While local PTA's have been feisty and dedicated engines of resistance against the giant testing machine of modern education reformsterdom, the national organization has been more interested in playing ball with the Masters of Reformy Nonsense (could be the infusion of Gates-flavored money into their finances).
Witness their two-page "factsheet" that borrows its title from a speech that Arne Duncan delivered at the national PTA convention in 2010-- Moving Beyond the Bubble.
This particular Sheet O'Facts celebrates that "Improved Tests Are Finally Here!" Yes, "in 2014-15, schools will replace their old tests with new assessments built to let parents and teachers know how well students are learning the skills and knowledge they need to success in today's world." Phew. That's sure a load off my mind.
So what's new about these new tests of newly renewed newosity? Well, here's what the "new tests are trying to accomplish." (Trying? So, will students be getting points on these tests for trying? Or will the have to do, instead?)
Measure real-world skills. Those skills are, apparently, critical thinking, analytical writing, and problem solving. How do we know that these skills are required in the real world? We just do. How do we know that the test actually measures them? I'm particularly curious about a test for analytical writing, because I'm thinking that would involve doing actual analytical writing, and that can be rather a time-consuming operation, prone to a wide, world spanning variety of responses (so wide, I'd say, that judging them would be highly resistant to any sort of standardized process).
End teaching to the test. The idea here is that the tests somehow "mirror" activities that students are learning in class. The tests are supposed to be great because students have to "show and apply" instead of picking the right answer from a multiple choice question. Except that this is simply wrong. Take a look at the sample PARCC-- it is almost entirely pick an answer activities. Again-- authentic assessment would allow for far too many variables to be quickly and cheaply computer-graded.
Identify whether students are on the path to success. Only if you define "success" as "doing well on standardized tests." Show me the research that demonstrates how the tested items are related to future success.
Use technology to provide better information for teachers and parents. Oh, well, if they're using technology, it must be awesome. The speed of online scoring is supposed to be a selling point here, but so far turnaround time on test results has been unimpressive and the actual report of results looks like it will be the kind of vague generalities that wouldn't even make for a good report card. PTA touts the "heightened" security, but of course that security means that teachers, students, and parents never get to see how they did on actual questions; parents and teachers are forbidden to see the questions at all.
Provide opportunities for early intervention. Again, how does this work when teachers cannot see exactly where the students went wrong? The PTA says "when teachers have information about students' strengths and weaknesses, they can better support their learning." That's true (at least, assuming the unclear pronoun references mean what they are most likely to mean), but what does it have to do with these tests. Teachers already collect plenty of information about student strengths and weaknesses, and they collect it on a daily basis. What is the test offering that teachers do not already have better and greater supplies of?
Replace state tests in English and Math. PTA doesn't even pretend to suggest a reason that the replacements are improvements-- they just claim the tests are created by experts and educators.
Support students with special needs. Well, no. Mostly the new tests demand that students with special needs simply behave as if they have no special needs.
The factsheet includes other standard-issue baloney.
Results take time. Scores may go down as students and teachers adjust to the new standards and tests, which makes me wonder about the part where we said these tests more closely mirrored what students actually do.
They can tell what students have learned, or which students are ready to move on, or find the students who need help.
In fact they mention many swell things that the Big Standardized Test can do, which would be swell except the list is entirely composed of things that classroom teachers and schools already do outside of BS Testing. What PTA fails to explain is how BS Tests can help, what they can provide that teachers and schools don't already have.
But the PTA has found tests somewhere that work like magical unicorns carrying tiny dancing hippogryphs on their backs. It's baloney, and it's a shame that the PTA lowered themselves to peddling it.
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Your Granular Achievement Report
Remember how we need standardized testing so that parents can have a complete picture of just how well their child is doing in school? Well, the folks at achieve.org have whipped up a sample of what that carefully nuanced, deeply granulated report will look like. Let's check it out.
Actually, said out-checking won't take very long. The hyper-granulous ELA report for a hypothetical 11th grader of 2017 is just two pages long. It does have pretty graphics, but, well...
The first 1/3 page is a "how to read this" explanation that does an excellent job of...um...taking up space?
Then we get to David's first score. It's a 1980 out of 2400, which makes him Level 3 (there's a cool badge graphic just in case you're unsure of that number) and an explanation of Level 3 so that parents can impactfully appreciate the granulosity of this nuanced report. Here, in its entirety, is the explanation of Level 3:
Students who score in Level 3 show Moderate Understanding of the expectations for their grade and are likely to need additional support to be fully prepared for English in the next English course. They may need remediation for reading, writing, speaking and listening in college and careers after high school. These students should talk to their teachers and counselors about how to get extra help and course selection for the remainder of high school.
So, David did medium well on language and might need to get better at some stuff having to do with some sort of language use. Go to the office and ask, David's parents, because you might not be ready for college because of stuff, and things. And clearly, the only possible thing parents could ever want to know about a student is whether he's on the path to college or not.
And that's page one.
Page two tries to granulate things a bit more. We break language into five whole areas: Reading Literary Text, Reading Informational Text, Writing, Language and Speaking/Listening. For each David gets a ranking of above, at or below mastery. So, granules!
There are also some fun graphs that show how David compares within the district and within the testing consortium. Just in case you want to know whether to brag or be ashamed.
And there's a column offering strengths and weaknesses. One of David's strengths is "Demonstrating speaking and listening skills" (which leads me to really wonder what this future standardized test is going to look like). One of his weaknesses is "Understanding, interpreting and utilizing standard English, grammar and usage." If those don't seem like quite enough detail, the sheet also offers advice about what to ask your teachers or guidance counselors. What you can ask is a fancy version of, "What could we do so that David would be better." So you're welcome for that big piece of assistance, parents.
And that is it. This is somehow worth our great national testing nightmare, because parents will enjoy such massive benefits from this form that tells them "Your kid got about a C, because reasons. And stuff." Clearly this is so much deeper than what any report card or regular papers sent home or conversation with a live human teacher could ever be.
Mostly I just want to create a t-shirt that says "I paid billions of tax dollars for a deeply nuanced granulated standardized test, and all I got was this lousy two page report." But I can see one other method to the test-developers madness. With reports this vague and useless, it would not be necessary to actually score the complete tests. Hell, you could crank these reports out just plugging in student names with randomly generated results, and you would probably be close to correct most of the time. The savings and increased revenue for the testing companies would be considerable.
Actually, said out-checking won't take very long. The hyper-granulous ELA report for a hypothetical 11th grader of 2017 is just two pages long. It does have pretty graphics, but, well...
The first 1/3 page is a "how to read this" explanation that does an excellent job of...um...taking up space?
Then we get to David's first score. It's a 1980 out of 2400, which makes him Level 3 (there's a cool badge graphic just in case you're unsure of that number) and an explanation of Level 3 so that parents can impactfully appreciate the granulosity of this nuanced report. Here, in its entirety, is the explanation of Level 3:
Students who score in Level 3 show Moderate Understanding of the expectations for their grade and are likely to need additional support to be fully prepared for English in the next English course. They may need remediation for reading, writing, speaking and listening in college and careers after high school. These students should talk to their teachers and counselors about how to get extra help and course selection for the remainder of high school.
So, David did medium well on language and might need to get better at some stuff having to do with some sort of language use. Go to the office and ask, David's parents, because you might not be ready for college because of stuff, and things. And clearly, the only possible thing parents could ever want to know about a student is whether he's on the path to college or not.
And that's page one.
Page two tries to granulate things a bit more. We break language into five whole areas: Reading Literary Text, Reading Informational Text, Writing, Language and Speaking/Listening. For each David gets a ranking of above, at or below mastery. So, granules!
There are also some fun graphs that show how David compares within the district and within the testing consortium. Just in case you want to know whether to brag or be ashamed.
And there's a column offering strengths and weaknesses. One of David's strengths is "Demonstrating speaking and listening skills" (which leads me to really wonder what this future standardized test is going to look like). One of his weaknesses is "Understanding, interpreting and utilizing standard English, grammar and usage." If those don't seem like quite enough detail, the sheet also offers advice about what to ask your teachers or guidance counselors. What you can ask is a fancy version of, "What could we do so that David would be better." So you're welcome for that big piece of assistance, parents.
And that is it. This is somehow worth our great national testing nightmare, because parents will enjoy such massive benefits from this form that tells them "Your kid got about a C, because reasons. And stuff." Clearly this is so much deeper than what any report card or regular papers sent home or conversation with a live human teacher could ever be.
Mostly I just want to create a t-shirt that says "I paid billions of tax dollars for a deeply nuanced granulated standardized test, and all I got was this lousy two page report." But I can see one other method to the test-developers madness. With reports this vague and useless, it would not be necessary to actually score the complete tests. Hell, you could crank these reports out just plugging in student names with randomly generated results, and you would probably be close to correct most of the time. The savings and increased revenue for the testing companies would be considerable.
What Does It Take for Teachers To Lead?
Rick Hess has been trying to answer this question for a while with many pieces grouped around his concept of a Cage-Busting Teacher (soon to be a book). Here he is answering it again at EdWeek, complete with a quote from me.
Hess has been wrestling with a balanced view of teacher leadership for a while, and I don't know that he's exactly close to an answer, but I'll give him credit for spotting most of the obstacles.
He is correct in noting that one obstacle is the fault of teachers themselves. Many of us have made variations of that same observation-- teachers are so inclined to play nice, follow the rules, avoid making waves, avoid upsetting the main office, and keep their heads down in their rooms that they are often terrible advocates for what they know is right. Every single union leader can tell you the story about the teacher who wants the union to get in there and fight for her, but would you please not mention her name because she doesn't want to have anybody upset with her.
Hess suggests that teachers are also complicit in covering for our less-able colleagues. I don't agree. Most of us are in no position to either cover for or put pressure on our fellow teachers. In fact, most commonly we do the one thing we do have the power to do, which is try to help our less-able colleagues do better. That's as much a practical consideration as a compassionate one. The compassionate part is important-- every teacher has vivid memories of being a lousy teacher for at least a day. But the practical part matters too. About the only other thing I can do to another teacher who I feel is not pulling his weight is to be a dick to him-- criticize him to his face or behind his back, or I could refuse to talk to him, help him, or ever answer any of his questions. That might make me feel like a righteous warrior, but it won't help my school be any better. I can only accomplish that by trying to help. Even there, I'm limited-- he does not answer to me.
It's an interesting thought-- what would it look like to have a system set up so that teachers were accountable to each other.
Critics forever complain about how unions "protect bad teachers." This is like complaining about the existence of defense lawyers. The only alternative is a system in which people can be punished because one person with power is really sure that they deserve punishment.
Hess also notes that the system, including the various new reformster flavors of the week, does not always (or even often) support teacher input. There's a reason that teachers feel conditioned to sit down and shut up.
Some of it is very formalized. My contract with my school district is very explicit-- for me to make statements in public critical of my administrators is contractually forbidden, a fire-able offense. That makes a pretty powerful statement about who gets to decide what is discussed, and how, and when, and by whom.
Teachers are also familiar with this common school district planning approach.
Administrator: Welcome to the first meeting of the District Widget Committee. We really want to hear input from all of you, and we hope that you will feel completely empowered to develop a district widget policy that will really carry the district forward.
Committee chair (one year later): We've put in hundreds of man-hours in research and meetings, and after drafting and redrafting this policy, we think we've come up with something that will really enhance the district.
Administrator: You didn't really come up with the policy we wanted, so we're just going to throw out your work and implement the policy we always wanted.
This of course assumes that the committee wasn't simply stacked with people who were prepped and ready to come up with the "correct" answer in the first place.
When Common Core and its attendant pilot fish or reform arrived, anybody who had been in the teaching biz for a while recognized the drill from the first PD. Like NCLB and a dozen other initiatives before it, this might have been introduced in sessions that began with a large booming announcement: "We are here to tell you what to do, not to listen to you. So shut up, sit down, and do as you're told."
Hess wants teachers to speak up; he also wants them to earn the right to be listened to. But neither particularly matters if local, state or national leadership are unwilling to let either happen. We are working in an environment in which the federal government told the state of Illinois to tell Chicago Public Schools that they were not free to make local decisions about testing. In that environment, I'm not sure what sort of cage-busting any teacher can do.
It is true that some teachers are wayyyyy too sensitive about being so much as frowned at by their administration. It is true that some human beings would rather whine about a problem than try to solve it. But it is also true that some administrations take cage-busting teachers out to the front door and drop-kick them to the street. Hess says that teachers have no obligation to "turn a blind eye to goofily constructed or not-ready-for-prime time evaluation system," but the fact is that it doesn't matter what kind of eye teachers turn to or from those systems-- teachers only have as much say about the matter as their administrators allow them to have. Let me refer you again to my contract-- if I were to post in this blog that I thought my boss was pursuing an evaluation system that was poorly constructed and a threat to the quality education of students in my school district, I could be fired. My only hope would be that my administrator was willing to listen to me; if not, I would have no other recourse.
To be a teacher leader, you have to have followers (or at least collaborators), and teachers who are required to follow one master are not free to be led by somebody else. Hess suggests (not for the first time) that the ed reform wars have been about communication and trust, but they have also been about power (and money) and there is only so much power that teachers can claim before the people who have the power and insist on keeping the power simply get to building a bigger cage.
Hess has been wrestling with a balanced view of teacher leadership for a while, and I don't know that he's exactly close to an answer, but I'll give him credit for spotting most of the obstacles.
He is correct in noting that one obstacle is the fault of teachers themselves. Many of us have made variations of that same observation-- teachers are so inclined to play nice, follow the rules, avoid making waves, avoid upsetting the main office, and keep their heads down in their rooms that they are often terrible advocates for what they know is right. Every single union leader can tell you the story about the teacher who wants the union to get in there and fight for her, but would you please not mention her name because she doesn't want to have anybody upset with her.
Hess suggests that teachers are also complicit in covering for our less-able colleagues. I don't agree. Most of us are in no position to either cover for or put pressure on our fellow teachers. In fact, most commonly we do the one thing we do have the power to do, which is try to help our less-able colleagues do better. That's as much a practical consideration as a compassionate one. The compassionate part is important-- every teacher has vivid memories of being a lousy teacher for at least a day. But the practical part matters too. About the only other thing I can do to another teacher who I feel is not pulling his weight is to be a dick to him-- criticize him to his face or behind his back, or I could refuse to talk to him, help him, or ever answer any of his questions. That might make me feel like a righteous warrior, but it won't help my school be any better. I can only accomplish that by trying to help. Even there, I'm limited-- he does not answer to me.
It's an interesting thought-- what would it look like to have a system set up so that teachers were accountable to each other.
Critics forever complain about how unions "protect bad teachers." This is like complaining about the existence of defense lawyers. The only alternative is a system in which people can be punished because one person with power is really sure that they deserve punishment.
Hess also notes that the system, including the various new reformster flavors of the week, does not always (or even often) support teacher input. There's a reason that teachers feel conditioned to sit down and shut up.
Some of it is very formalized. My contract with my school district is very explicit-- for me to make statements in public critical of my administrators is contractually forbidden, a fire-able offense. That makes a pretty powerful statement about who gets to decide what is discussed, and how, and when, and by whom.
Teachers are also familiar with this common school district planning approach.
Administrator: Welcome to the first meeting of the District Widget Committee. We really want to hear input from all of you, and we hope that you will feel completely empowered to develop a district widget policy that will really carry the district forward.
Committee chair (one year later): We've put in hundreds of man-hours in research and meetings, and after drafting and redrafting this policy, we think we've come up with something that will really enhance the district.
Administrator: You didn't really come up with the policy we wanted, so we're just going to throw out your work and implement the policy we always wanted.
This of course assumes that the committee wasn't simply stacked with people who were prepped and ready to come up with the "correct" answer in the first place.
When Common Core and its attendant pilot fish or reform arrived, anybody who had been in the teaching biz for a while recognized the drill from the first PD. Like NCLB and a dozen other initiatives before it, this might have been introduced in sessions that began with a large booming announcement: "We are here to tell you what to do, not to listen to you. So shut up, sit down, and do as you're told."
Hess wants teachers to speak up; he also wants them to earn the right to be listened to. But neither particularly matters if local, state or national leadership are unwilling to let either happen. We are working in an environment in which the federal government told the state of Illinois to tell Chicago Public Schools that they were not free to make local decisions about testing. In that environment, I'm not sure what sort of cage-busting any teacher can do.
It is true that some teachers are wayyyyy too sensitive about being so much as frowned at by their administration. It is true that some human beings would rather whine about a problem than try to solve it. But it is also true that some administrations take cage-busting teachers out to the front door and drop-kick them to the street. Hess says that teachers have no obligation to "turn a blind eye to goofily constructed or not-ready-for-prime time evaluation system," but the fact is that it doesn't matter what kind of eye teachers turn to or from those systems-- teachers only have as much say about the matter as their administrators allow them to have. Let me refer you again to my contract-- if I were to post in this blog that I thought my boss was pursuing an evaluation system that was poorly constructed and a threat to the quality education of students in my school district, I could be fired. My only hope would be that my administrator was willing to listen to me; if not, I would have no other recourse.
To be a teacher leader, you have to have followers (or at least collaborators), and teachers who are required to follow one master are not free to be led by somebody else. Hess suggests (not for the first time) that the ed reform wars have been about communication and trust, but they have also been about power (and money) and there is only so much power that teachers can claim before the people who have the power and insist on keeping the power simply get to building a bigger cage.
Mentors Trump Policy
In the edubloggoverse, we spend huge amounts of time debating and discussing educational policy and philosophy. And yet so few of us who work in actual classrooms are directly shaped or influenced by these sorts of discussions.
This week, I was reminded of the relative unimportance of such high-fallutin' discussions because Paul Zolbrod found me on facebook.
Dr. Zolbrod was one of my English professors when I was a student at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., and he taught me a great deal about how to be a teacher. As an undergrad, I knew I wanted to teach, but I had trouble getting my act together. I particularly remember the experience of stopping by his office to pick up a paper (maybe more than once) that could justifiably have been labeled "lacking in support and development" or "more pre-occupied with getting it done than thinking it through," or even that old standard, "crap." But Dr. Zolbrod had the gift of telling you where you had gone wrong and why your paper had missed the mark, yet somehow making you leave the office feeling strong and tough and ready to Be More Awesome next time. Getting feedback on bad papers made me feel like I really had something going on; I can only imagine that had I ever written a really good paper for him, my head would have exploded.
What I learned was that you do not help people grow large by making them feel small. You do not shame people into excellence.
The other thing I remember about him was that he clearly saw strengths in me that I could not see in myself, and he found ways to push me toward those strengths. Because of him, I had the experience of teaching Beowulf to elementary gifted kids and Arthurian tales in a local high school. He helped me find paths to the material that really interested me, even though it wasn't where his own emphasis lay (he wrote the most complete and important translation of the Navajo creation story in modern times). He really inspired me to be me, not a knock-off version of anyone else.
I was not a top student in the department, nor was I one of his top students or close mentees. He did all this for me, and as near as I could tell, I was just one more student in his class, and I think my experience of his teaching was a common one.
So from Dr. Zolbrod I learned that a good teacher is there for every student, helping each one see what is best in him, helping him grow without imposing your own vision of what he should grow to be.
Much of what I carry into a classroom comes from places like that. Joe Stewart taught me that you keep your expectations high at all times, and students will rise to them. Ed Frye taught me that you trust students to be responsible and give them room to breathe and rise and lead. Mike Eichholtz taught me that if you are passionate and excited about what you're teaching, your students will be, too, no matter what it is. Jack Ferrang taught me the value of establishing a classroom culture that values smarts. Tony Bianchi taught me the power of patience and letting students move at their own speed. And Janet O'Keefe made me want to be an English teacher in the first place, by showing just how wide and deep and rich a world an English teacher gets to play in.
The list goes on and on, and much of what I learned from the men and women who inspired me turned up in education textbooks, professional training sessions, long philosophical discussions of how a teacher should teach. But nothing in all the verbage ever impressed me in the same way that living, breathing examples did.
We can talk all day about how to develop teacher training programs (and, of course, make them super-duper rigorous). We can discuss what policies and procedures will best reshape the face of education. But at the end of the day, it's teachers in the classroom who are the face of education, and as much as we have studied and prepared and practiced and studied some more, we are shaped by the great teachers who came before us.
All the policies and programs and initiatives and legislated mandates in the world don't change that. Policies and mandates can get in the way of the shaping, but in the end, it's relationships that make the difference.
Originally posted at View from the Cheap Seats
This week, I was reminded of the relative unimportance of such high-fallutin' discussions because Paul Zolbrod found me on facebook.
Dr. Zolbrod was one of my English professors when I was a student at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pa., and he taught me a great deal about how to be a teacher. As an undergrad, I knew I wanted to teach, but I had trouble getting my act together. I particularly remember the experience of stopping by his office to pick up a paper (maybe more than once) that could justifiably have been labeled "lacking in support and development" or "more pre-occupied with getting it done than thinking it through," or even that old standard, "crap." But Dr. Zolbrod had the gift of telling you where you had gone wrong and why your paper had missed the mark, yet somehow making you leave the office feeling strong and tough and ready to Be More Awesome next time. Getting feedback on bad papers made me feel like I really had something going on; I can only imagine that had I ever written a really good paper for him, my head would have exploded.
What I learned was that you do not help people grow large by making them feel small. You do not shame people into excellence.
The other thing I remember about him was that he clearly saw strengths in me that I could not see in myself, and he found ways to push me toward those strengths. Because of him, I had the experience of teaching Beowulf to elementary gifted kids and Arthurian tales in a local high school. He helped me find paths to the material that really interested me, even though it wasn't where his own emphasis lay (he wrote the most complete and important translation of the Navajo creation story in modern times). He really inspired me to be me, not a knock-off version of anyone else.
I was not a top student in the department, nor was I one of his top students or close mentees. He did all this for me, and as near as I could tell, I was just one more student in his class, and I think my experience of his teaching was a common one.
So from Dr. Zolbrod I learned that a good teacher is there for every student, helping each one see what is best in him, helping him grow without imposing your own vision of what he should grow to be.
Much of what I carry into a classroom comes from places like that. Joe Stewart taught me that you keep your expectations high at all times, and students will rise to them. Ed Frye taught me that you trust students to be responsible and give them room to breathe and rise and lead. Mike Eichholtz taught me that if you are passionate and excited about what you're teaching, your students will be, too, no matter what it is. Jack Ferrang taught me the value of establishing a classroom culture that values smarts. Tony Bianchi taught me the power of patience and letting students move at their own speed. And Janet O'Keefe made me want to be an English teacher in the first place, by showing just how wide and deep and rich a world an English teacher gets to play in.
The list goes on and on, and much of what I learned from the men and women who inspired me turned up in education textbooks, professional training sessions, long philosophical discussions of how a teacher should teach. But nothing in all the verbage ever impressed me in the same way that living, breathing examples did.
We can talk all day about how to develop teacher training programs (and, of course, make them super-duper rigorous). We can discuss what policies and procedures will best reshape the face of education. But at the end of the day, it's teachers in the classroom who are the face of education, and as much as we have studied and prepared and practiced and studied some more, we are shaped by the great teachers who came before us.
All the policies and programs and initiatives and legislated mandates in the world don't change that. Policies and mandates can get in the way of the shaping, but in the end, it's relationships that make the difference.
Originally posted at View from the Cheap Seats
Economist Hansuhek Gets It Wrong Again
When you want a bunch of legit-sounding baloney about education, call up an economist. I can't think of a single card-carrying economist who has produced useful insights about education, schools and teaching, but from Brookings to the Hoover Institute, economists can be counted on to provide a regular stream of fecund fertilizer about schools.
So here comes Eric Hanushek in the New York Times (staging one of their op-ed debates, which tend to resemble a soccer game played on the side of a mountain) to offer yet another rehash of his ideas about teaching. The Room for Debate pieces are always brief, but Hansuhek impressively gets a whole ton of wrong squeezed into a tiny space. Here's his opening paragaph:
Despite decades of study and enormous effort, we know little about how to train or select high quality teachers. We do know, however, that there are huge differences in the effectiveness of classroom teachers and that these differences can be observed.
This is a research puzzler of epic proportions. Hansuhek is saying, "We do not know how to tell the difference between a green apple and a red apple, but we have conclusive proof that a red apple tastes better." Exactly what would that experimental design look like? Exactly how do you compare the red and green apples if you can't tell them apart?
The research gets around this issue by using a circular design. We first define high quality teachers as those whose students get high test scores. Then we study these high quality teachers and discover that they get students to score well on tests. It's amazing!
Economists have been at the front of the parade declaring that teachers cannot be judged on qualifications or anything else except results. Here's a typical quote, this time from a Rand economist: "The best way to assess teachers' effectiveness is to look at their on-the-job performance, including what they do in the classroom and how much progress their students make on achievement tests."
It's economists who have given us the widely debunked shell game that is Valued Added Measuring of teachers, and they've been peddling that snake oil for a while (here's a research summary from 2005). It captures all the wrong thinking of economists in one destructive ball-- all that matters about teachers is the test scores they produce, and every other factor that affects a student's test score can be worked out in a fancy equation.
And after all that, experts (and economists pretending to be experts) have figured that a teacher affects somewhere between 7.5% and 20% of the student outcome.
Now when Hanushek says that teachers make a huge difference, he is obliquely referencing his own crazy-pants assertion that having a good first grade teacher will make you almost a million bucks richer over your lifetime (you can also find the same baloney being sliced by Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff). Both researchers demonstrate their complete lack of understanding of the difference between correlation and causation.
Remember that, as always, they believe that "test scores" equal "student achievement." They note that students who get high test scores grow up to make more money. Clearly, the test scores cause the more-money-making, right? Or could it be that (as we already know) students from wealthier backgrounds do better on standardized tests, and that students from wealthier backgrounds tend to grow up to be wealthy adults?
So, in short, what we know about the "huge difference" created by Hansuhek's idea of a "good teacher" is pretty much jack and also squat. But he's going to build a house on this sand sculpture of a foundation.
Without knowing the background, preparation or attributes that make a good teacher, we cannot rely on the credentialing process to regulate the quality of people who enter the profession. Therefore the most sensible approach is to expand the pool of potential teachers but tighten up on decisions about retention, tenure and rewards for staying in teaching.
Since we don't know how to spot good teachers, says Hanushek, we should get a bunch of people to enter the profession and then throw a bunch of them out. This is a fascinating approach, and what I really want to see is the kind of promotional brochures that Hanushek would help college programs design. "Come run up over $100K of debt on the off chance that you might be one of the lucky few to get a career in teaching." Or maybe "Do you think teaching might be the work you want to do, maybe? Well, don't get your heart set on it, but do commit to years of expensive education to test the waters." How does a career counselor even approach this subject? "We'd like all of you to commit to this profession with the understanding that we plan to find half of you unfit for it." How exactly do you talk a student into pursuing a career that you don't think he's fit for?
Evaluation of teacher performance becomes key. Gains in student achievement should be one element, because improving student achievement is what we are trying to do, but this is not even possible for most teachers. Moreover, nobody believes that decisions should be made just on test scores. What we need is some combination of supervisor judgments with the input of professional evaluators.
What? What??!! Improving student achievement aka test scores is what we're trying to do? First, which "we" do you mean, exactly, because I certainly didn't enter teaching dreaming of increasing standardized tests scores. And what do you mean "this is not even possible for most teachers"? I mean, it could be a sensible statement, acknowledging that most teachers do not teach subjects that are measured by the Big Standardized Test. And if "nobody believes" that the judgment should be made just on test scores, why would you say that raising test scores is "what we're trying to do"?
And "professional evaluators"? Really. That's a thing? People whose profession is just evaluating teachers? How do you get that job? How do you prepare for that job? Is that what we're going to do with all the people we talked into pursuing teaching as a career just so we could have excess to wash out?
Hansuhek closes by trotting out DC schools as an example of how the test and punish, carrot and stick system works so super well. Would that be the system that was revamped to not include test scores because they were such a mess? Or is he thinking of the good old days when She Who Will Not Be Named used the system to spread fear and loathing, creating an atmosphere ripe for rampant cheating?
There's no evidence, anywhere, that test-based accountability improves schools. None. Not a bit. Not when it's used for "merit pay," not when it's used for hiring and firing decisions, not when it's used for any system of carrots and sticks. Nor could there be evidence, because the only "evidence" folks like Hanushek are looking at is test scores, and test scores are a measure of one thing, and one thing only-- how well students score on the Big Standardized Test. And there is not a link anywhere that those test scores mean anything else (and that would include looking back to the days when US low test scores somehow didn't stand in the way of US economic and international success).
It's tired baloney, baloney sliced so thin that it's easy to see through it. You may want to argue that I am just a high school English teacher, so what do I know about big-brained economics stuff. I'd say that if a high school English teacher can see the big fat hole is your weak economist-generated argument, that just tells you how weak the argument is. Hansuhek has become one of those go-to "experts" whose continued credibility is a mystery to me. He may an intelligent man, a man who treats his mother well, and is fun to hang out with. But his arguments about education are baseless and unsupportable. If you're going to read any portion of the NYT debate, I recommend you skip over Hanushek and check out the indispensable Mercedes Schneider, whose piece is much more closely tied to reality.
So here comes Eric Hanushek in the New York Times (staging one of their op-ed debates, which tend to resemble a soccer game played on the side of a mountain) to offer yet another rehash of his ideas about teaching. The Room for Debate pieces are always brief, but Hansuhek impressively gets a whole ton of wrong squeezed into a tiny space. Here's his opening paragaph:
Despite decades of study and enormous effort, we know little about how to train or select high quality teachers. We do know, however, that there are huge differences in the effectiveness of classroom teachers and that these differences can be observed.
This is a research puzzler of epic proportions. Hansuhek is saying, "We do not know how to tell the difference between a green apple and a red apple, but we have conclusive proof that a red apple tastes better." Exactly what would that experimental design look like? Exactly how do you compare the red and green apples if you can't tell them apart?
The research gets around this issue by using a circular design. We first define high quality teachers as those whose students get high test scores. Then we study these high quality teachers and discover that they get students to score well on tests. It's amazing!
Economists have been at the front of the parade declaring that teachers cannot be judged on qualifications or anything else except results. Here's a typical quote, this time from a Rand economist: "The best way to assess teachers' effectiveness is to look at their on-the-job performance, including what they do in the classroom and how much progress their students make on achievement tests."
It's economists who have given us the widely debunked shell game that is Valued Added Measuring of teachers, and they've been peddling that snake oil for a while (here's a research summary from 2005). It captures all the wrong thinking of economists in one destructive ball-- all that matters about teachers is the test scores they produce, and every other factor that affects a student's test score can be worked out in a fancy equation.
And after all that, experts (and economists pretending to be experts) have figured that a teacher affects somewhere between 7.5% and 20% of the student outcome.
Now when Hanushek says that teachers make a huge difference, he is obliquely referencing his own crazy-pants assertion that having a good first grade teacher will make you almost a million bucks richer over your lifetime (you can also find the same baloney being sliced by Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff). Both researchers demonstrate their complete lack of understanding of the difference between correlation and causation.
Remember that, as always, they believe that "test scores" equal "student achievement." They note that students who get high test scores grow up to make more money. Clearly, the test scores cause the more-money-making, right? Or could it be that (as we already know) students from wealthier backgrounds do better on standardized tests, and that students from wealthier backgrounds tend to grow up to be wealthy adults?
So, in short, what we know about the "huge difference" created by Hansuhek's idea of a "good teacher" is pretty much jack and also squat. But he's going to build a house on this sand sculpture of a foundation.
Without knowing the background, preparation or attributes that make a good teacher, we cannot rely on the credentialing process to regulate the quality of people who enter the profession. Therefore the most sensible approach is to expand the pool of potential teachers but tighten up on decisions about retention, tenure and rewards for staying in teaching.
Since we don't know how to spot good teachers, says Hanushek, we should get a bunch of people to enter the profession and then throw a bunch of them out. This is a fascinating approach, and what I really want to see is the kind of promotional brochures that Hanushek would help college programs design. "Come run up over $100K of debt on the off chance that you might be one of the lucky few to get a career in teaching." Or maybe "Do you think teaching might be the work you want to do, maybe? Well, don't get your heart set on it, but do commit to years of expensive education to test the waters." How does a career counselor even approach this subject? "We'd like all of you to commit to this profession with the understanding that we plan to find half of you unfit for it." How exactly do you talk a student into pursuing a career that you don't think he's fit for?
Evaluation of teacher performance becomes key. Gains in student achievement should be one element, because improving student achievement is what we are trying to do, but this is not even possible for most teachers. Moreover, nobody believes that decisions should be made just on test scores. What we need is some combination of supervisor judgments with the input of professional evaluators.
What? What??!! Improving student achievement aka test scores is what we're trying to do? First, which "we" do you mean, exactly, because I certainly didn't enter teaching dreaming of increasing standardized tests scores. And what do you mean "this is not even possible for most teachers"? I mean, it could be a sensible statement, acknowledging that most teachers do not teach subjects that are measured by the Big Standardized Test. And if "nobody believes" that the judgment should be made just on test scores, why would you say that raising test scores is "what we're trying to do"?
And "professional evaluators"? Really. That's a thing? People whose profession is just evaluating teachers? How do you get that job? How do you prepare for that job? Is that what we're going to do with all the people we talked into pursuing teaching as a career just so we could have excess to wash out?
Hansuhek closes by trotting out DC schools as an example of how the test and punish, carrot and stick system works so super well. Would that be the system that was revamped to not include test scores because they were such a mess? Or is he thinking of the good old days when She Who Will Not Be Named used the system to spread fear and loathing, creating an atmosphere ripe for rampant cheating?
There's no evidence, anywhere, that test-based accountability improves schools. None. Not a bit. Not when it's used for "merit pay," not when it's used for hiring and firing decisions, not when it's used for any system of carrots and sticks. Nor could there be evidence, because the only "evidence" folks like Hanushek are looking at is test scores, and test scores are a measure of one thing, and one thing only-- how well students score on the Big Standardized Test. And there is not a link anywhere that those test scores mean anything else (and that would include looking back to the days when US low test scores somehow didn't stand in the way of US economic and international success).
It's tired baloney, baloney sliced so thin that it's easy to see through it. You may want to argue that I am just a high school English teacher, so what do I know about big-brained economics stuff. I'd say that if a high school English teacher can see the big fat hole is your weak economist-generated argument, that just tells you how weak the argument is. Hansuhek has become one of those go-to "experts" whose continued credibility is a mystery to me. He may an intelligent man, a man who treats his mother well, and is fun to hang out with. But his arguments about education are baseless and unsupportable. If you're going to read any portion of the NYT debate, I recommend you skip over Hanushek and check out the indispensable Mercedes Schneider, whose piece is much more closely tied to reality.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
The Heavy Federal Hand
Chicago Public Schools caved.
The district's CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett was holding out for a limited rollout of the PARCC, administering the widely unloved Big Standardized Mess of a Test to only 10% of CPS students. But the Chicago system has backed down.
It has not backed down because leaders saw the error of their ways. There was no 11th hour meeting in which test designers hunkered down with school officials to show them how the test is actually swell. There was no last-minute visit from educational experts to help Chicago schools see how the PARCC has great educational advantages and will serve the needs of Chicago students.
There were just threats. Threats from Arne Duncan's Department of Education. Threats from the federal government.
Duncan's USED likes to adopt a stance that they are just uninvolved bystanders in the Great Ed Reform Discussion. Common Core and the other reformster programs like charter boosting and Big Standardized Tests were voluntarily adopted by the states. Says Duncan's office, "Federal overreach wielding a big fat stick? Moi?? Surely vous jests."
But just as Dolores Umbridge occasionally snaps and drops her cheery facade to reveal the raging control freak underneath, the USED occasionally puts its foot down and demands obedience, or else.
They did it to Washington State when legislators refused to install a teacher evaluation program that Duncan approved of. And now they've done it to Chicago schools.
"Give the test we want, the way we want it given," comes word from DC, "Or we will take away $1.4 billion from your system. Do as we say, or the big stick comes out."
And so CPS folded, and I can't say that I blame them. Taking a stand is a great thing, but making he students of your district take a $1.4 billion dollar cut to do it is a heck of a big stand to take, and probably not responsible behavior for district leaders.
Was their principled stand a waste? Not at all. For one thing, people have seen one of America's largest school systems cast a huge vote of No Confidence in the Big Standardized Test. For another, Americans have one more chance to see the heavy hand of the feds revealed again. There's no pretending that anything happened here other than federal extortion-- do as we say, or we cut you. It's one more clear picture of where modern ed reform really came from and what really keeps it alive, and it's one more motivator for Congress to get ESEA rewritten.
It is true that the meanest, craziest person in the room gets to control the conversation. But they can only do it by revealing how mean and crazy they are, and in the long run that earns them neither friends nor allies. To use their heavy hand, they had to show their true face. They may win the battle, but they position themselves badly for the war.
The district's CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett was holding out for a limited rollout of the PARCC, administering the widely unloved Big Standardized Mess of a Test to only 10% of CPS students. But the Chicago system has backed down.
It has not backed down because leaders saw the error of their ways. There was no 11th hour meeting in which test designers hunkered down with school officials to show them how the test is actually swell. There was no last-minute visit from educational experts to help Chicago schools see how the PARCC has great educational advantages and will serve the needs of Chicago students.
There were just threats. Threats from Arne Duncan's Department of Education. Threats from the federal government.
Duncan's USED likes to adopt a stance that they are just uninvolved bystanders in the Great Ed Reform Discussion. Common Core and the other reformster programs like charter boosting and Big Standardized Tests were voluntarily adopted by the states. Says Duncan's office, "Federal overreach wielding a big fat stick? Moi?? Surely vous jests."
But just as Dolores Umbridge occasionally snaps and drops her cheery facade to reveal the raging control freak underneath, the USED occasionally puts its foot down and demands obedience, or else.
They did it to Washington State when legislators refused to install a teacher evaluation program that Duncan approved of. And now they've done it to Chicago schools.
"Give the test we want, the way we want it given," comes word from DC, "Or we will take away $1.4 billion from your system. Do as we say, or the big stick comes out."
And so CPS folded, and I can't say that I blame them. Taking a stand is a great thing, but making he students of your district take a $1.4 billion dollar cut to do it is a heck of a big stand to take, and probably not responsible behavior for district leaders.
Was their principled stand a waste? Not at all. For one thing, people have seen one of America's largest school systems cast a huge vote of No Confidence in the Big Standardized Test. For another, Americans have one more chance to see the heavy hand of the feds revealed again. There's no pretending that anything happened here other than federal extortion-- do as we say, or we cut you. It's one more clear picture of where modern ed reform really came from and what really keeps it alive, and it's one more motivator for Congress to get ESEA rewritten.
It is true that the meanest, craziest person in the room gets to control the conversation. But they can only do it by revealing how mean and crazy they are, and in the long run that earns them neither friends nor allies. To use their heavy hand, they had to show their true face. They may win the battle, but they position themselves badly for the war.
A Win for Pennsylvania's New Governor
Many of us have been waiting to see just how new PA Governor Tom Wolf lands on the charter vs. public school issue.
In PA, it is very much a versus issue-- charters and public schools are in competition for the exact same tax dollars, making it a zero sum game, and every student who leaves a public school for a charter represents a loss in revenue far in excess of the actual reduction in costs for the district.
Nowhere has this been more evident than in Philadelphia, where charters have made themselves fat by sucking the blood from the city school system. This process has been facilitated by the nature of the district itself-- Philadelphia was one of the first large city school systems to be stripped of any semblance of democracy, its voters disempowered and its school board replaced by the School Reform Commission, a group of five political appointees who are appointed by either the governor or the mayor and who have the power to make charter operators' big green dreams come true.
The SRC has occasionally employed tactics that include the flat out illegal move of unilaterally changing the teacher contract. But even the SRC had started to notice that charters are part of their problem.
So has the new governor, who requested that SRC not approve any new charters in this go-round because the Philly schools can't afford to be bled any more. Twenty-seven were up for consideration, with PA GOP legislators lobbying for a large number. The SRC went ahead and okayed five.
And so late Sunday, word came out that Wolf has replaced Bill Green, the former chair of the SRC, with Marjorie Neff, a retired principal and only member of the SRC to vote no on all five charters.
Green is going to take his dis-appointment to court. It's not clear how he would win that suit (the chair of the SRC is appointed by the governor), and he still gets to serve on the board.
But at the very least, Wolf, who has strong ties to the charter school community back in his native York, PA, has at least made a statement other than, "Line up charter operators-- it's Christmas!" which unfortunately has been the official position of the past few PA governors.
Early reports suggest that his budget proposal (to be announced later today) will include a boost of state funding for public schools and increased charter oversight (increased charter oversight has been proposed in PA before, but coupled with increased charter profitability, so we'll see). I am still watching and waiting, but this certainly doesn't look like a bad sign.
In PA, it is very much a versus issue-- charters and public schools are in competition for the exact same tax dollars, making it a zero sum game, and every student who leaves a public school for a charter represents a loss in revenue far in excess of the actual reduction in costs for the district.
Nowhere has this been more evident than in Philadelphia, where charters have made themselves fat by sucking the blood from the city school system. This process has been facilitated by the nature of the district itself-- Philadelphia was one of the first large city school systems to be stripped of any semblance of democracy, its voters disempowered and its school board replaced by the School Reform Commission, a group of five political appointees who are appointed by either the governor or the mayor and who have the power to make charter operators' big green dreams come true.
The SRC has occasionally employed tactics that include the flat out illegal move of unilaterally changing the teacher contract. But even the SRC had started to notice that charters are part of their problem.
So has the new governor, who requested that SRC not approve any new charters in this go-round because the Philly schools can't afford to be bled any more. Twenty-seven were up for consideration, with PA GOP legislators lobbying for a large number. The SRC went ahead and okayed five.
And so late Sunday, word came out that Wolf has replaced Bill Green, the former chair of the SRC, with Marjorie Neff, a retired principal and only member of the SRC to vote no on all five charters.
Green is going to take his dis-appointment to court. It's not clear how he would win that suit (the chair of the SRC is appointed by the governor), and he still gets to serve on the board.
But at the very least, Wolf, who has strong ties to the charter school community back in his native York, PA, has at least made a statement other than, "Line up charter operators-- it's Christmas!" which unfortunately has been the official position of the past few PA governors.
Early reports suggest that his budget proposal (to be announced later today) will include a boost of state funding for public schools and increased charter oversight (increased charter oversight has been proposed in PA before, but coupled with increased charter profitability, so we'll see). I am still watching and waiting, but this certainly doesn't look like a bad sign.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)