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No data, no dollars

July 29, 2009 By

Despite laws preventing the use of test scores in teacher evaluations, California, New York and Wisconsin are trying to argue that they qualify for Race to the Top funding, reports Ed Week’s Stephen Sawchuck. He summarizes:

New York: “OK, our law says you can’t use test data in teacher-tenure decisions, but teachers have to demonstrate how they’ll use data to get tenure. Besides, the law only refers to tenure, not all those other teacher things.”
California: “OK, just because there’s a state prohibition on the use of this data doesn’t mean local districts can’t choose to include it on their own. Like, six whole districts already do!”
Wisconsin: “OK, we can’t use our NCLB tests for these teacher-related purposes, but we have all kinds of other tests we could use!”

California Superintendent Jack O’Connell visited Long Beach Unified, known as a data-driven district.  The LA Times reports:

Seven years ago, the district developed a sophisticated centralized data system that allows it to track individual student achievement, attendance and discipline over time. The system also lets the district see how students are faring collectively in a particular classroom or school, and how subsets such as English learners or special education students are performing. District officials can then use the information for staffing decisions, such as where to send specialists.

Tom Malkus, principal of Lee Elementary School, said he and other school leaders use the data to spot struggling teachers and offer coaching, professional development and other support.

If that fails, (Superintendent Christopher) Steinhauser said, the district has “courageous conversations” with teachers that can result in their leaving the profession.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to terminate the data firewall. The unions should agree to change the law, editorializes the San Jose Mercury News.

Without linking student data to teachers, lawmakers will shoot in the dark when they try, for example, to make sure that effective teachers are working in low-performing schools.

Swift & Change Able looks at New York state’s data firewall, which reads:  “The teacher shall not be granted or denied tenure based on student performance data.”

Here’s how it would have been written if what NY state officials and the unions are saying was their real intent really was their intent (the simple adding of one word):

“the teacher shall not be granted or denied tenure based solely on student performance data.”

or, more elegantly and affirmatively:

“teacher tenure shall be granted based on student performance data and other relevant factors”

. . . The one upside of this debate: we now know what is meant by “creative problem solving” when union officials and their flacks talk about “21st Century Skills.”

On Flypaper, Mike Petrilli looks at the politics of the decision to require states to use achievement data to evaluate teachers.  It’s not just a poke in the eye for the teachers’ unions, he writes. It’s a poke at California. And it couldn’t have happened without the OK of Rep. George Miller, a liberal California Democrat who chairs the House Education and Labor committee. Petrilli thinks it’s Miller’s revenge on the NEA, which made “a stink about merit pay when Miller’s NCLB reauthorization bill was floated back in 2007.”

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Racing to the top

July 24, 2009 By

The “Race to the Top” — $4.35 billion in federal funding to push education reform — starts today.

States must let student test scores be used to evaluate teachers and principals,  writes Michele McNeil in Education Week. That would force California and New York to change state law to qualify for funds.

This is Education Reform’s Moon Shot, writes Education Secretary Arne Duncan in a Washington Post op-ed. The department’s never had this much money to hand out before. There are 19 points, but four basic ideas are critical:

– To reverse the pervasive dumbing-down of academic standards and assessments by states, Race to the Top winners need to work toward adopting common, internationally benchmarked K-12 standards that prepare students for success in college and careers.

– To close the data gap — which now handcuffs districts from tracking growth in student learning and improving classroom instruction — states will need to monitor advances in student achievement and identify effective instructional practices.

– To boost the quality of teachers and principals, especially in high-poverty schools and hard-to-staff subjects, states and districts should be able to identify effective teachers and principals — and have strategies for rewarding and retaining more top-notch teachers and improving or replacing ones who aren’t up to the job.

– Finally, to turn around the lowest-performing schools, states and districts must be ready to institute far-reaching reforms, from replacing staff and leadership to changing the school culture.

It’s fair to evaluate teachers based on students’ progress, says President Obama in a Washington Post interview.

So what we can say is that if a kid comes in and they gain two grade levels during the course of that single year, even if they’re still a little behind the national average, that tells us that school is doing a good job.

Linking teacher pay to test scores is a big mistake, argues Robert Pondiscio.  Teachers already focus too much on scores and too little on the big picture.

It’s The Carrot That Feels Like a Stick, writes Mike Petrilli on Flypaper. He likes the reform ideas but dislikes the Washington Knows Best tone. If the states are forced to go along, they’ll implement reforms half-heartedly.

This is a draft, not the final proposal, so it’s possible the administration will bend on some of its 19 points.

Eduwonk hopes the department will hold the line, denying grants to states that aren’t serious about change. He notes NEA president Dennis Van Roekel claims to be “absolutely in sync with where they’re going,” except for performance pay, charter schools and linking student and teacher data.  Eduwonk writes:

It’s akin to saying they’re on board with Duncan’s ”moon shot” except for the parts about rockets, rocket fuel, astronauts, engineers, and mission control.

Michael Umphrey wants students and parents to change — or else.

(Obama) could send the school money directly to the parents in the form of vouchers, threatening to cut it off if the kids grades don’t improve. He could turn off cell phone service for kids whose GPA drops below C. He could give each honor student one of those unsold General Motors cars while revoking drivers licenses for any student who gets an F.

Hmmm. Would a GM car be a sufficient motivator?

It’s difficult to figure out how much a teacher or a principal has contributed to students’ learning.  I think we’re in the early stages of figuring this out, not in the so-obvious-everyone-should-do-it stage.

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'Poof! I was in template land'

July 23, 2009 By

Florida elementary students are using colorful writing on the state exam — the same colorful phrases in essay after essay.  The Florida Education Department warned 49 schools about “template writing” on the FCAT, reports the Orlando Sentinel.

The department has dubbed the problematic essays “poof! papers” because last year one of the most common examples was fourth-graders writing “Poof!” and then going to dragon land, pirate land, fairy land or candy land. “In the blink of an eye,” “one quintessential, supersonic day,” and “a kaleidoscope of colors encircled me” were other popular phrases.

Of course, it could be a coincidence.  Fourth graders always like to discuss their quintessential days.

Via Ed Week’s Web Watch.

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Performance pay is powerful

July 16, 2009 By

If we Get Performance Pay Right, it will transform schools, argues William Slotnick on Education Week.

Performance-based compensation . . . must be tied directly to the educational mission of a district and must focus on how a school system thinks and behaves—specifically in the areas of student learning, teacher support and rewards, and institutional culture.

. . . Linking teacher compensation to student performance stimulates discussion about the district’s goals for student achievement and what factors need to be addressed to reach those goals. This in turn leads to change.

Doing it right requires building trust between administrators and teachers, writes Slotnick of the Institute for Compensation Reform and Student Learning.

How do we evaluate teachers’ performance? Collect and analyze the data, writes Marcus Winters in City Journal. The data-crunching techniques that helped New York City police fight crime can be used in education, he argues.

Currently, 21 states have data systems capable of matching teachers to students. Duncan has pledged to use his discretionary funds under the federal stimulus package to get more states to do the same. It seems like a no-brainer. After all, who’s against having more information?

The teachers’ unions, that’s who. They’re fighting hard against the adoption of these systems precisely because the information they reveal is so useful. The unions insist, against all evidence and logic, that no meaningful variation exists in teacher quality. Further, in a clear case of making the perfect the enemy of the good, they argue that because test scores are a limited measure of student proficiency and statistical models for evaluating teacher quality are imperfect, the information that data-system analyses produce for individual teachers are not ready for prime time.

Without the use of data linking teachers to their students’ performance, there’s no meaningful evaluation of teachers’ effectiveness, Winters writes. A teacher may be observed once or twice a year — less in some states.  In a study of large school districts by the nonprofit New Teacher Project, over 99 percent of teachers were rated “satisfactory.” NTP calls this failure to distinguish between excellent, good, fair and poor teachers The Widget Effect.

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Books for boys

July 9, 2009 By

Children’s authors and illustrators — mostly male — told 300 teachers and librarians — mostly female — how to hook boys on books, reports Mary Ann Zehr in Education Week.

Boys like to read books about trucks, boys who get into trouble, sports, animals, and war. More than girls, they lean toward nonfiction. And don’t forget the humor or action in stories.

Boys like a mixture of action and emotion, said Jack Gantos, who specializes in “books about bad boys,” such as the Rotten Ralph and Joey Pigza series.

A theme in his books is that the characters are loved unconditionally, even if they mess up a lot, which he said is something that children can identify with.

A British teacher may have gone a bit too far, when she tried to encourage teen-age boys to read by writing a sexy novel featuring herself and her male students. It was all for a good cause, writes Richard Whitmire of Why Boys Fail.

Leonora Rustamova was suspended for her racy novel, Stop! Don’t Read This!, which “includes underage drinking, hints of drug use and “pupil fantasies” about sex with the teacher.

Five 15- and 16-year-old boys had asked for a story about themselves, she told the BBC.

“In their being a difficult audience, the material had to be quite risque to give them an excuse to listen to it — to 16-year-old boys that are disaffected, story time is for small children.”

One of the boys, 17-year-old Travis, told BBC Radio 5 Live the novel was the first book he had ever read on his own and that he had now read other books.

The principal supported the idea — until the book was published on the Internet.  Rustamova’s husband had wanted to print copies of the book for the five boys; by mistake, it was published online for everyone to read. This led to charges of unprofessional conduct.

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All boats rise

June 18, 2009 By

Reading and math achievement in improving across the nation, concludes a study by the Center on Education Policy.  The study found no evidence that the federal push for “proficient” performance has shortchanged advanced or low-achieving students.

. . . even though NCLB creates incentives for schools to focus on ensuring students reach the proficient level, states posted gains at the advanced and basic-and-above levels as well. At the basic-and-above level, 73 percent of the trend lines analyzed across various subjects and grades showed gains. At the advanced level, 71 percent of the trend lines analyzed showed improvement.

“If accountability policies were indeed shortchanging high- and low-achieving students, we would expect to see stagnation or decline at the basic and advanced levels,” said Jack Jennings, CEP’s president and CEO. “Instead, the percentages of students scoring at the basic-and-above and advanced levels have increased much more often than they have decreased, especially in the lower grades.”

Students improved more in math than in reading. Most of the gains were seen in elementary and middle school, though high school scores improved slightly.

Update: Eduwonk and Mickey Kaus wonder why the study hasn’t made more of a splash. Eduwonk asks:

Is it too cynical to think it would be bigger news if it went the other way?

Education Week has more on the study; many of the comments from educators dismiss the importance of higher reading and math scores.

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Beyond graduation

June 9, 2009 By

Only seven in 10 students finishes high school in four years. Is college a realistic goal for all students? Ed Week’s new Diplomas Count 2009 looks at The Challenge of College Readiness for All Students.

The report places the national graduation rate at 69.2 percent for the class of 2006: That’s nearly a 3 percent gain in 10 years, but 2006 saw a decline. The report also calculates graduation rates for states and school districts.

Arizona, South Carolina and Tennessee made double-digit gains; Nevada’s graduation rate slipped the most.

High-poverty,  high-minority school systems and urban districts made strong gains. But minority graduation rates remain low.

With Native American, Hispanic, and African-American students from the class of 2006 graduating at rates of no more than 55 percent, a graduation gap of as much as 26 percentage points divides these historically underserved minorities from their white peers.

. . . Detroit had the lowest graduation rate at 26.8 percent, while Cypress-Fairbanks, Texas tops the nation at 80.7 percent.

Beyond a Focus on Graduation looks at postsecondary education. Most educators say all students should be prepared for education beyond high school, but some dissent.

James E. Rosenbaum, a professor of sociology, education, and social policy at Northwestern University, has argued that by “quietly and unofficially” adopting a policy of encouraging all students to attend college, American high schools are doing a poor job of preparing the vast numbers of students who are bound instead for the workplace after high school graduation. With college as the overarching goal, schools focus too much on addressing students’ academic deficiencies, and too little on building work skills prized by employers, he argued . . .

Some urban high schools are trying to build a college-going culture for students whose parents didn’t go far in school.

Students can start college or career training at 16, writes English teacher Michael Mazenko in the Denver Post. He likes New Hampshire’s approach.

Students who’ve completed sophomore year can test in to community colleges or trade schools. Students who remain in high school will take a more rigorous college-prep curriculum based on the AP or IB model, and they will subsequently take tests for admittance into a four-year university.

It will be interesting to see how this works in New Hampshire.



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Sotomayor's education record

June 9, 2009 By

Education Week looks at Sonia Sotomayor’s education rulings here and on School Law Blog.  Other judges say she’s been in the mainstream, often siding with school districts but not always.

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The need for solitude

May 29, 2009 By

This guest-blogging has been a great experience. Thanks again to Joanne Jacobs for inviting me, and thanks to all of you who commented. I will post one more piece this evening, on the subject of returning to one’s old school.

In the meantime, you are welcome to read my Education Week Commentary, “Solitude: A Flashlight Under the Covers.”

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The ‘immigrant paradox’

March 17, 2009 By

The first generation comes to America and struggles, but their children do better and the third generation does even better. That’s how it’s supposed to work.  But scholars are trying to understand the “immigrant paradox,” reports Education Week. The Americanized children of immigrants often do worse in school than the foreign-born generation, despite fewer English problems.  American-born children have more health problems and are more likely to abuse alcohol and drugs and act violently.

(Brown Professor Cynthia Garcia Coll) noted that the more acculturated students speak better English but do less homework. In addition, she said, “they are starting to buy in to the notion of minorities here [in the United States], that even if you work hard and play hard, discrimination is going to get at you.”

Reading scores improve for Mexican-American children from the first to the third generation as English skills improve, but math scores decline.

Asian-heritage students tend to excel in school, but some groups show “a slight drop in academic success” between first- and second-generation students. Chinese- and Korean-American students are exceptions.

In (UCLA Professor Min Zhou’s) research, she’s found that the Chinese-immigrant community in Los Angeles has been very effective in using ethnic after-school programs to bolster academic success. She said that in addition to teaching the Chinese language, those programs provide previews and reviews of school lessons.

Chinese parents are reluctant to send their children to public after-school programs, Ms. Zhou said, because they have a stereotype that “bad children” go to them, which she interprets to mean the children are “too Americanized.”

The New York Times wrote about a Maryland high school where immigrant students do well academically, but don’t interact much with native-born students.

I met many students from Mexican immigrant families at Downtown College Prep, when I was reporting for Our School: The Inspiring Story of Two Teachers, One Big Idea and the Charter School that Beat the Odds.  The kids expected to work hard to make it in life; once they harnessed that work ethic to school work, they started to catch up academically.

Foreign-born students, some of them here illegally, finished college in four years at a higher rate than American-born students. Those who got no state or federal aid worked harder to get through quickly. The “immigrant paradox” is the result of immigrant hustle.

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