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Value add limitations debated in HB153

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As the budget bill, HB153, moves through the sausage making factory, hearings and testimony have taken place on the provisions to use Value Add measurements as a component of teacher evaluation and pay. We have previously discussed the limitations of this approach, and now those limitations have been expressed to legislators.

Michele Winship from the Ohio Education Association expressed concern at the proposal, because value-added data can only be calculated for 75% to 80% of teachers, those that teach reading and math in grades 4-8. A fact that even the education Czar, Mr. Sommers has acknowledged.

How would the group of teachers who are left out of this scheme be compensated? This is to say nothing of the wholly inadequate level of funding being made available for incentives, as was pointed out by Greg Mild recently.

Gongwer reports

Matthew Cohen, executive director for policy and accountability at the Department of Education, said the state's Race to the Top proposal is already working to develop some of what the budget bill's proposal would employ. Whereas value-added data currently is reported on school building and district levels, funding through the grant will facilitate the development of teacher-level data.
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The effort, however, is meant to produce a report teachers can use to affect their instruction. It is not proposed as a way to evaluate or compensate educators, Mr. Cohen said.

The RTTT proposal also includes an expansion component that would allow schools to voluntarily join a pilot project to explore ways to apply value added to other grades and subjects, he said.

To allow all teachers to be compensated and given bonuses based on student performance, assessments would have to be crafted for all grades in all subjects. Mr. Asbury said he does not think the state has any such measure readily available.

"Teaching is a complex art. I think the assessment of teaching is equally complex," he said. "I think there's potential, but value added is not a silver bullet like anything else."

Ms. Phillips pointed to the relative newness of the field itself. "I wouldn't want the data to be used in a way that's not appropriate or fair or effective, but beyond that is this issue of whether we have any reliable measures."

Ms. Winship said research indicates that the value-added measure is unreliable because indicators can fluctuate from one year to the next.

"A teacher who has high value-added ratings one year could have low value-added ratings the next year," she said. "The bottom line is that the tests on which these data are based were never developed to measure teacher effectiveness."

The report goes on to discuss the significant burden this massive expansion of measurement and evaluation would have on administrators - much as we pointed out a number of weeks ago.

While there is no guarantee that legislators will listen to facts and solid reason, the case has at least been made.

The state budget is no place for complex policy such as teacher evaluation. Such radical changes deserve more careful consideration and broader consultation before being implemented.

The Limits of School Reform

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Going back to the famous Coleman report in the 1960s, social scientists have contended — and unquestionably proved — that students’ socioeconomic backgrounds vastly outweigh what goes on in the school as factors in determining how much they learn. Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute lists dozens of reasons why this is so, from the more frequent illness and stress poor students suffer, to the fact that they don’t hear the large vocabularies that middle-class children hear at home.

Yet the reformers act as if a student’s home life is irrelevant. “There is no question that family engagement can matter,” said Klein when I spoke to him. “But they seem to be saying that poverty is destiny, so let’s go home. We don’t yet know how much education can overcome poverty,” he insisted — notwithstanding the voluminous studies that have been done on the subject. “To let us off the hook prematurely seems, to me, to play into the hands of the other side.”

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SB5 Legislates the Onion

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When we read this PolitiFact article discussing the true claims that SB5 would allow students and parents to evaluate teachers based on a survey

The law requires the State Board of Education to establish a framework for the evaluations. Local school districts then will adopt their own specific evaluations based on the state’s framework.

The evaluations will include whether parents and students are satisfied with a teacher, "which may be measured by surveys, questionnaires, or other forms of soliciting feedback," the law reads.

We were reminded of this parody article from EdTweak - an Onion type publication for educators

Beginning next month, any child in a failing classroom will be able to remove her teacher, simply by collecting signatures from 50% of the class’s students. The law is the brainchild of “Student Revolution,” a new group funded by millionaires but which we are reporting as hav- ing arisen from a popular movement.

“For the first time anywhere in America, students have been empowered and entrusted with the legal right to force dramatic change in their failing classrooms,” said Ben Starr, the group’s leader. “Our opponents issued dire warnings of unintended consequences. But we’ve already tried out the approach in two small districts and we’ve seen an enormous increase in teacher effectiveness. Students’ grades have skyrocketed, so the teachers must be trying harder.”

You do have to wonder where these Republican legislators get their policy ideas from, don't you?

Outrage over school cuts rises

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From emails and phone calls, to angry town halls, legislators have been on the receiving end of a backlash to the reckless budget the Governor has proposed.

Battered by angry crowds at suburban school district meetings in recent days, House Republican lawmakers will offer up changes Thursday limiting the budgetary pain inflicted on schools by Gov. John Kasich's budget proposal.

House Finance Chair Ron Amstutz said many changes to the $120 billion, all-funds budget proposed by Kasich are coming, including tweaks to a controversial blueprint for funding schools over the next two years authored by the Republican governor.

"We are looking to take the edge off of this problem across the spectrum of school districts -- not just for the upper" property wealth districts, said Amstutz, a Wooster Republican shepherding the budget through the GOP-controlled House. "But we are concerned about the districts getting high percentage cuts."

Taxpayers from those districts, many in traditional Republican territory, are also concerned -- and downright angry. Hundreds of them have been giving GOP lawmakers an earful at recent community meetings.

The "solution" being considered by the Republicans from wealthy suburban districts that are seeing large cuts is to shift those cuts to poorer school districts, as Ohio Budget Watch reports

Some Republicans from suburban districts that are receiving deep cuts in school funding are looking to change the funding model. The Plain Dealer is reporting that Representative Nan Baker’s (R-Westlake) proposal to cap cuts in funding at 20% for any one school district is being seriously considered by the House Republican Caucus. House Finance Chair Amstutz called it an “excellent amendment” that is “well conceived”. Which is kind of funny considering Governor Kasich said that no district receives a cut of over 8% in his budget but for some reason House Republicans are having to consider an amendment to cap cuts at 20%. I guess that is nether here nor there, though.

According to sources in the article, by capping the amount of cuts per school district at 20% this creates a hole of $114 million in the state budget. And how exactly to House Republicans fill the gap? Simple, by taking the small increases that low property wealth school districts receive in this budget and giving it to the high property wealth school districts.

It should come as little surprise that the theory of balancing the budget on the backs of schools and teachers was never going to be popular, however the Republican controlled legislature is still resistant to solving the budget problem in a balanced way.

But Rep. Ron Amstutz, a Republican from Wooster, and Rep. Christina Hagan, a Republican from Alliance, did make one thing clear: The House GOP isn’t going to back tax increases as a means of balancing the budget.

One thing is clear, there's very little appetite for this reckless budget. The GOP legislature and Governor now seem at odds with each other, and anger in the communities continues to rise.

New Poll shows high support for SB5 opponents

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A new poll recently conducted by Fallon Research & Communications, Inc. shows that labor opponents of SB5 are regarded highly by the electorate.

Unions that represent police officers and firefighters are the most popular in the survey, with an overall favorable rating of 70% and an unfavorable rating of just 22%, while the remaining 8% have mixed opinions or were unsure.
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Among the specific types of unions tested in the survey, results for teachers’ unions provided the most intriguing insights. Overall, 56% of Ohio voters surveyed said they have favorable views of teachers’ unions, which is 8% higher than the favorable rating for general views of unions, and 34% said they have unfavorable opinions, which is 5% lower than the unfavorable rating for general views of unions. The remaining 10% have mixed opinions or were unsure. Teachers’ unions are most popular with 18 to 29 year-olds (71%), African-Americans (92%), union households (79%) and Democrats (74%). Teachers’ unions are least popular with non-union households (43% unfavorable) and Republicans (61%). Impressively, 57% of unaffiliated voters view teachers’ unions favorably, while just 31% view them unfavorably, which indicates high standing and, presumably, credibility with this vital segment of the electorate that is frequently the deciding factor in many local levy campaigns.

The full survey can be read below

Ohio Survey Results