'Value-added' doesn't add anything relevant to real teaching and learning
[Editor's Note: The following letter was published in the Los Angeles Times and is reprinted here from our colleague Stephen Krashen. Readers who want to know more about Stephen Krashen's lifelong commitment to democratic public education (via public schools and public libraries) for all children can Google more about his work easily. Substance will be adding a great deal of analysis to the "value added" nonsense that is being pushed to teacher bash and union bust in the months ahead. Feel free to send us your thought and studies that come to your attention].
Los Angeles Schools Supt. Ramon Cortines (center, with glasses) at a meeting of the Los Angeles school board in 2009. Los Angeles rejected mayoral control, and is now in a major struggle over so-called "value added" evaluation systems, with the Tribune owned Los Angeles Times leading the teacher bashing charge. "Value-added" scores: Inaccurate and misleading, Sent to the Los Angeles Times, August 26
Ramon Cortines wants LAUSD to use "value-added" test scores to evaluate teachers. ("L.A. schools chief says district will adopt 'value added' approach," (August 26).
Using this system, a good evaluation means that the teacher's students made gains on standardized tests, a bad evaluation means that the teacher's students got worse. Value-added evaluations have serious problems: Different tests produce different value-added scores, and teachers' value-added ratings vary from year to year, sometimes quite a bit.
Also, it is possible to game the system and produce increases in test scores just by teaching test-taking strategies. Scores increase, but nobody learned anything. To paraphrase letter writer Richard Mandl (August 26), students get higher test scores, but that's all they get. Those opposed to the use of value-added are labeled as opposed to teacher accountability. We're not. We are opposed to inaccurate and misleading ways of measuring teacher competence. Stephen Krashen
Sources:
Not stable: Sass, T. 2008. The stability of value-added measures of teacher quality and implications for teacher compensation policy. Washington DC: CALDER. (National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Educational Research.)
Kane, T. and Staiger, D. 2009. Estimating Teacher Impacts on Student Achievement: An Experimental Evaluation. NBER Working Paper No. 14607 http://www.nber.org/papers/w14607;
Different tests result in different value-added scores: Papay, J. 2010.
Different tests, different answers: The stability of teacher value-added estimates across outcome measures. American Educational Research Journal 47,2.
THE FOLLOWING IS FROM THE LAST ANGELES TIMES (August 26, 2010)
L.A. schools chief says district will adopt 'value added' approach (By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times, August 26, 2010)
Revamping teacher evaluations with the goal of helping instructors improve has become an urgent priority in the nation's second-largest school district, Ramon C. Cortines, superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, said in an address to administrators Wednesday.
Cortines said the district will develop and adopt a "value added" method that determines teachers' and schools' effectiveness based on student test scores. And he told a packed Hollywood High School auditorium that he's committed to using these ratings for at least 30% of a teacher's evaluation. The plan would require the consent of the teachers union.
In a later interview, Cortines also said he was disappointed that California lost its bid Tuesday for $700 million in federal Race to the Top school improvement grants. L.A. Unified's share would have been $153 million.
But the district also learned late Tuesday that it will receive $52 million in unrelated federal grants.
Overall, the veteran educator, who has led five school systems and plans to retire in 2011, used his 30-minute speech to celebrate progress at various schools, including Hollywood High, and challenge educators to do more.
Linking student test scores to individual teachers became an especially heated topic after The Times published a series of stories based on a value-added analysis of teachers and schools. The Times also plans to publish this month a database with the rankings of about 6,000 third- through fifth-grade teachers.
"It is critical that we look at multiple measures to support our employees," Cortines said, and "how value added fits into our overall strategy."
The district plans to publish such data about schools "once this information has been validated," but not the scores for individuals. "Supporting all employees is about creating a culture of collaboration and trust," he said, echoing recent comments by his deputy, John Deasy.
Cortines talked later about being part of a five-member state delegation that met with federal evaluators for the Race to the Top funding bid."I was grilled, no doubt, on bringing the bargaining units along" on accepting test scores as part of evaluations, he said.
The winning state applications all scored at least 440 on a scale of 500; California fell 17 points short, and union buy-in could have put it over the top. But evaluators most consistently dinged the state for an out-of-date student data system. That problem alone cost it 14 points.
Rapidly and fully funding a better data system has long been a sticking point between state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who wasn't won over by O'Connell's proposals to pay for such a system.
The state also consistently lost points for perceived shortcomings in developing and evaluating principals, and its plans for turning around persistently low-performing schools.
Cortines said some evaluators seemed to favor aggressive approaches, such as closing schools, that have a mixed record.
But L.A. Unified will receive another competitive federal grant, aimed at troubled schools, that was scored by state evaluators.
L.A. Unified was initially shut out because the state's scoring system gave the district virtually no chance against smaller school systems. But the state Board of Education agreed to reconsider. This week, the board lowered some award amounts to others, and federal officials released funds previously held in reserve.
The biggest beneficiary will be five schools under the purview of L. A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. His nonprofit, which runs 15 schools within L.A. Unified, qualified for more than half of the $52 million; he personally lobbied the state board on the matter.
Five other district schools will split the balance.
Cortines had wanted some of this money for Fremont High, where he'd ordered all staff to reinterview for jobs, resulting in massive turnover. Fremont, however, won't receive money because its test scores, although very low, have improved too much to qualify.
As he concluded his address, the superintendent lost his composure as he expressed thanks to those assembled for the opportunity to work with them. He stopped, unable to continue, and the audience responded with a 45-second standing ovation.
Comments:
By: Suzanne Dunn
double speak
The entire conversation about teacher evaluation is smoke & mirors. First of all education is cumulative. The first benchmark grade being 3rd, the score(s) reflect everything that child has learned to date; not just what was learned in 3rd grade. Second, I remember when my mother was teaching in the early '70s and 'accountability' & 'merit pay' was being discussed, she didn't think much of it then and at that time, thankfully, it just went away. Unfortunately, it's back and more dangerous than ever because the public and everyone else outside of education seem to think it's a good thing. I'd like to point out that affluent school districts, like those surrounding Detroit, have politely refused RTTT funds because of the strings of 'value added compensation' attached to the grants; and these districts have declined because they do not wish to impose that questionable criteria on their teachers. It's only the urban poor districts that have had to make these concessions. What does that say about the inequality of our educational system?
By: Paul A. Moore
No Value Added, Just Old Time Union Busting
The banks now have grabbed almost all the wealth of this nation.
Almost!
But even gorged on the people's money, the banks are ironically walking dead, like Paul Krugman used to say, they're zombies. More like vampires to my mind. Because there are a few pockets of wealth and working class influence they simply must suck up if they are to survive awhile longer. There's the nation's public school system, there's public and private pension funds, there's the Social Security system, Medicare and Medicaid, there's all the public services delivered by state and local governments.
Then there's the largest unionized work force left in this country, the teachers. What, you thought this sudden flood of disparagement and denigration of teachers, including this value added assessment nonsense, was "for the kids"? What started with Reagan and PATCO is supposed to end with Obama and NEA-AFT. Can't pay teachers those exorbitant $50,000 a year salaries and a pension in their old age. We've got multi-million dollar bonuses for Lloyd Blankfein and Jamie Dimon to think of after all.