I thought BMG folks who are passionate about (or at least interested in) public education and education policy would like to know about a new FairTest report on the state’s proposed teacher evaluation system, which our authors — educators and analysts from the elementary, secondary and university levels — critique for recommending an expensive and burdensome set of new tests and testing bureaucracy at a time when school districts are cutting to the bone and beyond. We see other flaws and problems with the proposal as well.
The FairTest press release reads, in part:
A proposed teacher evaluation system scheduled for a June 28 vote by the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education is deeply flawed, potentially damaging, and should not be approved, according to a new report from a group of educators and analysts assembled by the National Center for Fair & Open Testing (FairTest). The report, “Flawed Massachusetts Teacher Evaluation Proposal Risks Further Damage to Teaching and Learning” is being released today and criticizes the state’s proposal for five major defects:
• It will require districts to use MCAS test scores to judge educators.
• It will require districts to evaluate every teacher in every grade and subject with two “assessments” each academic year, forcing districts to make or purchase dozens of new tests at a time of budget cutbacks and teacher layoffs.
• It relies on pseudo-scientific “growth” or “value-added” measures that are unable to adequately distinguish good teachers from bad, according to a report from the National Research Council and studies by independent experts.
• It will increase pressure to teach to low-level tests and drive good teachers away from working where they are most needed; and
• It will damage the learning environment by forcing teachers to “compete” for high-scoring students instead of cooperating to improve learning for all.
Again, you can read the whole report and/or an executive summary here.
Is consideration of including student feedback in evaluations at the secondary level. Because basing someone’s pay on the opinions of 13-year-olds with a motive for…dissemination…is a great idea.
I’m not sure why it is that in a state that is a world-elite public educator, we’re doing almost the precise opposite of good teaching. However, it sure offers jobs to hard-to-employ education bureaucrats with many degrees and little teaching experience.
I see in Commonwealth Magazine that the Massachusetts economy ranks second in the country in its dependence on R&D spending. Ahead of California, ahead of New York. This is what we sell the world: creativity. Will ratcheting up the pressure for higher test scores make our students more creative?
It seems very important to the Mass Business Alliance and the Hi Tech Council, which along with the Globe and Boston Foundation, call the shots in this state, that teachers be evaluated and “held accountable” to the same quantifiable free market criteria that businessmen themselves routinely disregard and have such contempt for when it comes to their own evaluations and pay. The portfolio of achievement that the “business community” presents is a throughly wrecked economy.
There are no shortcuts to teacher evaluation. No magic numbers (Hey, if the tests are inadequate for measuring student progress, which so often turn on zip code, one can appreciate their inadequacy in assessing a teacher’s performance). If you want to assess teachers, the evaluator needs to sit in their classes and watch them teach. This involves careful, thoughtful observation.
Let’s reflect on the words of a senior staff member at the Sidwell Friends School, where the Obamas send their kids: “We don’t tie teacher pay to test scores because we don’t believe them to be a reliable indicator of teacher effectiveness.”
I hope this new report is widely read.
proposed regulations: http://www.doe.mass.edu/lawsregs/proposed/p603cmr35.pdf
a lot of time for perusal, but I’m not finding the an actual analysis of the regulations, just general criticisms of certain concepts. I’m not seeing an explicit link between regulations and criticisms.
The real cost of this system will be paying evaluators, I think, thought the cost of creating assessments and crunching data will also be costly. The biggest hurdle to effective evaluations is having enough people to do them.
but if you’re interested in a more detailed analysis by one of the authors, see Monty Neill’s written testimony to the BESE, posted at the FairTest web site here.
I just posted to the FairTest website my further testimony to BESE on the misbetton eduator “evaluation” system. In this one I focus particularly on the expense factor, and try to raise important questions the Department has not addressed. See http://fairtest.org/k-12/teachers for it and other material on evaluating teachers using student test score.
Another strong submission was by the Mass Secondary School Administrators’ Association. Essentially, they say they don’t have to resources to do what the huge escalation in requirements will tell them to do. They have other concerns as well, such as test quality. See http://www.mssaa.org/gen/mssaa_generated_bin/documents/basic_module/mssaa_bod_comments_on_changes_to_eval_of_educators1.pdf