Teacher World

For the first time a pilot program by the Ohio Department of Education is ranking the abilities of individual teachers in what is being called “a landmark measure in the school reform battle.” This new “grade card” which was recently issued for some of Ohio’s public school teachers supposedly shows which educators made a measurable difference in the classroom last year. 

Currently, the reports are only for about 30% of Ohio’s reading and math teachers who teach fourth through eighth grade, which means that about 7,500 teachers received a report with details as to what effect they had on their students’ learning last year. Thirteen Ohio districts and two charter schools were participants in this first round of effectiveness reporting. Using the “value-added measure,” these reports link data regarding student growth to the teachers who worked with these students.

The value-added system, which has been rejected by many analysts who have studied it, determines how much growth students have shown within a school year after first determining where they started. It is considered to be an “equalizer” because it assumes teachers will make progress with each student no matter what their ability level might be. 

In spite of the fact that unions have opposed using student data to judge teacher effectiveness, Ohio is required, under the federal Race to the Top initiative, to change the way principals and teachers are evaluated. Additionally, the state budget bill now requires Ohio’s Education Department to devise an evaluation tool that would base half of a teacher’s job evaluation on data regarding student growth.

The Columbus Dispatch pointed out the following implications of this new evaluation system:
* Students could be assigned to classrooms based on teachers’ abilities — by placing low-, middle- or high-performing students with the educators best able to help them learn. Data showing the effect that teachers had with different types of students are included in each report.
* It will distinguish good teachers from great ones, and mediocre ones from good ones.
* Over time, schools will use the effectiveness ratings to weed out teachers who aren’t making the grade.

Matt Cohen, who oversees policy and accountability at the Ohio Department of Education, said, “This will help confirm good teaching. It will help identify in an objective way some of the issues that people are very uncomfortable about in terms of trying to characterize poor teaching from average teaching.”

Interestingly, officials who helped produce the new ratings said that they shouldn’t be used as a way of labeling teachers either good or bad. Mary Peters, senior director of research and innovation at Battell for Kids, a Columbus-based nonprofit organization helping the Department of Education to develop the evaluation system, said that this year’s rating is nothing more than a statement of a teacher’s effectiveness with their students for last year.  

“We need to be careful about making judgments about one year of data. These measures were intended for diagnostic purposes, to provide information to help teachers reflect on their practice and determine with whom they are being successful,” Peters explained.

And while officials agree that the data should primarily be used to improve schools, as more years of data becomes available, they admit that teachers consistently earning “least effective” ratings will be scrutinized closely by their administrators.

Cohen admitted as much when he said, “Our hope, anyway, is that what you end up with is a better work force. And when you do have teachers who are really consistently doing poorly with results for kids, that they might not belong there.”

Rhonda Johnson, president of the Columbus teachers union, one of the districts that were included in this first wave of evaluations, said that teachers in Columbus already use data to help determine how much they are accomplishing with their students, (as I think most school systems do) but she stated that valued-added data should not be the only tool in judging teacher effectiveness.

“It doesn’t tell the whole picture. This is only a fraction,” Johnson said.

I am not necessarily opposed to long-term analyzing of a teacher’s ability to get most students to show a year’s progress each year, with all students starting at a variety of different levels. I see some inherent problems however, that will most definitely need to be addressed along the way to avoid misusing this effectiveness system.

First, I do not feel that the same criterion should be used to judge progress for students on IEPs, as they tend to progress at a slower rate. If that is not taken into consideration with this new evaluation system, very few brave souls will volunteer to work with these students, which would be a travesty.

Second, administrators must be open to looking at mitigating circumstances which may have affected student growth on a class-by-class basis in a given year. Anyone who has been a teacher for any length of time knows that there are some years that you remember with a shudder, when your classroom seemed to be the dumping ground for so many behavior and/or academic issues that instruction was a constant battle. In situations such as these, administrators must look beyond data to see the reality that teacher faced in his or her classroom.

Third, I fear that some administrators will misuse these reports to condone the firing of teachers who may have had one bad year, or who could have become more effective with proper mentoring and guidance.

Finally, I worry that this information, in the hands of the media, will be used to vilify teachers and hold them up to public scrutiny and ridicule. We all remember what happened when the L.A. Times published their article ranking teachers and 39-year old Rigoberto Ruelas, Jr. committed suicide shortly after receiving a less effective ranking based on his students’ English and math scores.

So, what do you think? Are these “report cards” a good idea, or do you predict problems?

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I have written to you about Diane Ravitch before; a powerful woman well-grounded in education and one-time staunch supporter of No Child Left Behind but now just as staunchly opposed to all that No Child Left Behind stands for. Well, my respect for this woman has grown as she has now spoken out about what is happening in Wisconsin. Here are some of her salient points.

First, she accuses conservative Republican governors like Chris Christie of New Jersey, John Kasich of Ohio, Mitch Daniels of Indiana, Rick Scott of Florida, and Scott Walker of Wisconsin of wanting “to sap the power of public employee unions, especially the teachers’ union, since public education is the single biggest expenditure for every state.”

Thousands of public sector workers have camped out in Wisconsin protesting Walker’s plan to reduce their take-home pay by increasing the amount they will have to contribute to their pension plan and their health care benefits at the same time that they plan to restrict their collective bargaining rights. Walker claims these cutbacks had to be imposed because the state is broke, but, Ravitch claims, “Teachers noticed that he offered generous tax breaks to businesses that were equivalent to the value of their givebacks.”

Ravitch goes on to enumerate the cause of the “simmering rage” felt by the nation’s teachers. “They have grown angry and demoralized over the past two years as attacks on their profession escalated. The much-publicized film Waiting for ‘Superman made the specious claim that ‘bad teachers’ caused low student test scores. A Newsweek cover last year proposed that the key to saving American education was firing bad teachers.”

Following this was the outrage felt by teachers everywhere when the leaders of the Central Falls School District in Rhode Island threatened to fire the whole staff of the town’s only high school due to poor performance on test scores. She points out that what really concerned teachers when they heard this news was the positive way it was received by both the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and President Obama, who both felt it was a fine idea, even though there had been no evaluations of anyone at the high school.

Ravitch points to the Race to the Top program as another way that teachers have felt under attack. “The Obama administration’s Race to the Top program intensified the demonizing of teachers, because it encouraged states to evaluate teachers in relation to student scores. There are many reasons why students do well or poorly on tests, and teachers felt they were being unfairly blamed when students got low scores, while the crucial role of families and the students themselves was overlooked,” wrote Ravitch.

Finally, she points to the despair teachers felt in August when we read about the outrageous report in the Los Angeles Times in which this paper rated 6,000 teachers in Los Angeles as either effective or ineffective using the Value Added Model and students’ test scores. As you recall, the publishing of these ratings online led to the apparent suicide of one of these teachers who was rated ineffective, in spite of his consistently good evaluations. But as Ravitch points out, “Testing experts warn that such ratings are likely to be both inaccurate and unstable, but the Times stood by its analysis.”

Now, teachers are facing the latest and most demoralizing attack of all, the plan to abolish our right to due process, our seniority, and, in some states, the loss of collective bargaining rights. Ironically, Ravitch points out, “Actually, the states with the highest performance on national tests are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Vermont, and New Hampshire, where teachers belong to unions that bargain collectively for their members.”

She points out that the reason conservative governors want to reduce the power of the unions is because they actively lobby to increase funding for education while reducing class size. If they can shut down teachers unions they also shut down the biggest opposition to making cuts in education.

Ravitch eloquently and masterfully summarizes what those of us in public education are feeling when she concludes: “There has recently been a national furor about school reform. One must wonder how it is possible to talk of improving schools while cutting funding, demoralizing teachers, cutting scholarships to college, and increasing class sizes. The real story in Madison is not just about unions trying to protect their members’ hard-won rights. It is about teachers who are fed up with attacks on their profession. As the attacks on teachers increase and as layoffs grow, there are likely to be more protests like the one that has mobilized teachers and their allies and immobilized the Wisconsin Legislature. “

Educational Reform, Funding Education, teacher evaluations, Teacher-World's Blog Central Falls Rhode Island, collective bargaining, Diane Ravitch, Race to the Top, Value Added Model, Wisconsin protests

Well, here we go again! Our union president emailed union members recently asking us to decide whether we wanted to be a part of Phase 2: Race to the Top. This time, the information was clearer and there was no doubt what we were deciding on, but here’s the catch: we had only five days to read the information, consider the pros and cons, and make a decision. Considering what is at stake and the time of year, could we not have had more time to weigh our options before a decision had to be made? I just don’t get it!

Our email contained several quite detailed pieces of information to be read prior to completing a survey stating our intent. So why just five days to make an informed decision? This time of year is extremely busy. As we all try to cover everything that must be covered before the end of the year and deal with the constant interruptions to our schedule which always seem to occur after achievement tests have been taken, it is difficult to fit anything more into an already jam-packed schedule. I confess that I found it impossible to make an educated choice on such an important topic in such a limited period of time with everything else I had to do. Apparently I was not alone, as there was minimal response to the email, which tells me that either people felt as overwhelmed as I did, or they still don’t understand the impact that Race to the Top might have on all of us. Frankly, this is a shame. As I read through the information we received, I was encouraged by several positive statements regarding the plans for this new phase. (I will be more specific about these items in a future blog.) So it angers me that we had so little time to read and reflect before having to commit one way or the other.

I don’t know if this was a common problem in other districts or unique to ours. Regardless, since our district clearly felt the crunch and did not respond in time, we are going to be bystanders once again in this process. I just hope we don’t regret our lack of decision in the future.

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Ohio’s application for the phase 1 portion of Race to the Top was soundly rejected and may be again in phase 2 unless the writers are able to make some major changes to the application. Ohio teachers are probably wondering why it was rejected, and what kind of changes need to be made. Well, let me tell you what I have been able to learn.

First of all, each portion of the application received points, which when totaled, determined which states would be the recipients of RttT resources. According to my research, the area in which Ohio scored lowest (second to the lowest of the 16 finalist states) was in the area called “Great Teachers and Leaders”. Apparently, Ohio’s application was too wimpy due to “the state’s inability to ensure equitable distribution of teachers in hard-to-staff subjects, specialty areas, or in high-poverty or high-minority schools”, according to The Ohio Education Gadfly. Reviewers felt that the process it would take to remove ineffective educators was not clearly provided. There was also criticism due to the fact that only half of the local schools who participated in the phase 1 application process agreed to link teacher evaluations to their compensation and promotion. Some of the other areas of concern were its failure to adequately detail how it would close achievement gaps between poor students and wealthier students, and how it would turnaround the lowest-performing schools.

Now what does this mean for Phase 2? Well, first of all, if Ohio has any hope of being considered, it will need to develop stronger guidelines regarding merit pay, tenure, and dismissal of teachers. And you can rest assured that all of these will be linked to a large degree on achievement test scores. One source I read stated that RttT approved heartily of states like Florida, where the legislature approved teacher salaries being tied directly to test scores, and teachers would be offered one year salaries only. (Although, as I have previously blogged, this was later overturned by Florida’s governor.) Clearly, this is indicative of what the judges are looking for.

Secondly, Ohio will have to state more clearly how teachers would be evenly redistributed so as to level the playing field between low income and higher income school districts in order to turnaround lowest-performing schools. In other words, they are looking for stronger language regarding how highly effective teachers could be moved.

Additionally, Ohio’s application lacked teeth when it came to teachers unions. From what I have been able to glean, RttT reviewers are looking for a firm commitment by unions to be willing to make pretty radical changes to teacher salary, licensure, evaluation, tenure, and termination.

These are some of the salient reasons why Ohio’s application was rejected. I will continue to keep you informed and, of course, give my opinions about upcoming information as it becomes available. In the meantime, I hope you take the time to comment about what you have heard or read, and how you feel about Race to the Top, no matter which state you are from.

Changes in Teaching, Educational Reform, Merit Pay for Teachers, state achievement tests, Teacher's Unions, Teacher-World's Blog low income schools, merit pay, Phase One, Race to the Top, teacher licensure, teacher tenure, Teacher's Unions, turnaround schools

I promised more information on the Phase 1, Race to the Top application, so here goes…

One of my concerns with the original application has always been the mention of moving effective teachers and principals to low income, turn-around schools. The application spoke of evenly distributing teachers and principals. I am not sure how this is going to work. Is the plan to make this mandatory, or would teachers have a chance to decide if they want to move or not? If teachers were offered incentive pay or merit pay to move, and they made the decision to do so, that is fine with me. Where I would balk, is if teachers and principals had no choice! If these moves are mandatory, I have a problem, and I don’t think I would be alone!

I am well aware that there are schools out there that need help. But I also am quite sure that there are many awesome teachers in those schools who battle environmental and social issues that most of us have never experienced, thank goodness! So my first problem is assuming that low test scores in these schools is the fault of the teachers who teach there. I challenge anyone to produce good test scores in an environment where test scores mean virtually nothing. I do not believe moving teachers is going to solve the problems inherent in these schools.

If highly effective teachers and principals are to be mandatorily moved to low income schools without their agreement or desire, I do not feel that this is fair. In fact, I would not be surprised if you saw less effective teachers if they felt the “reward” for their hard work might be an involuntary move to an inner city school. I, for one, would seriously think about standing out too much, and might become a marginal teacher; adequate enough to stay employed but not stellar enough to be forced to relocate.

And how would this affect suburban schools? If effective teachers are redistributed to problem schools, won’t we see a decline in effectiveness in suburban schools? Must they pay the price for the problems that are epidemic in at-risk schools? How fair is that?

As we speak, Ohio is revamping and rewriting their application for Phase 2 of Race to the Top. Does the prospect of redistributing highly effective teachers and principals concern you as it does me? We need to let our voices be heard now while we still have a chance. Comment, blog, send letters, talk to your fellow teachers. The teachers in Florida are proof that when we speak up together, people do listen. So speak up! Whether you are for or against, speak up!

Changes in Teaching, Educational Reform, Merit Pay for Teachers, Teacher-World's Blog merit pay, Race to the Top, redistributing teachers and principals, turn-around schools

Let’s talk about other reasons why so many school systems in Ohio chose not to be a part of Race to the Top. I already stated in my last blog that it was poorly publicized. But I will discuss three other reasons why I believe so many school districts in Ohio turned down this opportunity.

First, something I touched on a little in my previous blog, there were rumors circulating that this new plan would probably change the way teachers are currently compensated, based on years served and graduate classes and degrees achieved, and replace this with merit pay. This is a troublesome issue for teachers for a variety of reasons, which I have addressed in previous blogs. But let me lay out a few concerns that I have with merit pay. First, I do not feel that it is appropriate or fair to link merit pay to test scores as there are so many factors, over which teachers have no control, that influence student achievement on state tests. Home issues and the degree of parental involvement are two major factors in student performance. Second, I feel that merit pay creates competition between teachers when what we should be striving for is collaboration. If Joe Teacher has a system that is highly effective, and he knows he will be paid more bucks for his effectiveness, is he likely to share his techniques if that might mean sharing the bucks as well? Some certainly would, but I am afraid many would not. I can see using merit pay to reward schools which have consistently been effective in showing AYP in all areas of their student population.  That makes sense because it inherently builds a network of staff working in unison to be as productive as possible across the board. That is what is best for students. But I do not believe merit pay for individual teachers will create better schools.

Another item which I believe made it virtually impossible for many school systems to participate in RttT, including my own, was the requirement that all LEAs who joined in had to agree to match the funds that they would receive from the government. In our current economy, how likely is that? At a time when so many schools are operating in the red, this seems like an impossible stipulation, and I am sure it kept many school districts like ours from participating.

Finally, I believe some school systems bowed out when they learned that Ohio is proposing to allocate more than $35 million to hire 50 new Ohio Department of Education staffers, including some with annual salaries in excess of $100,000 per year. Again, at a time when districts throughout Ohio are being forced to make drastic cuts just to stay solvent, this is almost a slap in the face. Let’s put that money where it belongs and where it can do the most good. It just seems mismanaged to me, but what do I know?

Educational Reform, Funding Education, Merit Pay for Teachers, state achievement tests, Teacher-World's Blog Add new tag, Department of Education, LEAs, merit pay, Race to the Top, school reform

First, I am curious to know how many of you out there even knew about Race to the Top. I think it was one of the best kept secrets. And I’m not sure why that would be the case. This should be a good thing, right? So why wasn’t there more publicity about it?

The only reason I knew anything about RttT was because I am always searching the internet for important education news that might be interesting to blog about. So I read about it quite awhile ago and blogged about my excitement that possibly, for the first time, the Department of Education was going to get it right, since one of the goals was to align the math and reading standards nationally from elementary school up to college. I was very excited about the prospect of common standards and what that could mean for teachers. Aside from that, I heard nothing about RttT. We received no information at our schools about it. Such an important venture that would involve school systems throughout our state, and we were never adequately informed? I don’t get it!

A few months ago, we got an email from our union president asking us if we wanted to be a part of this plan. The first problem I had with this was that it was hard to commit to a plan that you had never seen. One of our concerns was that it might involve merit pay, something most of us do not support, and that it also might interfere with the union and its rights. Due to these issues, we voted down the opportunity to participate in this contest. But, admittedly, I don’t think most of us even realized that what we were turning down was the Race to the Top. I didn’t connect the two events either because it wasn’t expressed clearly in the email.

Recently, I explained to some of my co-teachers what we had turned down and what it means for our careers. That will be the topic of a future blog, but my point in this blog is this: why was the opportunity to be involved in educational reform, which is supposed to be so important, so poorly explained and why was there so little publicity? Every school system in participating states should have been showered with information about Race to the Top long before we were ever asked to take a vote. Additionally, it seems ridiculous to sign on to a plan that you have never seen. The order seems convoluted. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to study the proposal before committing to it? Am I crazy or does it feel a little like a trap to you? Would you ever sign a legal document that would affect your future without reading it over first?

I am hoping that before states enter into Phase 2, some of these issues will be ironed out and school systems will be better equipped to make the decision to either accept or decline the opportunity to be involved in Race to the Top. We will just have to wait and see.

I am also curious how many of you who are reading this are in a school system which is currently participating in Race to the Top. Please let us know, and tell us how you were informed about RttT,

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Over the next few weeks, I will be blogging about Race to the Top, the national contest to find creative ways to improve education in the United States. First, let me give you a brief summary of the goals of Race to the Top, or RttT, as it is called.

It all started last February with the signing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 by President Obama. The purpose of this legislation is to “stimulate the economy, support job creation, and invest in critical sectors, including education. The ARRA lays the foundation for education reform by supporting investments in innovative strategies that are most likely to lead to improved results for students, long-term gains in school and school system capacity, and increased productivity and effectiveness”. This act is providing $4.35 billion in grant money to the RttT fund, to “encourage and reward states that are creating the conditions for education innovation and reform; achieving significant improvement in student outcomes, including making substantial gains in student achievement, closing achievement gaps, improving high school graduation rates, and ensuring student preparation for success in college and careers; and implementing ambitious plans in four core education reform areas:
 
Adopting standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace and to compete in the global economy;

Building data systems that measure student growth and success, and inform teachers and principals about how they can improve instruction;

Recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most; and

Turning around our lowest-achieving schools.”

The states chosen as finalists in this national competition are Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Tennessee. Winners will be chosen in April, and the school systems that were part of their state’s application process will be the models for implementing their detailed plan of recovery for their state.

Wow! Quite a venture with some awesome potential! If you haven’t read anything else about it, follow my link above, and do some other reading about it because, in my next blogs, I will be discussing my state’s plan and what I think of the process and the proposals. Interesting reading! Talk to you again after you’ve done your homework! Enjoy!

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