American Educational Research Association Rejects Use of VAM

As Ohio scales back the proportion of a teachers evaluation relying upon value add measures (student test scores basically), and institutes a safe harbor for the next few years, yet another professional organization cautions against the use of Value Added Measures (VAM). Here's their release

In a statement released today, the American Educational Research Association (AERA) advises those using or considering use of value-added models (VAM) about the scientific and technical limitations of these measures for evaluating educators and programs that prepare teachers. The statement, approved by AERA Council, cautions against the use of VAM for high-stakes decisions regarding educators.

In recent years, many states and districts have attempted to use VAM to determine the contributions of educators, or the programs in which they were trained, to student learning outcomes, as captured by standardized student tests. The AERA statement speaks to the formidable statistical and methodological issues involved in isolating either the effects of educators or teacher preparation programs from a complex set of factors that shape student performance.

“This statement draws on the leading testing, statistical, and methodological expertise in the field of education research and related sciences, and on the highest standards that guide education research and its applications in policy and practice,” said AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine.

The statement addresses the challenges facing the validity of inferences from VAM, as well as specifies eight technical requirements that must be met for the use of VAM to be accurate, reliable, and valid. It cautions that these requirements cannot be met in most evaluative contexts.

The statement notes that, while VAM may be superior to some other models of measuring teacher impacts on student learning outcomes, “it does not mean that they are ready for use in educator or program evaluation. There are potentially serious negative consequences in the context of evaluation that can result from the use of VAM based on incomplete or flawed data, as well as from the misinterpretation or misuse of the VAM results.”

The statement also notes that there are promising alternatives to VAM currently in use in the United States that merit attention, including the use of teacher observation data and peer assistance and review models that provide formative and summative assessments of teaching and honor teachers’ due process rights.

The statement concludes: “The value of high-quality, research-based evidence cannot be over-emphasized. Ultimately, only rigorously supported inferences about the quality and effectiveness of teachers, educational leaders, and preparation programs can contribute to improved student learning.” Thus, the statement also calls for substantial investment in research on VAM and on alternative methods and models of educator and educator preparation program evaluation.

Here's their full statement

American Educational Research Association

November 2015 School Levy Results

With just over 100 school levies and issues on the ballot, schools had a very good night. The new money requests exceeded 50%, and the over all passafe rate was close to 90%, substantially better than 2014, which itself was a good result.

N/R	Failed	Passed	Grand Total	Pass %
New	13	17	30	56.7%
Renewal	3	77	80	96.3%
Grand Total	16	94	110	85.5%

Here's the full list of unofficial results

County	District	N/R	Result
Allen	Perry Local	Renewal	Passed
Ashland	Ashland City	Renewal	Passed
Ashland	Ashland County-West Holmes JVS	Renewal	Passed
Ashland	Hillsdale Local	Renewal	Passed
Ashland	Mapleton Local	Renewal	Passed
Ashtabula	Ashtabula Area City	Renewal	Passed
Ashtabula	Buckeye Local	Renewal	Passed
Ashtabula	Jefferson Area Local	Renewal	Passed
Belmont	Bellaire Local	Renewal	Passed
Brown	Georgetown EV	Renewal	Passed
Champaign	Mechanicsburg EV	Renewal	Passed
Champaign	Urbana City	Renewal	Passed
Clark	Greenon Local	Renewal	Passed
Clark	Northwestern Local	Renewal	Passed
Clark	Northwestern Local	New	Failed
Columbiana	Leetonia EV	Renewal	Passed
Columbiana	Salem City	Renewal	Passed
Coshocton	River View Local	Renewal	Passed
Crawford	Galion City	Renewal	Passed
Cuyahoga	Orange City	Renewal	Passed
Cuyahoga	Parma City	New	Failed
Cuyahoga	Polaris Career Center	New	Failed
Cuyahoga	Richmond Heights Local	Renewal	Passed
Darke	Greenville City	Renewal	Passed
Defiance	Ayersville Local	Renewal	Passed
Delaware	Buckeye Valley Local	New	Passed
Delaware	Delaware Area Career Center	Renewal	Passed
Erie	Huron City	New	Failed
Erie	Margaretta Local	Renewal	Passed
Fairfield	Amanda-Clearcreek Local	Renewal	Failed
Fairfield	Lancaster City	Renewal	Passed
Geauga	Cardinal Local	New	Failed
Geauga	Newbury Local	Renewal	Passed
Greene	Cedar Cliff Local	Renewal	Passed
Greene	Greenveiew Local	Renewal	Passed
Hamilton	Northwest Local	New	Passed
Hamilton	Reading Community City	New	Passed
Hamilton	Southwest Local	New	Failed
Hancock	Van Buren Local	Renewal	Passed
Harrison	Harrison Hills City	New	Passed
Jefferson	Edison Local	Renewal	Passed
Jefferson	Indian Creek Local	Renewal	Passed
Lake	Riverside Local	New	Passed
Lake	Wickliffe City	New	Passed
Lake	Willoughby-Eastlake City	New	Passed
Logan	Riverside Local	Renewal	Passed
Lorain	Avon Local	Renewal	Passed
Lorain	Clearview Local	Renewal	Passed
Lorain	Columbia Local	Renewal	Passed
Lorain	Firelands Local	New	Failed
Lorain	Lorain City	Renewal	Passed
Lucas	Oregon City	New	Passed
Lucas	Ottawa Hills Local	New	Failed
Madison	Jefferson Local	Renewal	Passed
Mahoning	Austintown Local	Renewal	Passed
Mahoning	Austintown Local	Renewal	Passed
Mahoning	Boardman Local	Renewal	Passed
Mahoning	Boardman Local	Renewal	Passed
Mahoning	Canfield Local	Renewal	Passed
Mahoning	Poland Local	New	Failed
Mahoning	Sebring Local	Renewal	Failed
Mahoning	Struthers City	Renewal	Passed
Mahoning	Youngstown City	Renewal	Passed
Marion	Ridgedale Local	New	Failed
Mercer	Parkway Local	Renewal	Passed
Miami	Milton-Union EV	Renewal	Passed
Miami	Newton Local	Renewal	Passed
Monroe	Switzerland of Ohio Local School District	Renewal	Passed
Montgomery	New Lebanon Local	Renewal	Passed
Montgomery	Vandalia-Butler City	Renewal	Passed
Ottawa	Genoa Area Local	Renewal	Passed
Paulding	Antwerp Local	Renewal	Passed
Paulding	Wayne Trace Local	Renewal	Passed
Perry	Southern Local	New	Failed
Portage	Rootstown Local	Renewal	Passed
Preble	College Corner Local	Renewal	Passed
Preble	Twin Valley Community Local	Renewal	Passed
Preble	Twin Valley Community Local	Renewal	Passed
Putnam	Ottawa-Glandorf Local	Renewal	Passed
Putnam	Pandora-Gilboa Local	Renewal	Passed
Ross	Chillicothe City	New	Passed
Ross	Paint Valley Local	Renewal	Passed
Sandusky	Bellevue City	Renewal	Passed
Seneca	Fostoria City	New	Passed
Seneca	New Riegel Local	Renewal	Passed
Shelby	Anna Local	Renewal	Passed
Stark	Fairless Local	New	Passed
Stark	Massillon City	Renewal	Passed
Stark	Sandy Valley Local	Renewal	Passed
Summit	Cuyahoga Falls City	New	Failed
Summit	Nordonia Hills City	New	Failed
Summit	Revere Local	Renewal	Passed
Summit	Springfield Local	Renewal	Passed
Summit	Springfield Local	Renewal	Failed
Summit	Tallmadge City	Renewal	Passed
Summit	Tallmadge City	Renewal	Passed
Summit	Woodridge Local	New	Passed
Trumbull	Bristol Local	Renewal	Passed
Trumbull	Champion Local	New	Passed
Trumbull	Newton Falls EV	New	Passed
Tuscarawas	Newcomerstown EV	Renewal	Passed
Union	Fairbanks Local	Renewal	Passed
Van Wert	Crestview Local	Renewal	Passed
Van Wert	Vantage Career Center	Renewal	Passed
Warren	Little Miami Local	Renewal	Passed
Washington	Marietta City	Renewal	Passed
Wayne	Chippewa Local	New	Passed
Wayne	Northwestern Local	New	Passed
Wood	Perrysburg EV	Renewal	Passed
Wyandot	Upper Sandusky EV	New	Passed

November 2015 School levies and issues

There are 114 school levies and issues that will appear on the November 3rd, 2015 ballots across the state. The table below lists all the issues and levies that will appear on ballots. When you vote, we urge all the supporters of Join the Future to consider supporting their local schools.

County	Subdivision Name	Question Type	Purpose
Allen	Perry Local School District	Levy	Current expenses
Ashland	Ashland County- West Holmes Joint Vocational School District	Levy	Current expenses
Ashland	Hillsdale Local School District	Levy	Permanent improvements
Ashland	Ashland City School District	Levy	General permanent improvements
Ashland	Mapleton Local School District	Levy	Permanent improvements
Ashtabula	Ashtabula Area City School District	Levy	Acquiring improving educational technology equipment
Ashtabula	Buckeye Local School District	Levy	General permanent improvements
Ashtabula	Jefferson Area Local School District	Levy	Current operating expenses
Belmont	Bellaire Local School District	Levy	Permanent improvements
Brown	Georgetown Exempted Village School District	Levy	General permanent improvements
Champaign	Urbana City School District	Levy	Current expenses
Champaign	Mechanicsburg Exempted School District	Income Tax	Current expenses
Clark	Greenon Local School District	Levy	Avoid an operating deficit
Clark	Northwestern Local School District	Levy	Permanent improvements
Clark	Northwestern Local School District	Levy	Necessary requirements of the school district
Columbiana	Leetonia Exempted Village School District	Levy	Avoid an operating deficit
Columbiana	Salem City School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Coshocton	River View Local School District	Levy	Current expenses
Crawford	Galion City School District	Levy	Current expenses
Cuyahoga	Orange City School District	Levy	Operate maintain recreational facilities
Cuyahoga	Parma City School District	Levy	Provide funds for education technology
Cuyahoga	Polaris Career Center	Levy	General permanent improvements
Cuyahoga	Richmond Heights Local School District	Levy	Improve equip school buildings
Darke	Greenville City School District	Levy	Current expenses
Defiance	Ayersville Local School District	Levy	Current expenses
Delaware	Buckeye Valley Local School District	Bond	Construct, renovate improve school facilities sites
Delaware	Delaware Area Career Center	Levy	Improve, renovate, remodel, furnish equip buildings facilities
Erie	Huron City School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Erie	Margaretta Local School District	Levy	Current expenses
Fairfield	Amanda-Clearcreek Local School District	Income Tax	Current operating expenses
Fairfield	Lancaster City School District	Income Tax	Current operating expenses
Geauga	Cardinal Local School District	Levy	General permanent improvements
Geauga	Newbury Local School District	Levy	Permanent improvements
Greene	Cedar Cliff Local School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Greene	Greenview Local School District	Income Tax	Current expenses
Hamilton	Northwest Local School District	Combo	Improve facilities current operating expenses
Hamilton	Reading Community City School District	Combo	Pay local share of construction, maintain improve facilities
Hamilton	Southwest Local School District	Combo	Pay local share of construction permanent improvements
Hancock	Van Buren Local School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Harrison	Harrison Hills City School District	Combo	Fund Classroom facilities Assistance Program permanent improvements
Jefferson	Eastern Gateway Community College	Levy	Operate, maintain, improve or rebuild
Jefferson	Edison Local School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Jefferson	Indian Creek Local School District	Levy	current operating expenses
Lake	Lakeland Community College District	Bond	Build maintain facilities
Lake	Willoughby-Eastlake City School District	Bond	Renovate, remodel, equip & improve buildings facilities
Lake	Riverside Local School District	Levy	General permanent improvements
Lake	Wickliffe City School District	Levy	Current expenses
Logan	Riverside Local School District	Levy	Permanent improvements
Lorain	Firelands Local School District	Combo	Construct, renovate, improve facilities permanent improvements
Lorain	Avon Local School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Lorain	Clearview Local School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Lorain	Columbia Local School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Lorain	Lorain City School District	Levy	Current expenses
Lucas	Ottawa Hills Local School District	Combo	Renovate improve facilities permanent improvements
Lucas	Oregon City School District	Levy	Current operating expenses
Madison	Jefferson Local School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Mahoning	Poland Local School District	Combo	Build maintain facilities general permanent improvements
Mahoning	Austintown Local School District	Levy	Current expenses
Mahoning	Austintown Local School District	Levy	Current expenses
Mahoning	Boardman Local School District	Levy	Current expenses
Mahoning	Boardman Local School District	Levy	Current expenses
Mahoning	Canfield Local School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Mahoning	Struthers City School District	Levy	Current expenses
Mahoning	Youngstown City School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Mahoning	Sebring Local School District	Income Tax	Current operating expenses
Marion	Ridgedale Local School District	Levy	Permanent improvements
Mercer	Parkway Local School District	Levy	Current expenses
Miami	Milton-Union Exempted Village School District	Levy	Permanent improvements
Miami	Troy City School District	Levy	Operate the Troy-Hayner Cultural Center
Miami	Newton Local School District	Income Tax	Current operating expenses
Monroe	Switzerland of Ohio Local School District	Levy	Current operating expenses
Montgomery	Sinclair Community College District	Levy	Expand Job training & educational services, property improvements, operating costs
Montgomery	Vandalia Butler City School District	Levy	Avoiding an operating deficit
Montgomery	New Lebanon Local School District	Income Tax	Current expenses
Ottawa	Genoa Area Local School District	Levy	Current operating expenses
Paulding	Antwerp Local School District	Income Tax	Current operating expenses
Paulding	Wayne Trace Local School District	Income Tax	Current expenses
Perry	Southern Local School District	Levy	Permanent improvements
Portage	Rootstown Local School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Preble	College Corner Local School District	Levy	Improvements, renovations, & additions to school facilities
Preble	Twin Valley Community Local School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Preble	Twin Valley Community Local School District	Levy	Current operating expenses
Putnam	Ottawa-Glandorf Local School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Putnam	Pandora-Gilboa Local School District	Income Tax	Current expenses
Ross	Chillicothe City School District	Bond	Construct renovate school facilities
Ross	Paint Valley Local School District	Levy	Permanent improvements
Sandusky	Bellevue City School District	Levy	Current expenses
Seneca	Fostoria City School District	Combo	Construct, renovate, equip & improve facilities, permanent improvements
Seneca	New Riegel Local School District	Income Tax	Current expenses
Shelby	Anna Local School District	Levy	Permanent improvements
Stark	Fairless Local School District	Levy	Necessary requirements
Stark	Massillon City School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Stark	Sandy Valley Local School District	Levy	General permanent improvements
Summit	Woodridge Local School District	Bond	Construct, renovate, equip, & improve school district buildings
Summit	Cuyahoga Falls City School District	Combo	Build maintain facilities general permanent improvements
Summit	Nordonia Hills City School District	Levy	General permanent improvements
Summit	Revere Local School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Summit	Springfield Local School District	Levy	General permanent improvements
Summit	Springfield Local School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Summit	Tallmadge City School District	Levy	General permanent improvements
Summit	Tallmadge City School District	Levy	Current expenses
Trumbull	Champion Local School District	Combo	Build maintain facilities general permanent improvements
Trumbull	Bristol Local School District	Levy	Permanent improvements
Trumbull	Newton Falls Exempted Village School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Tuscarawas	Newcomerstown Exempted Village School District	Levy	Current expenses
Union	Fairbanks Local School District	Income Tax	Permanent improvements
Van Wert	Crestview Local School District	Levy	Current expenses
Van Wert	Vantage Career Center Joint Vocational School District	Levy	Permanent improvements
Warren	Little Miami Local School District	Levy	Avoid an operating deficit
Washington	Marietta City School District	Levy	Avoid and operating deficit
Wayne	Chippewa Local School District	Combo	Build, maintain facilities & general permanent improvements
Wayne	Northwestern Local School District	Levy	Emergency requirements
Wood	Perrysburg Exempted Village School District	Levy	General permanent improvements
Wyandot	Upper Sandusky Exempted Village School District	Levy	Permanent improvements

Study: Little Student Learning At Ohio Charter E-Schools

Talk to any suburban classroom teacher and they will tell you that students coming from charter e-schools are typically a full year behind their peers, and it's a Herculean task to get them caught up. Now a new CREDO study lends data to this. Ohio's e-schools are simply not providing an education to their students.

Nationally, students learned the equivalent of 72 days of school less in reading and 180 days less in math, each school year, CREDO found.

For Ohio, online students learned 79 days less material in reading than peers in traditional schools and 144 less days in math, CREDO found.

Losing the equivalent of 180 days of learning is essentially the same as skipping school all year, said James (Lynn) Woodworth, a research analyst for CREDO.

Here's the national breakdown of e-school performance - it's terrible

Here's Ohio's efforts in teaching students to read - a loss of almost half a year

Finally, the total loss of a years worth of math instruction

Why are Ohio's eschools so catastrophic at educating our students? Another study by Mathematica, published alongside the CREDO study has some answers

Key Findings:

• Student–driven, independent study is the dominant mode of learning in online charter schools, with 33 percent of online charter schools offering only self-paced instruction
• Online charter schools typically provide students with less live teacher contact time in a week than students in conventional schools have in a day
• Maintaining student engagement in this environment of limited student-teacher interaction is considered the greatest challenge by far, identified by online charter school principals nearly three times as often as any other challenge
• Online charter schools place significant expectations on parents, perhaps to compensate for limited student-teacher interaction, with 43, 56 , and 78 percent of online charters at the high school, middle, and elementary grade levels, respectively, expecting parents to actively participate in student instruction

These findings suggest reason for concern about whether the online charter school sector is likely to be effective in promoting the achievement of its students

These findings are inline with a story we recently published detailing how and why traditional schools in Ohio are out-innovating charter schools in e-learning

Charters can be seen to heavily rely upon a flex model of blended learning. In the Flex model, online learning is the major aspect of the students path. Students primarily learn online, while being seated in a brick-and-mortar structure. The teacher or aide is available for face-to-face support/structure and facilitates offline activities and group/whole-class discussion on a discretionary or need-be basis.

Whereas, traditional schools using a la carte models allow students to take one or more specific online courses while also taking traditional offline courses. For instance, a student may take an online math course while also taking science, language arts, and P.E. in a traditional offline setting.

The only true innovation Ohio's charter schools have perfected is profit taking, along every other dimension of measure they are being out-schools by traditional public schools.

But don't take our word for it, here's what some of the more level-headed charter school supporters are saying

"Students attending virtual charter schools simply are not learning enough," said Chad Aldis, vice president for Ohio policy and advocacy for the Fordham Institute. "Proponents of school choice are increasingly hard-pressed to defend virtual charters when their academic gains fall so far below the traditional schools against which they are compared."

Greg Richmond, president of the National Association of Charter School Authorizers, said no charter school has a right to educate children. Schools have to continually earn that privilege, which online schools are failing to do.

"These results are deeply troubling," he said. "There is a place for virtual schooling in our nation, but there is no place for results like these."

Remember, chartered e-schools were the schools that ODE was seeking to illegally protect from evaluations. Rather than protect them, we need to move quickly to close them down. Failing that, lawmakers need to consider funding e-schools using an outcome based system, rather than simple headcount.

Too Much? Students given 401 tests 6570 times in 1 School Year

The Council of the Great City Schools has just released their analysis of testing of students in k-12 in large urban schools districts, titled "Student Testing in America’s Great City Schools: An Inventory and Preliminary Analysis". The results of this in-depth analysis have already caused shocked waves in the education policy world, leading to the US department of Education to issue its recent mea culpa.

The reports top line highlights are unsurprising to anyone who has followed the issue of over-testing closely, or has spent any time in a classroom in recent years

• In the 2014-15 school year, 401 unique tests were administered across subjects in the 66 Great City School systems.
• Students in the 66 districts were required to take an average of 112.3 tests between pre-K and grade 12. (This number does not include optional tests, diagnostic tests for students with disabilities or English learners, school-developed or required tests, or teacher designed or developed tests.)
• The average student in these districts will typically take about eight standardized tests per year, e.g., two NCLB tests (reading and math), and three formative exams in two subjects per year.
• In the 2014-15 school year, students in the 66 urban school districts sat for tests more than 6,570 times. Some of these tests are administered to fulfill federal requirements under No Child Left Behind, NCLB waivers, or Race to the Top (RTT), while many others originate at the state and local levels. Others were optional.

These headline statistics, as the report notes are understated and do not capture the full picture or extent of over-testing

Moreover, tests that are purchased, acquired, developed, or used at the individual school level— including those by individual teachers—are not counted in the statistics we present in this report. There are a large number of these tests below the federal, state, and district levels, but there is no way to know how many or how extensively they are used without doing a survey of individual schools. At some point, this kind of analysis should be done.

Also, we have not attempted to quantify the amount of time that is devoted either to giving or administering the tests or to preparing for them (i.e., test prep). Test administration can be particularly time-consuming when the tests are given to one student at a time. These activities can be time-consuming, but we could not gauge how much existed in this study. Again, this should be the subject of future studies.

The report should also cast some doubt on the US Department of Educations recommendation that testing time not exceed 2% of school time. According to this analysis, 2% is already at the top end of over-testing - the report finds that the average amount of testing time devoted to mandated tests [...] was approximately 2.34 percent of school time. Clearly scaling back testing by 0.34% is not going to be adequate.

The report also finds that not only are students over-tested for the purposed of data collection, but that the results can be poor, too late, contradictory and lack context

tests are not always very good at doing what we need them to do, they don’t tell us everything that is important about a child, and they don’t tell us what to do when results are low. This occurs for a variety of reasons: Data come too late to inform immediate instructional needs; teachers aren’t provided the professional development they need on how to read, interpret, and make use of the results in their classrooms; teachers and administrators don’t trust the results, believe the tests are of low quality, or think the results are misaligned with the standards they are trying to teach; or the multiple tests provide results that are contradictory or yield too much data to make sense of. The result is that the data from all this testing aren’t always used to inform classroom practice.

Furthermore, it is noted that students fail to see the multitude of tests as important or relevant, and they do not always put forward their best efforts to do well on them. Something most classroom teachers have observed, and been alarmed about given the increased use of these tests to make high stakes employment decisions.

But at the end of the day, perhaps the most important finding is to be found at the end of this analysis.

Seventh, the fact that there is no correlation between testing time and student fourth and eighth grade results in reading and math on NAEP does not mean that testing is irrelevant, but it does throw into question the assumption that putting more tests into place will help boost overall student outcomes. In fact, there were notable examples where districts with relatively large amounts of testing time had very weak or stagnant student performance. To be sure, student

scores on a high-level test like NAEP are affected by many more factors than the amount of time students devote to test taking. But the lack of any meaningful correlation should give administrators pause.

All this testing isn't helping students, indeed, it may actually be harmful.

Here's the full report

Student Testing in America’s Great City Schools: An Inventory and Preliminary Analysis

US Dept of Ed Admits Fault in Over-Testing

The US Department of Education, led by the soon to be resigning Arne Duncan, has finally admitted that over a decade of high stakes testing requirements it has promoted has been a big mistake. You can view their mea culpa below in full - but here's the admission

In too many schools, there is unnecessary testing and not enough clarity of purpose applied to the task of assessing students, consuming too much instructional time and creating undue stress for educators and students. The Administration bears some of the responsibility for this, and we are committed to being part of the solution.

They have some advice regarding testing for states, much of which has just been implemented in Ohio:
Principles for Fewer and Smarter Assessments
Assessments must be: 

1) Worth Taking
2) High Quality
3) Time-limited
4) Fair – and Supportive of Fairness – in Equity in Educational Opportunity
5) Fully Transparent to Students and Parents
6) Just One of Multiple Measures
7) Tied to Improved Learning

How we ever got so far off track from these common sense principles is baffling, but what isn't baffling is the need to stop listening to the corporate education reformers who promoted the high stakes over testing of our students and schools.

Education Department Assessment Fact Sheet