Michelle Rhee's claims fail the smell test

Check out this entry from Jay Matthews on how Rhee's claims of taking students to the 90th percentile have been totally debunked by G.F. Brandenburg.  Even better, check out the stinging rebukes  in the comments section...


http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2011/02/michelle_rhees_early_test_scor.html#more_/
 

Are California schools failing?

Today’s press  reports  gives API scores for  the state and local schools.  Here is some important information. 

State averages mean little.   A report on how the state is doing is here http://www.cde.ca.gov/nr/ne/yr10/yr10rel104.asp This site also explains what the various test scores mean.

The cde is very generous in describing progress.  When you compare these scores to how California students score on nationwide test, such as the NAEP, California students do not do so well.

 I encourage you tolLook at the performance of your school.  Looking at district averages is almost meaningless.  The score of a school tells you how well the school as a whole is functioning.

Look for the report of your individual students’ scores.  They are to arrive in the mail. A school may be working well  or poorly. However, of first interest is how well is your student performing.  You can influence this.

Here is a list of ways you can assist your student. From CTA. The California Teachers Association.

http://www.cta.org/Parents-and-Community/Family-Involvement/53ways/53-Ways-to-Help-a-Child-Learn.aspx

Problems with the use of test scores to evaluate teachers

In new EPI report, leading educational testing experts caution against heavy reliance on the use of test scores in teacher evaluation

Student test scores are not reliable indicators of teacher effectiveness, even with the addition of value-added modeling (VAM), a new Economic Policy Institute report by leading testing experts finds. Though VAM methods have allowed for more sophisticated comparisons of teachers than were possible in the past, they are still inaccurate, so test scores should not dominate the information used by school officials in making high-stakes decisions about the evaluation, discipline and compensation of teachers.

The Obama administration has encouraged states to adopt laws that use student test scores as a significant component in evaluating teachers, and a number of states have done so already. The Los Angeles Times recently used value-added methods to evaluate teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District based on the test scores of their students, and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan supported the paper's decision to publicly release this information, asserting that parents have a right to know how effective their teachers are.  But the conclusions of the expert co-authors of this report suggest that neither parents nor anyone else should believe that the Los Angeles Times analysis actually identifies which teachers are effective or ineffective in teaching children because the methods are incapable of doing so fairly and accurately.

The distinguished authors of EPI's report, Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers, include four former presidents of the American Educational Research Association; two  former presidents of the National Council on Measurement in Education;  the current and two  former chairs of the Board of Testing and Assessment of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences;  the president-elect of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management;  the former director of the Educational Testing Service's Policy Information Center and a former associate director of the National Assessment of Educational Progress; a former assistant U.S. Secretary of Education; a former  and current member of the National Assessment Governing Board; and the current vice-president, a former president, and three other members of the National Academy of Education.

The co-authors make clear that the accuracy and reliability of analyses of student test scores, even in their most sophisticated form, is highly problematic for high stakes decisions regarding teachers . Consequently, policymakers and all stakeholders in education should rethink this new emphasis on the centrality of test scores for holding teachers accountable.

Arne Duncan endorses printing teachers "evaluations"

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says parents have a right to know how effective teachers are at raising student test scores. "What is there to hide?" he says.

By Jason Felch and Jason Song, Los Angeles Times
8:07 PM PDT, August 16, 2010

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Monday that parents have a right to know if their children's teachers are effective, endorsing the public release of information about how well individual teachers fare at raising their students' test scores.

"What's there to hide?" Duncan said in an interview one day after The Times published an analysis of teacher effectiveness in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second largest school system. "In education, we've been scared to talk about success."

Duncan's comments mark the first time the Obama administration has expressed support for a public airing of information about teacher performance — a move that is sure to fan the already fierce debate over how to better evaluate teachers.


Spurred by the administration, school districts around the country have moved to adopt "value added" measures, a statistical approach that relies on standardized test scores to measure student learning. Critics, including many teachers unions and some policy experts, say the method is based on flawed tests that don't measure the more intangible benefits of good teaching and lead to a narrow curriculum. In Los Angeles, the teachers union has called public disclosure of the results "dangerous" and "irresponsible."

Duncan said public disclosure of the value-added results would allow school systems to identify teachers who are doing things right.

"We can't do enough to recognize them, reward them, but — most importantly — to learn from them," he said.

California Secretary of Education Bonnie Reiss also weighed in Monday, saying that the state will encourage districts to develop and release value-added scores for teachers.

"Publishing this data is not about demonizing teachers," Reiss said. "It's going to create a more market-driven approach to results."

Reiss said the data would give administrators a better idea of which instructors need professional development. It's unclear how quickly a statewide value-added system could be built, but Reiss said districts, especially the larger ones, should be able to move quickly.

"The data is there," Reiss said.

The comments from Reiss, appointed by a Republican governor, and Duncan, appointed by a Democratic president, show how the use of data for teacher accountability has become a bipartisan issue.

The value-added method tracks a student's performance on standardized tests year after year. Because the student's performance is measured against his or her own record, the method adjusts for many of the differences among students that teachers have no control over.

The Times used the approach to analyze seven years of test scores in math and English to estimate the impact individual elementary school teachers had on their students. The analysis found huge disparities among teachers, sometimes just down the hall from one another. Students with the most effective teachers consistently made huge strides in a single year, despite challenges such as poverty or limited English skills.

Researchers have consistently found that within a school, teacher effectiveness is the single most important factor in a child's ability to learn. But across the country, parents have no access to objective information about teacher effectiveness, and many districts have opted to ignore the data.
From the Los Angeles Times.

Later this month, The Times will publish a database of more than 6,000 elementary school teachers ranked by their ability to improve students' scores on standardized tests, marking the first time such information had been released publicly. Already, roughly 700 teachers have requested and received their scores, enabling them to comment before publication.

Test scores not the best way to judge

Another view: Test scores aren't best way to judge
Sacramento Bee | Page 3E
Our new U.S. secretary of education, Arne Duncan, picked the right problem to address: Too many children are dropping out, tuning out or losing out in school. He gets points for choosing the right solution: "Great teachers, great principals matter," he says. "Talent matters tremendously in education." How will we know great teachers when we see them? "Good assessments matter," Duncan says. "Good data matters."

He loses points when he lists standardized tests as "good assessments." Multiple-choice tests by any measure are not good enough to do what he wants them to do. Worse, tests on steroids distort teaching, leading to low-level opportunities to learn to think, reason, communicate, imagine. Having worked with experienced teachers on school study projects as a professor at Sacramento State, I have examined evidence of long-term damage already done to our most vulnerable schools because of a razor-sharp focus on standardized tests.

Make test scores a part of teacher evaluation? Assemblywoman Julia Brownley, D-Santa Monica, calls herself "a huge advocate for data" and says that it "changes the culture of a school." Indeed. But the world is filled with data. Being a data advocate is like being an advocate for breathing. Which data are good enough to be good evidence and do no harm?


As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama understood: "We should not be forced to spend the academic year preparing students to fill in bubbles on standardized tests," he said. "(We need to use) a broader range of assessments that can evaluate higher-order skills, including students' abilities to use technology, conduct research, engage in scientific investigation, solve problems, present and defend their ideas."

What happened to candidate Obama's commitment to higher-order assessment? Whose idea is this litmus test, Obama's or Duncan's? Could Duncan, coming from Chicago, not find other assessments to identify and promote good teaching while minimizing the fallout of standardized tests? Or are test scores so central to Duncan's vision that they must remain a make-or-break proposition?

Strengthening the influence of bad assessment is not the way to improve teaching and learning. Incentivizing the development of good, sane, sensible, ethical, equitable, meaningful and productive assessments holds the promise of improvement.

Use test scores to evaluate teachers if you must, but write into the law clear language constraining the scope and nature of such uses. Do not assume test infallibility. Do not ignore test pollution. Do not avert your eyes from the damage super-heated tests cause.
Prof. Terry Underwood.
Sacramento