Popular modes of evaluating teachers are fraught with inaccuracies

In conclusion
New approaches to teacher evaluation should take advantage of research on teacher effectiveness. While there are considerable challenges in using value-added test scores to evaluate individual teachers directly, using value-added methods in research can help validate measures that are productive for teacher evaluation.

Research indicates that value-added measures of student achievement tied to individual teachers should not be used for high-stakes, individual-level decisions, or comparisons across highly dissimilar schools or student populations. Valid interpretations require aggregate-level data and should ensure that background factors — including overall classroom composition — are as similar as possible across groups being compared. In general, such measures should be used only in a low-stakes fashion when they’re part of an integrated analysis of teachers’ practices.

Standards-based evaluation processes have also been found to be predictive of student learning gains and productive for teacher learning. These include systems like National Board certification and performance assessments for beginning teacher licensing as well as district and school-level instruments based on professional teaching standards. Effective systems have developed an integrated set of measures that show what teachers do and what happens as a result. These measures may include evidence of student work and learning, as well as evidence of teacher practices derived from observations, video- tapes, artifacts, and even student surveys.

These tools are most effective when embedded in systems that support evaluation expertise and well- grounded decisions, by ensuring that evaluators are trained, evaluation and feedback are frequent, mentoring and professional development are available, and processes are in place to support due process and timely decision making by an appropriate body.

With these features in place, evaluation can be- come a more useful part of a productive teaching and learning system, supporting accurate information about teachers, helpful feedback, and well-grounded personnel decisions.

Kappan magazine - Teacher evaluation

What Teachers Want

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• An end to the teacher blame game.
• Administrators who have at least ten years of actual teaching experience.
• Involved, competent parents.
• Adequately funded schools.
• Input regarding curriculum decisions (and the input is actually followed).
• Flexibility when it comes to methodology.
• Administrative support in matters of discipline.
• An end to the “teach to the test mentality”.
• Acknowledgement that teaching involves so much more than test scores.
• Acknowledgement that as a teaching professional, teachers might actually know what’s best for the students.

Feel free to add to the list in the comments!

Education News for 02-21-2012

Statewide Education News

• ‘No Child’ left behind? Ohio seeks waiver from federal law (Dispatch)

Ohio schools wouldn’t be judged by whether all students pass state tests if federal officials grant the state’s request for freedom from the No Child Left Behind Act. Instead of inching toward the requirement that 100 percent of students be “proficient” on standardized math and reading exams by 2014, Ohio would require schools to show improvement among all students, regardless of race, family wealth or other factors. Students still would need to take and pass tests and graduate on time. But Ohio’s system of holding schools accountable would change dramatically. Read More…

• Schools making progress in Race to the Top (Chillicothe Gazette)

It's a transformational time for Ohio's kindergarten-through-12th-grade schools. By 2014, all English and math classes will be operating under new curriculum standards because of a voluntary federal program the state adopted. By the 2013-14 school year, all teachers must be paid based on merit, using a teacher evaluation system that has yet to be established. Read More…

• Local educators concerned about evaluation standards (News-Sun)

SPRINGFIELD — A new law that requires student performance to count as 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation seems like a good idea in theory but is more complicated in practice, local educators say. “To measure this is virtually an impossibility given the current environment we’re in,” said Northwestern Local Schools Superintendent Tony Orr. “I think there are an awful lot of question marks out there.” Read More…

• Speaker touts inclusion program (Blade)

In many schools, students with disabilities are seen as a burden, an extra cost. Schools for years tucked them in "resource rooms" or bused them to faraway locations. They weren't expected to excel, Richard Villa said, were rarely expected to contribute. The students were kept out of sight, and schools could pretend they weren't there. "As long as you can send away anyone that challenges the status quo," he said, "the status quo never has to change." Read More…

• Students’ use of Web for classwork can get sticky (Dispatch)

Some students took on the voice of Martin Luther King Jr. Others wrote defiant statements as if they were Rosa Parks. But other students’ posts on Twitter sounded less like an assignment to write as a civil-rights leader and more like other posts on social media: Their comments were laced with pop-culture humor and hashtags usually used to evoke a laugh. One student wrote: “ #thatawkwardmomentwhen that white guy doesn’t hear me call shotgun on the bus ” — an attempt to speak as Parks. Read More…

National Stories of the Day

• States Try to Fix Quirks in Teacher Evaluations (NY Times)

Steve Ball, executive principal at the East Literature Magnet School in Nashville, arrived at an English class unannounced one day this month and spent 60 minutes taking copious notes as he watched the teacher introduce and explain the concept of irony. “It was a good lesson,” Mr. Ball said. But under Tennessee’s new teacher-evaluation system, which is similar to systems being adopted around the country, Mr. Ball said he had to give the teacher a one — the lowest rating on a five-point scale — in one of 12 categories: breaking students into groups. Read More…

Local Issues

• Girls make peace, now urge others to curb bullying (Chillicothe Gazette)

NEWARK - Breonna Helmondollar and Saige Perrin didn't get along with each other at the beginning of the school year. The Par Excellence Academy fourth-graders tried to avoid each other as much as possible -- difficult in a small classroom -- and frequently argued. "There was a camp for Breonna and a camp for Saige," school administrator Gisele James said. "Each of them felt the other one was trying to attack them." That changed just before Christmas break, when the girls met in James' office and talked about their issues. Read More…

• Between the Lines: School transformation plan (WKYC 3 NBC)

CLEVELAND - Cleveland mayors back to Mike White have been in charge of Cleveland's school system. Now Mayor Frank Jackson is offering the boldest transformation plan ever to come out of City Hall. He needs changes in state law to do this. The mayor can expect pushback from teachers who are upset they were not consulted and view this as Senate Bill 5 "light." He's hoping for Democratic and Republican lawmakers to introduce this. Read More…

• Mt. Healthy district says financial forecast is bleak (Enquirer)

Even if voters approve a levy, officials at the Mount Healthy City School District say the district will have to make cuts for the 2012-13 school year. The passage or failure of the levy on the March 6 ballot will determine how deep the cuts will be. This is a familiar scenario for the district. School officials made cuts every year but one since 2003, when the district last passed a levy for additional revenue. Read More…

• London Schools Looks To Slash $500,000 From Budget (WBNS 10 CBS)

LONDON - London City Schools officials proposed a number of cuts to reduce its budget, 10TV News reported on Friday. According to the Madison Press, the district proposed eliminating 21 supplemental contacts, including some coaching positions. The proposal also calls for an increase in sports fees for participants and fewer trips for the school band. The cuts would amount to $500,000 in savings. Read More…

• Fairfield schools may outsource bus service (Enquirer)

FAIRFIELD — An aging fleet and no money to buy additional buses has prompted Fairfield City Schools to look at contracting out some or all transportation services. “If we wouldn’t have reduced service (this year), we would not be able to serve high school students without buying buses,’’ said Chad Lewis, assistant superintendent for business. “We would have had one spare bus.” In a cost saving move, the district eliminated busing for students in grades 10-12 and revamped its remaining routes. Read More…

• Westerville schools’ finances scrutinized in levy debate (Dispatch)

Before November, the most-recent levy defeat for Westerville schools had been seven years ago. Between the bookends of those failures, voters agreed to two operating levies and a capital-

improvements issue. Meanwhile, the district’s spending increased by $7.7 million more than inflation, not including capital costs and debt payments. Read More…

Editorial

• Misdirected (Dispatch)

The chaos surrounding the $26 million renovation of Indianola Middle School resulted from the failure of Columbus City Schools leaders to remember whom they are supposed to serve: the taxpayers and students of the district. Instead, they awarded this contract to an architect unqualified to handle a project of this scope on his own and who violated the contract by failing for months to tell the district that his partner, a construction-services firm that was to do the bulk of the work, had withdrawn from the project. Read More…

• Illusion left behind (Beacon Journal)

It is 2012, and Ohio is nowhere near meeting the deadline to have 100 percent of its students proficient in math and reading within two years. No state is, and none will. The proficiency requirement in the federal education law, No Child Left Behind, is quixotic and a major reason President Obama has offered to waive the mandate along with others, releasing 10 states this month to pursue more realistic and achievable goals. The Ohio Department of Education is finalizing its application for another round of waivers. Read More…

• Don’t tie the teachers’ hands (Tribune Chronicle)

One concern in most states is how many days children spend in public school classrooms. For various reasons, including inclement weather, many school systems don't meet state-mandated requirements for instructional days. An obvious answer to that, implemented in many states, is to provide more flexibility in setting school calendars. Now a few Ohio legislators want to place a new restriction on school calendars. Public schools should not be permitted to open for the year before Labor Day, they say. Read More…

Meet The Billionaires Who Are Trying To Privatize Our Schools

Via

– Dick DeVos: The DeVos family has been active on education issues since the 1990′s. The son of billionaire Amway co-founder Richard DeVos, Sr., DeVos unsuccessfully ran for governor of the state of Michigan, spending $40 million, the most ever spent in a gubernatorial race in the state. In 2002, Dick DeVos sketched out a plan to undermine public education before the Heritage Foundation, explaining that education advocates should stop using the term “public schools” and instead call them “government schools.” He has poured millions of dollars into right-wing causes, including providing hundreds of thousands of dollars into seed money for numerous “school choice” groups, including Utah’s Parents for Choice in Education, which used its PAC money to elect pro-voucher politicians.

– Betsy DeVos: The wife of Dick DeVos, she also coincidentally happens to be the sister of Erik Prince, the leader of Xe, the mercenary outfit formerly known as Blackwater and is a former chair of the Republican Party of Michigan. Mrs. DeVos has been much more aggressive than her husband, pouring her millions into numerous voucher front groups across the country. She launched the pro-voucher group All Children Matter in 2003, which spent $7.6 million in its first year alone to impact state races related vouchers, winning 121 out of 181 races in which it intervened. All Children Matter was found breaking campaign finance laws in 2008, yet has still not paid its $5.2 million fine. She has founded and/or funded a vast network of voucher front groups, including Children First America, the Alliance for School Choice, Kids Hope USA, and the American Federation for Children.

- American Federation for Children (AFC): AFC made headlines recently when it brought together Govs. Scott Walker (R-WI) and Tom Corbett (R-PA) and former D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee at a major school choice event in Washington, D.C. AFC is perhaps the most prominent of all the current voucher groups, having been founded in January 2010 by Betsy DeVos. Working together with its PAC of the same name and the 501c(3) organization also lead by DeVos, the Alliance for School Choice, it has served as a launching pad for school choice legislation across the country. AFC made its mark in Wisconsin by pouring thousands of dollars into the state legislative races, donating $40,000 in the service of successfully electing voucher advocate Rep. Kathy Bernier (R) and donating similar amounts to elect Reps. Andre Jacque (R), John Klenke (R), Tom Larson (R), Howard Marklein (R), Erik Severson (R), and Travis Tranel (R). DeVos front group All Children Matter also donated thousands to many of these same voucher advocates. Altogether, AFC spent $820,000 in Wisconsin during the last election, making it the 7th-largest single PAC spender during the election (behind several other mostly right-wing groups with similar agendas).

- Alliance for School Choice (ASC): The Alliance for School Choice is another DeVos front group founded to promote vouchers and serves as the education arm of AFC. In 2008, the last date available for its financial disclosures, its total assets amounted to $5,467,064. DeVos used the organization not only for direct spending into propaganda campaigns, but to give grants to organizations with benign-sounding names so that they could push the radical school choice agenda. For example, in 2008 the organization gave $530,000 grant to the “Black Alliance for Educational Options” in Washington, D.C. and a $433,736 grant to the “Florida School Choice Fund.” This allowed DeVos to promote her causes without necessarily revealing her role. But it isn’t just the DeVos family that’s siphoning money into the Alliance for School Choice and its many front group patrons. Among its other wealthy funders include the Jaquelin Hume Foundation (which gave $75,000 in 2008 and $100,000 in 2006), the brainchild of one of an ultra-wealthy California businessman who brought Ronald Reagan to power, the powerful Wal Mart Foundation (which gave $100,000 in 2005, the Chase Foundation of Virginia (which gave $9,000 in 2007, 2008, and the same amount in 2009), which funds over “supports fifty nonprofit libertarian/conservative public policy research organizations,” and hosts investment banker Derwood Chase, Jr. as a trustee, the infamous oil billionaire-driven Charles Koch Foundation ($10,000 in 2005), and the powerful Wal Mart family’s Walton Family Foundation (more than $3 million over 2004-2005).

- Bill and Susan Oberndorf: This Oberndorfs use their fortune, gained from Bill’s position as the managing director of the investment firm SPO Partners, to funnel money to a wide variety of school choice and corporate education reform groups. In 2009, their Bill and Susan Oberndorf Foundation gave $376,793 to AFC, $5,000 to the Center for Education Reform, and $50,000 to the Brighter Choice Foundation. Additionally, Bill Oberndorf gave half a million dollars to the school choice front group All Children Matter between 2005 and 2007. At a recent education panel, Bill Oberndorf was credited with giving “tens of millions” of dollars of his personal wealth to the school choice movement, and said that the passage of the Indiana voucher law was the “gold standard” for what should be done across America.

- The Walton Family Foundation (WFF):The Wal Mart-backed WFF is one of the most powerful foundations in the country, having made investments in 2009 totaling over $378 million. In addition to financing a number of privately-managed charter schools itself, the foundation showered ASC with millions of dollars in 2009. It also gave over a million dollars to the New York-based Brighter Choice Foundation, half a million dollars to the Florida School Choice Fund, $105,000 to the Foundation for Educational Choice, $774,512 to the Friends of Educational Choice, $400,000 to School Choice Ohio, and gave $50,000 to the Piton Foundation to promote a media campaign around the Colorado School Choice website — all in 2009 alone. WFF’s push for expanding private school education and undermining traditional public schools was best summed up by John Walton’s words in an interview in 2000. An interviewer asked him, “Do you think there’s money to be made in education?” Walton replied, “Absolutely. I think it will offer a reasonable return for investors.” (He also did vigorously argue in the same interview that he does not want to abolish public education).

Parents want small class sizes

StateImpactOhio has an article on voucher expansion in Ohio, and they talked to a few parents of children with special needs using vouchers. But it was why these parents were choosing vouchers that caught our eye.

Corinn starts high school next year, and hopes that a small Catholic school like Villa Angela Saint Joseph on Cleveland’s East side will help her continue her progress.

“I picked the school because it was a smaller class size and they would have the extra help that I would need there,” she explains.
[...]
Youngstown Christian is not a big school by any means. There are just 475 students in grades K-12, and Pecchia says parents are drawn to the school’s small size.

Parents want small class sizes for their children, whether they have special needs or not. Vouchers are setting up a vicious economic cycle. Parents want smaller class sizes, so some choose to use vouchers to enroll their children into smaller schools, which subtracts money from the struggling public schools reducing their ability to maintain smaller classes, which in turn causes more parents to seek schools with smaller classes via vouchers.

If that seems unfair, it's not even the beginning as State Impact reports

That’s because public school districts have to write yearly special individual education programs, known as IEP’s, for special needs students even if they attend a private school. And it’s the public school, not the private school the child attends, that has to monitor the progress of the student and update the plan each year.

“My first thought is frustration because it puts some responsibility on the school for kids that they won’t really know,” says Dennis.

The private schools and parents are supposed to communicate regularly with the student’s home district through progress reports.

The public school district still has responsibilities for the student even after they have taken a voucher and left. Private and charter schools like to dubiously boast about how efficient they are, but rarely if ever acknowledge that that is because the public schools are picking up the hard work for them.

Rick Santorum Needs A History Lesson

In a campaign stop in Ohio, GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum called the viability of the public education system into question

“Where did they come up that public education and bigger education bureaucracies was the rule in America?” he said. “Parents educated their children, because it’s their responsibility to educate their children.”

“Yes the government can help,” Mr. Santorum added. “But the idea that the federal government should be running schools, frankly — much less that the state government should be running schools — is anachronistic. It goes back to the time of industrialization of America when people came off the farms where they did home-school or have the little neighborhood school, and into these big factories, so we built equal factories called public schools.

Mr. Santorum isn't just wrong, he is absurdly wrong. The Ohio constitution enshrines the provision of public education by the state. It's a defining core value, not some new fangled government edict dreamed up by supporters of bureaucratic big government 50 years ago. This was written into our constitution before US industrialization began and factories were built, it was written in our constitution in 1851.

Mr. Santorum seems to want to take us back to before 1851.

Update

B Herringten on twitter digs into the even further distant past and notes that funding of public education in Ohio began with the Land Ordinance of 1785 before Ohio was even a state

The ordinance was also significant for establishing a mechanism for funding public education. Section 16 in each township was reserved for the maintenance of public schools. Many schools today are still located in section sixteen of their respective townships, although a great many of the school sections were sold to raise money for public education