Why Do They Say What They Say?

Matt DiCarlo has another important post up today about Value-Added Modeling (VAM), the error-ridden statistics tool promoted by the corporate reformers as the solution to the "problem" of teacher evaluation (a "problem" I still contend no one has shown to be an actual problem).

Matt does what he does best: debunk think-tanky reforminess with actual research. In this case, he raises some important cautions about VAM's inability to account for student effects outside of a teacher's control (it can't), and about its volatility across years compromising its ability to make high-stakes decisions (it does).

To this, I'd add two things: one Matt will probably agree with, and one I'm sure he won't.

First: VAM is predicated on the idea that the standardized tests administered to students are themselves valid and reliable. There is every reason in the world to doubt this. But maybe my fears could be assuaged if every administration of every standardized test was followed by a public vetting of the tests themselves. In other words: if my job as a teacher is on the line here, shouldn't I get to look at the test and my student's answers?

I don't know why any teacher should buy into VAM if the testing process itself remains secretive and unaccountable. There no point in getting into the weeds of the technical problems with VAM if we can't even agree to that.

Next - and I'm sorry Matt, but I have to do this: Why do these people continue to push this stuff when it is clear all of the evidence is against them?

Bruce Baker today points out that the situation has become so bad that career educators now have to have b.s. detectors wired into their heads as a prerequisite for the job:

Over the past year, I’ve actually become more supportive of the notion that our future school and district leaders really do need to know the research, understand statistics and other methods of inquiry and be able to determine how it all intersects with their daily practice, even when it seems like it couldn’t possibly do so.

Unfortunately, a major reason that it has become so important for school leaders to know their shit is because state agencies, including departments of education, which to some extent are supposed to be playing a “technical support role,” have drifted far more substantially toward political messaging than technical support, and have in many cases drifted toward driving their policy agendas with shoddy fact sheets, manifesto’s and other shallow, intellectually vacuous but “easy to digest” Think Tank fodder.

In many cases, this intellectually vacuous, technically bankrupt think tank fodder is actually being trotted out by state education agencies as technical guidance to local school administrators.

In other words: the people who actually run the schools are far more likely to know what the hell they are doing than the politicos and thinktanky types and media pundits, who push policies based on... what? On what are they basing their decisions? Research? No, the research is clearly pointing in another direction. So why do they say what they say? Why do they want what they want?

Are they too lazy to challenge themselves intellectually? Are they indifferent to the truth? That may be part of it. Do they accept incoherence as part of modern American political rhetoric? Watching the Republican primary debates, it's hard to argue that rigorously thought out policies are not only irrelevant to a political career - they may be a hinderance.

Certainly, we know there are hucksters out there looking to make a buck during the Haliburtonization of our schools. But even I acknowledge that this is only a part - and probably a small part - of the overall agenda for these folks.

No, I keep going back to the same place: this is all a distraction.

American conservatism is a 32-year-old experiment that has completely and utterly failed. The commercialization of our culture, the crony capitalism, the militaristic foreign policy, the disintegration of our infrastructure, the disintegration of civil rights, the indifference to human suffering, the rise of unchecked corporations, the selling of our government to the highest bidders... it has led us to disaster.

The only thing that will save us at this point is a return to real democracy, real capitalism, and a real sense of patriotism. This will require overturning the massive inequality that was the inevitable outcome of the policies we've had foisted on us these past decades. The problem, of course, is that it will also require the 1% (really, 0.1%) to give up their stranglehold on power. And many of them are not interested in that.

So they look for a new villian. Ah ha - education! Of course, if everyone went to college, we'd being doing swell (forget that college is massively expensive and out of reach for many Americans even if they are qualified)! It's our lousy schools that are keeping us back! Yeah, that's the ticket...

Let me be clear: do I think that corporate reformers like to see kids in poverty? No, of course not. Do I think corporate reformers want awful public schools? No, they don't. Do I think they make a legitimate point in saying we could and should be doing a better job teaching kids? Absolutely.

But I also know that their own interests in keeping the status quo line up very, very neatly with the corporate reform agenda. And I find it more than a little curious that the think tanks pushing this agenda - again, an agenda that has no evidence to back it up - are being funded by the very, very wealthiest among us.

And this is where Matt and I part ways. He believes the better argument will win; I'm far more skeptical. The corporate reform movement has both implicitly and explicitly questioned the motivations of both teachers and their unions in making their case for "reform." I believe that playing field needs to be leveled; I believe no one will listen to the better argument until we push back on the motivations of the arguer.

I admit, this isn't pretty. But it's the world we live in. We need to be honest about this.

A Star Is Born

Obviously I'm disappointed that Marie Corfield lost her race for the NJ Assembly; we've lost a chance to have a voice for those of us who care about education at a time when we really could use it.

Considering the gerrymandering going on (and not just in Jersey, but in statehouses everywhere), Corfield did incredibly well. I know losing after such hard work is disspiriting, but she and her running mates should be proud of their showing.

And I don't think this is the end for Marie Corfield:



We need more teacher-candidates like this woman, and she needs to stay in the fight somehow; she's too gifted a politician to stay on the sidelines.

We're proud of you, Marie.

Oh, Marie!

If you agree with anything I've ever said, then I ask - I BEG - you to do one thing:

Support Marie Corfield for NJ Assembly!

If you live in the NJ 16th District, you must, must, MUST get to the polls and vote for her. Friends and family too - no exceptions. This is important!

If you don't live in her district, contribute now. Every little bit helps in the her final push.

This woman is our best chance of having someone in state government who gets it. When she gets elected, we will finally have a voice for educators in Trenton. Think what that would mean for all of us:



We need this woman in the legislature. Let's do this - Oh Marie!

Honey-Doin'

You know who the last guy in the world who should regulate plumbers is?

Me. Because I've spent all day trying to redo Mrs. Jazzman's powder room ("You use it too!"), and I know just enough about plumbing to know I am completely unqualified to tell anyone anything about it.

You know who the last people in the world who should regulate teachers are?

Politicians, business leaders, and pundits. They have as much practical and theoretical experience in education as I do in home repair.

That doesn't mean I don't know when a plumber has done a bad job, and it doesn't mean they don't know if their kid got a bad teacher. It doesn't mean I can't learn to replace a sink, and it doesn't mean they aren't entitled to give a well-informed opinions about teacher evaluation.

But wide-scale regulation of any industry should be left to those who know what the hell they are doing.

I'm actually proud of the fact that I sweated off a bad toilet valve and used a Sharkbite fitting to replace it. But only an idiot would put me on a panel to design evaluations for plumbing licenses (I burned my thumb and index finger picking up the old valve - putz...).

And I'd be arrogant, a fool, or both to accept the position if it was offered to me (you know who you are).

Teachers need to regulate teachers. It's really that simple.

The secret to good teacher evaluations is duct tape!

(I'll bet 9 out of 10 of you who read this have no idea what this picture is about. Dig it.)

Our Student Debt Crisis

Congratulations to a great New Jersey teacher. Nice to see Milken money going to help teachers instead of screwing up their profession (those Milkens have made quite a mess of the education system down in Tennessee).

The source of the prize aside, I couldn't help but notice this:

Iannucci said he’s considering putting the money toward his $78,000 in student loan debt. He attended Seton Hall University, then graduated from Montclair State University with a degree in computer science. He later earned a master’s in educational leadership from Montclair State. [emphasis mine]

If the Milkens really want to help teachers, they'd put their money into lobbying for revisions to the tax code that stop giving Wall Street-types enormous tax breaks. We could then put that money into helping young people who are committed to public service pay off their outrageous student loan debts.

No society that really cared about elevating the profession of teaching would allow educators to go into this kind of hock. In fact no one, teacher or otherwise, should incur this kind of debt merely from earning a college degree.

A society that cares more about keeping taxes on the super-rich low while forcing middle-class people who go to college to carry this kind of burden clearly places very little value on education at all. I'm happy for this teacher, and he deserves this prize, but he and every other young person who works hard and plays by the rules deserves more support than this.

Who Will Be The First "Reformer" To Use This Factoid?

A new way of measuring poverty comes out on Monday. Childhood poverty in this new model drops from 22% to 15%.

So, who will be the first corporate reformer to use this factoid to say we should stop using childhood poverty as an "excuse" to keep us from firing teachers, stripping them of tenure, and instituting merit pay?

Post your winners in the comments.

ADDING: From the article:

While most scholars have called the fuller measure a step forward, Robert Rector, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation, argues that both census counts — old and new — sharply overstate the amount of deprivation in the United States. In a recent study, he cited government data showing many poor families had game systems like Xbox.

“When the American public hears the word poverty, they are thinking about material hardship — bad housing, homelessness and hunger,” he said. “Most of the people that are defined as poor by the government are not poor in that sense.”

You can buy a used Xbox at a garage sale for a little bit of nothing. Even new, a Wii will cost you $150 at Walmart. That's not too much to scrape up.

You can be poor and have a video game console, or a cell phone, or air conditioning. People make choices; they see middle class folks giving their kids Play Stations, and they stretch themselves to do the same. That doesn't make them deserving of their situation; it doesn't make them leeches.

But at Heritage, I guess you're not "really" poor unless you're living in a cardboard box. Besides, we all know you'd be able to get that new version of Call Of Duty coming out next month if your kids' teachers didn't suck so bad...

What Happened To Vouchers?

A while ago, I speculated that there may be some friction between the various factions in the New Jersey reformy world. I'm wondering if we're starting to see another rift emerge.

Yesterday, I offhandedly asked whether vouchers were part of the B4K agenda for "reform." Curious, I went to the B4K website and looked up their view on the matter:

... B4K supports the implementation of a targeted scholarship program that focuses on low-income children in the lowest performing of the former Abbott districts, such as Camden and Newark, or districts with similar conditions, as it would give children the option to attend a participating public school that opts into the program, or a private school approved by the Commissioner of Education that offers the same testing, reporting, and transparency for parents that B4K supports in its broader reform agenda. [emphasis mine]

Now that's odd: I would have expected an outright endorsement of the Opportunity Scholarship Act (OSA), the voucher scholarship bill that has been stuck in the Legislature for a long time. I can't find an endorsement or a rejection of OSA on B4K's website; however, when Tom Moran interviewed B4K funder David Tepper for his hagiographic piece, Tepper's endorsement of vouchers was more than a little weak:

Tepper’s views 
at a glance [...] 

Vouchers: He supports a pilot program in failing districts, as envisioned in the pending Opportunity Scholarship Act, but believes it should be tried in only a few districts at first. “It’s a good idea that got out of hand.” [emphasis mine]

"Got out of hand"? Not exactly the sort of ringing endorsement that OSA supporters would want, especially since the bill is tied up again and is reportedly stalled until after the elections - right at the same time B4K's agenda is being taken up. And it's more than a little odd that B4K isn't behind OSA, because, until very recently, the state's biggest voucher cheerleader was B4K's current Executive Director, Derrell Bradford.

Before he took the job at B4K, Derrell was actually the CEO of Excellent Education for Everyone (E3), the state's largest pro-voucher group. In fact, after his post-college stint writing for a nightlife magazine, Derrell went right to E3 and cut his teeth in the reformy world as its "poster boy" for OSA:

Bradford is a poster boy for the group he represents. He grew up in a poor Baltimore family and attended a prestigious prep school,  thanks to a merit scholarship. His “pish posh” high school education, followed by a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania, catapulted him into what he calls “the really fabulous life I now am fortunate enough to lead.”  

  At Penn, he befriended the daughter of E3’s founder, Peter Denton,  and he’s worked there since 2002. E3 advocates for publicly funded school vouchers for private schools and access to the best academic environments for children in urban areas.  

  Bradford favors the Opportunity Scholarship Act, which would give tax credits to New Jersey businesses that fund low-income students in underperforming public schools who want to go to private schools or better public schools.  

  Bradford predicts the state will see more charter schools, private school choice, teacher quality reforms and more accountability in 2011. A shift is evident already, he said: “There are thousands of kids in New Jersey and throughout America that are what I was, and the one thing they need is a chance to go to a school that makes their learning and their lives a priority,” he said.

Bradford was happy to use his life's story to promote OSA when he was at E3:

A long path from southwest Baltimore: A scholarship landed him at the prestigious St. Paul’s School in Baltimore, that helped him into University of Pennsylvania, where he became friends with the daughter of Peter Denton, the man and the money behind E3. "I went to this hoity-toity high school and it saved my life. All I want is other people to have the same opportunity as me."

I don't know what prompted Bradford to leave E3 for B4K. He clearly made a good buck at E3 (six-figures even before he took the big job, according to IRS reports at Guidestar ; sure beats teaching!). Maybe he got a better deal.

But I - and, I'm guessing, many of the people he used to work with at E3 - am left wondering how he feels about OSA these days.

What do you say, Derrell? Is B4K behind the OSA as it stands now? I'm sure many folks are very curious to know.

ADDING: Did this happen? From June of 2011:

Excellent Education for Everyone (E3), the group that has championed the bill for nearly a decade, has plans for what executive director Derrell Bradford called an “intensive” campaign in the lead-up to the legislature’s extended summer and fall election break.

I must have missed that, because I really don't remember anything coming out from E3. And then, ten days later, Derrell walked out the door.

Huh...

Let Them Think They Won

Let's just do this:

Change the name of "National Board Certified Teachers" to "Merit Pay Winners." Then bring the NBCT program to New Jersey and pay the teachers who earn certification a bonus.

That way, they can claim victory and hit up billionaires for more money.

I'm only half-joking about this...

Would my wand hafta be "board certified"?

Carpetbaggers

Have to love it when B4K, the hedge-fund moneyed group that just decided just this year to get involved in "reform," shows "cautious" optimism toward the NJEA's proposals:

Finally, our antennae are alerted by the NJEA’s reversion to its traditional defense of tenure as it has always been (before we all apparently agreed that reform was needed): asserting that, first and foremost, it’s a defense against politicization and patronage. Predictably, the NJEA then simply asserts that the governor’s tenure reform proposal will "undermine" tenure and enable patronage and politicization. Our view is that a clear, transparent, objective teacher evaluation system that is open to parental and other scrutiny, upon which personnel decisions like tenure are based in a clear and certain way (along with mutual consent for teacher transfers), are the best insurance against politicization and patronage. [emphasis mine]

Oh, and I'm snarky?

Listen, I don't always agree with the union, but NJEA was in this game long before you boys were, and they've done a lot more to help struggling teachers and improve student learning over the years than running TV ads that kiss Christie's kiester and handing out backpacks. I know education "reform" is the shiny new object billionaires are playing with right now, but there's no guarantee they'll stay in the game; teachers and their unions will.

So you'll forgive me if I don't cotton to the tone of B4K feeling like they've earned the right to judge NJEA's proposals. There's an aroma of musty carpetbagging that makes me "cautious."

As to the substance:

- Tenure: Look, as much as these folks may try to dismiss the notion, tenure is taxpayer protection against cronyism and nepotism; look at Elizabeth. And as long as you keep the appeals process in district, you are taking that function away.

I really don't see what the problem is: just cap the time the process takes and have dedicated adjudicators.  Simple, and ultimately a lot cheaper than the lawsuits that will inevitably come if these folks get their way.

(Oh, speaking of Elizabeth: Derrell, when are we going to hear from B4K about this? Where's the unequivocal condemnation of using teaching positions for political gain? And where's the call from you for Rapheal Fajardo to step down from the teacher effectiveness task force that you serve on? Unless you think what went down there was OK...)

- Merit Pay: Stuff like this shows you that these guys are neophytes. National Board Certification - which has been around for years - is basically the equivalent of what we're talking about here. It's not the same as "hey, you get a bonus for raising test scores and/or 'cause we like you!" And it's silly to pretend that it is.

- Teacher Evaluations:

But first, we must remember that the National Education Association, the parent union of the NJEA believes that a “valid,” “well-designed” standardized test does not yet exist, so we are back to square one about using them at all. Moreover, the NJEA remains explicitly against "overemphasis" on standardized tests and criticizes the current DOE pilot plan that bases 50% of the evaluation on student performance because it “intends for standardized tests to make up much or all of that measure." In point of fact, the DOE plan mandates that only about one-third (35%) of a teacher’s evaluation be based on standardized tests. This is all very troublesome given that the new teacher evaluation pilot program is underway right now, and the NJEA’s positions appear to impede rather than facilitate the pilot process. 

The NEA doesn't believe that there aren't decent standardized tests; they believe that even good standardized tests are not appropriate instruments to evaluate individual teachers.

Seriously, fellas - we've been over this again and again and again. The evidence is overwhelmingly stacked against you. Why are you so hellbent on doing this? I really don't get it.

And, as has been explained to you time and again: it may be 35% percent of the evaluation weight, but it becomes 100% of the decision. This is Stat 101 stuff. If you can't come up with a real answer, just concede the point; it's becoming embarrassing.

As to the "pilot" - if it were really a "pilot," Cerf wouldn't have rushed it, so he could do real due diligence. And I won't consider this to be a true pilot until the NJASK used is released publicly so independent researchers can check it for reliability and validity. Can we all at least agree to pressure Commissioner Cerf to do that?

Anyway - even with the snark, the tone toward the union is getting marginally more civil. So I'm prepared to adjust mine as well. At least Tom Moran will be happy...

ADDING: Hey, why isn't there anything here about vouchers? Wasn't that always Derrell's baby? Come to think of it, I don't hear much about vouchers from B4K at all these days. Hmm...

Merit Pay Follies in TN

One of my great commenters, jcg, clues us in on what's happening with merit pay in Tennessee:

First, understand that the evaluation system is NOT about improving education, it's about the drag on profits from human capital.

The state of TN paid millions to the Milkin family of Wall St fraud for their TAP/TEAM evaluations system that scores teachers on a 5 point rubric. The national trainers indoctrinated, I mean, trained all evaluators that a score of (3) is "rock solid". If there are "too many" high scores the trainer asserted that evaluators were gaming the evaluation tool. 

TN Commissioner of Education, TfA grad Kevin Huffman bloviates to media outlets that previous teacher evaluations inflated the scores and that "too many teachers were overrated. 

The Milkins have a fix for that problem. Since the scores of TEAM/TAP teachers follow a Bell-shape distribution (according to their non-peer reviewed research), only 15% of teachers will achieve scores above (4) or significantly above (5) expectations and 85% will perform at or below expectations. 

What does all of this mean on the ground? First, teachers scored at or below expectations means no tenure for beginning teachers and a loss of tenure for tenured teachers. 

Second, mandates are trickling down from Broad Academy superintendent, Jim McIntyre that Knox County Schools supervisors and principals would "be in trouble" if they gave too many 4's or 5's. 

Finally, the TEAM evaluations don't recognize differentiated instructional practices, nor does the scoring metric credit teachers for differentiating learning levels. There are a fixed number of behaviors needed to obtain a single score making it difficult evaluate varied levels of instruction needed for children in classes at acquisition, fluency, or advanced learning levels. The assumption from such fixed indicators is that every child learns the same content at the same rate, using one set of standardized procedures. In mixed ability groups there are multiple ways to scaffold learning that fixed data metrics such as TEAM cannot identify.

This is a snapshot of the warped mindset of our education "leaders". These 1%ers think nothing of enriching a convicted felon with tax dollars, and who themselves attended private schools where students came from privileged backgrounds, classes were capped at 12 - 15, and no one with a disability need apply. [emphasis mine]

If you read Todd Farley's Making the Grades, you'll find the same approach to data: they know the result they want, and they'll game the system to get it. It's the way psychometricians work, and it's completely inappropriate for any employment or compensation decisions.

And jcg makes another great point: there is no research to back up a claim of a standard distribution of teaching effectiveness; mostly, I suspect, because it's nearly impossible to quantify what makes a "good" teacher. There are so many problems with VAMs and SGPs that we clearly shouldn't use them - but that won't deter our "data-driven" overlords.

I keep waiting for the lawsuits. Again, we have many corporatist judges on the bench now, but this stuff goes so far that I can't imagine any of this standing up in court. It's an impeding disaster.

But even if that doesn't happen, I can absolutely guarantee you the teaching profession is going to be damaged so badly that it will literally take decades to repair it. Again, I ask every one who backs this sort of "reform": would you ever consider entering teaching on these premises?

Finally: as this shows, it all comes down to the details. The snappy poll-driven sound bites might work on talk radio, but when these people actually have to put things in practice...

Many, many thanks, jcg, for the post! You're starting your own blog when? ;-)

ADDING: Diane Ravitch makes my point, only better.