Method to Grade Teachers Provokes Battles

Source: New York Times

Use of value-added modeling is exploding nationwide. Hundreds of school systems, including those in Chicago, New York and Washington, are already using it to measure the performance of schools or teachers. Many more are expected to join them, partly because the Obama administration has prodded states and districts to develop more effective teacher-evaluation systems than traditional classroom observation by administrators.

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A report released this month by several education researchers warned that the value-added methodology can be unreliable. “If these teachers were measured in a different year, or a different model were used, the rankings might bounce around quite a bit,” said Edward Haertel, a Stanford professor who was a co-author of the report. “People are going to treat these scores as if they were reflections on the effectiveness of the teachers without any appreciation of how unstable they are.”

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This year, the federal Department of Education’s own research arm warned in a study that value-added estimates “are subject to a considerable degree of random error.”

And last October, the Board on Testing and Assessments of the National Academies, a panel of 13 researchers led by Dr. Haertel, wrote to Mr. Duncan warning of “significant concerns” that the Race to the Top grant competition was placing “too much emphasis on measures of growth in student achievement that have not yet been adequately studied for the purposes of evaluating teachers and principals.”



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/education/01teacher.html

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This article presents the pros and cons of VAM, and shows generally how school systems are rushing into these as evaluative, high-stakes tools before their veracity is even understood.

How's that?

Then a claw-back? :)

Peer, student, and parent reviews done with a survey. There are good ones out there.

Evaluations done by principals, and at least one other outside professional.

Test scores of students.

The ratio of weight given to each method should be determined by reliability, and reevaluated every couple of years.

Historically, lawyers, doctors, nurses, dentists, etc., had professional organizations and were left to police themselves. It is only relatively recently that legislative reforms have given consumers the ability to access information and make choices. Heck, it's only relatively recently that state boards got serious about purging bad members.

There's a lesson there about self-policing.

teachers by their students, especially if they are children, is impossible. My HS Econ teacher, who I stayed in touch with for many years (until he died) talked about this at length without reaching any sort of conclusion. He was certainly one of the best teachers I ever had. But it would seem that teachers could be graded on continuing education exams since they take courses or even seminars from time to time.

in most places that it is used. things like the ceiling error should be easily compensated for, once there is wider use of the method. the biggest trouble i see is in high turnover schools, where many teachers are only there for a couple of years. and there are other situations where the teacher might be on leave or something, like the one that was a fullbright scholar. these also seem manageable.

it is not perfect, but it is the best alternative we have now. the status quo is really not an option.

if anyone knows of a better method, please post it.

reevaluation. I think that has to be constantly fiddled with, until there is a rate of reliability.

Just as health and money should never have to meet, grades and education should never have to meet. It's and endless game, and invites endless forms of dishonesty, misuse of authority, and corruption which undermine education.

Imagine a college prof who has jumped through 10-12 very explicit hoops to get a Ph.D and then has to put up with the stinking Tenure system, and then endless classroom observations, and assinine student gradings of the teacher based on precisely what edu should not be about... add to this that if you teach true critical thinking you are always on verge of being fired... IS THIS IS WHAT IS CALLED ACADEMIC FREEDOM?

One catch though. Engineers are allowed to reject materials and equipment that doesn't meet their specifications, so we'll have to let teachers do that too.

but it was always pretty easy for me to be able to evaluate the effectiveness of teachers as a student and as a parent. It just takes a bit of observation. When a classroom is filled with engaged students, there is usually a good teacher present. Is it completely objective? No. Are kids asking questions? Are they eager to learn? Can we grade parents to see which ones instill the love of learning and accomplishment, no matter what the level?

Good teaching is a collaborative effort and merely testing shows only how well the students were taught to the test and given strategies to score well.