that his coattails could enable the GOP to take over the state legislature. With a majority, even if it’s just the Senate, they can reshape the State Supreme Court, and with both houses they can further erode worker’s rights, eliminate seniority, impose radical cuts to public schools and stop funding for programs, like those in Philadelphia, that save lives, literally and figuratively.

What might save the state is a current challenge to the October U.S. Senate primary, forcing it to be held on the same day as the gubernatorial election. That would bring out more pro-education voters. Opponents of the separate election say they’ve found a clause that specifically addresses the issue. Let’s see if the State Supreme Court agrees.

And then, of course, there’s the new teacher evaluation system that’s set to go into effect statewide come the fall. Imagine a program that uses bad data in a manner that it wasn’t meant to be used, then include horse-trading politicians who have little idea what the legislation says, and put a Commissioner of Education in charge of the system who has little regard for anything other than his political standing and whether the State Board of Education supports him. Oh, wait…no need to imagine. New Jersey’s got it!

I’m all for teacher accountability, but this system was created by non-educators as a means of punishing state workers and unions, and making it easier to fire effective teachers who cost too much. If it was about education, then private and charter school teachers would be included in it. But they’re not, and that’s all you need to know about the intentions of its authors.

So enjoy your summer everyone. Let’s hope the shore businesses make lots of money and rejuvenate the towns and people who lost the most. Let’s hope that students and teachers find exciting ways to add to their knowledge, or to just forget about formal learning for a while and smell some flowers. In the fall, a new storm will be brewing, but it won’t be anything like Sandy. It will just be a lot of hot air.

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The Final NJ Teacher Evaluation Rules. Until They Change.

When my colleagues and I met with New Jersey Commissioner of Education Christopher Cerf and his staff in January, he alluded to March 6 as the date when the State Board of Education would be issuing its final rules on teacher evaluation. He reminded us that final rules meant that because of public comments the rules could change, but that we could confidently move ahead with our evaluation system based on what they said. If any were changed significantly, he said, we could also alter ours to adapt to the new rules.

That day is just around the corner. Next week, all interested parties are on notice that they can testify before the State BOE on the new rules, and that this will be the final time that the state board will hear comments. They are then set to consider any last minute changes and adopt the final rules in September. If this seems to be a tight time frame, it is. By design. Unless you’re in one of the Pilot I or Pilot II districts, you basically have this spring to work out any kinks in your evaluation plan, test it, get feedback from the faculty and staff, and get ready to fully implement it beginning in September. Curiouser, the state timeline says that all staff must be trained on their chosen system by August 31. So if there are any changes in September…well, that’s not on the agenda next week. But it would be fun to ask about it, yes?

Remember that the people I met at the DOE are true believers in this new system and to a person said that the old system was “failing our students and communities.” When the Superintendents at our meeting reminded the DOE Assistant Commissioners that their districts had effective evaluation systems in place and that our schools were educating students, the response was that 1. This system is better and 2. You’re lying.

Truly.

One of the assistants, who came from an effective suburban district noted that when he as an assistant principal(!) he came to the conclusion that the manner in which his nationally-noted Middlesex County district evaluated tenured staff members was a “joke” and “didn’t really do a good job at identifying failing teachers.” Thus, the whole state must now adhere to this gentleman’s skewed version of evaluation. It’s that bad.

If you can get down to Trenton on March 6, please do, because we need as many voices as we can to remind the state BOE that those of us who work in classrooms have real concerns about the evaluation system and process. Commissioner Cerf believes that he has the BOE in his pocket. Let’s make sure that our side has its say.

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