Teacher Accountability Systems Need Accountability Too

Some drivel in the Wall Street Journal this morning that Cuomo is caving on "accountability"  for teachers - they're very sad about the proposed "moratorium" on using state test scores in APPR.

Somehow the lawsuit Sheri Lederman brought against NYSED for APPR never makes it to their accountability argument.

You may remember Sheri Lederman, the teacher who received a 14 out of 20 on her state test score VAM one year, which fell to 1 out of 20 the next despite her students getting very similar scores to the year before.

The next year, btw, Lederman's test score VAM rose to 11 - so for those scoring at home, it went from 14 to 1 to 11 in three years.

How is it that "teacher accountability" exactly?

There are these jive assumptions in the deform narrative that test score VAM's and the Danielson rubric are "objective" measures of teacher performance.

They're not.

NYSED's test score VAM is so unreliable that when Lederman sued, they twice tried to get the lawsuit dismissed rather than expose how they devised the score.

As for Danielson, the so-called "objective" rubric used for teacher evaluations, ask teachers about the scores they're getting in their Danielson evaluations and many will tell you there is nothing "objective" about the process.

Administrators can use the Danielson to focus on whatever they want to focus on and claim a teacher is deficient in something while ignoring other areas that might raise the overall Danielson score.

To claim there is anything "objective" in a classroom evaluation is to make believe that the so-called judgment of the evaluator comes down from the Mount, along with Moses and the Ten Commandments.

If an administrator wants to give a good evaluation rating to a teacher via the Danielson, he/she will, and if he/she wants to nail somebody with it, they can do that too.

The truth is, the Danielson was devised to give districts the tool to "document" when they want to get rid of teachers, but that doesn't mean the documentation itself is based in reality.

If we're going to talk about teacher accountability, we ought to talk about accountability for the teacher accountability system as well - the assumptions that it is based upon must stand up to scrutiny.

Clearly NYSED wasn't too confident they're test score VAM would stand up to that scrutiny, since they tried as hard as they could to avoid explaining it (or the bell curve they use for APPR) in court.

As for Danielson, I'm now starting to think that every observation should be taped so that teachers have the video to use if they need to counter claims made by administrators in their Danielson evaluations.

There is an awful lot of talk about so-called teacher accountability from politicians, from the media, from ed deformers - but the system that measures so-called teacher accountability almost always skirts its own accountability and lives in this fantasy world where it stands as some objective measure of performance.

Today's drivel in the WSJ is just one more example of that.

Regents Vote To Continue Using Test Scores To Rate Teachers

The Regents voted for a four year moratorium from using state test scores in teacher evaluations - but there's a catch:

A four-year moratorium on use of state standardized test scores to rate — or penalize — the job performance of schoolteachers and principals gained overwhelming preliminary approval Monday from the state Board of Regents.

The policymaking board passed the “emergency regulation” in a 15-1 vote, with the only “no” cast by Chancellor Merryl Tisch.

The catch?

They're still using test scores to rate you, just not "state" test scores:

Under a complex four-year transition, teachers would receive new “transition scores” calculated by the state, based on information provided by local school districts. Such ratings would come from results of classroom observations and tests selected locally by school districts.

So don't believe the hype - Regents vote for moratorium on state test scores in teacher evaluations blah blah blah.

Means nothing so long as "local" tests will be used on you because in the end, whether the voodoo VAM is based on local test scores or state test scores, it's still voodoo.

So call the Regents on their manipulation here and spread the word - the Endless Testing regime and voodoo VAM is alive and well in APPR.

Cuomo Backs Appeal Process For APPR Teracher Evaluation System

It seems that even Governor Cuomo knows that his APPR teacher evaluation system, with its dramatic shifts in VAM scores and teachers getting dinged as "developing" even as their schools are given excellence awards, cannot be defended as is:

As the Board of Regents moves to create a process for teachers to appeal the findings of their performance evaluations, the idea gained the endorsement of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Both the teacher evaluations and an appeals system for teachers doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive, Cuomo said on Wednesday.

“Yes, I think they should have an appeals process, I think there should be an evaluation process, but it should be fair and it should be transparent,” Cuomo said.

Cuomo, a key architect of the current evaluation system approved by state lawmakers in the March budget plan, told reporters there “should be an appeals process” out of fairness to teachers.

“That evaluation has to be fair and it has to be transparent,” Cuomo said while in Rochester. “It’s only right if a teacher believes that if the evaluation is wrong, they should have a right to an appeals process. You’re talking about their evaluation that could determine their seniority, their raise, etc.”

Cuomo's bending ever so slightly in order to not be broken backward defending APPR.

The Lederman case exposed the bell curve that rigs 7% of teachers as "ineffective" as well as the arbitrariness of the test score VAM (Lederman went from 14 out of 20 to 1 out of 20 in one year's time while her students garnered similar scores on their state tests.)

In addition, APPR horror stories where districts are given awards for the excellence of their schools while the teachers at those schools are rated "developing" on Cuomo's APPR system have surfaced, further making the system indefensible.

Same goes for the stories of teachers at schools slated to be closed, many rated "ineffective" or "developing" one year, then getting magically rated "effective" after they go to other schools that aren't closing.
 
So Cuomo, in order to look fair about his APPR system, says he's okay with an appeals process for it, but only if it's "fair and transparent."

Ah, that is the rub, isn't it?

As has been shown in the Lederman case, APPR is anything but fair and transparent - NYSED refused to tell Sheri Lederman why she went from 14 out of 20 to 1 out of 20 on her test score VAM and twice tried to have Lederman's lawsuit dismissed on grounds that she wasn't harmed since she was rated effective overall (see here and here.)

Cuomo never had a problem with NYSED failing to explain to Lederman and other teachers just how they came to their test score VAM, but now all of a sudden he's in favor of appeals only if they're "fair and transparent."

In fact, Cuomo responded with a straw man argument when he was asked about the Lederman lawsuit, claiming teachers just don't want to be evaluated rather than acknowledging the problems that Lederman raised with the system.

It remains to be seen if by "fair and transparent," Cuomo means the kind of fairness and transparency currently on display in the APPR system and with how NYSED wields it.

I'm skeptical this "appeals process" is anything other than more PR, another "tweak" that will amount to little change when all is said and done.

We shall see.

How Does Governor Cuomo Defend His Irrational Teacher Evaluation System

This story is behind a paywall at Capital NY but here's the summary from their morning email update:

GOOD TEACHERS, POOR SCHOOLS? DISTRICT STRUGGLES TO UNDERSTAND RATINGS—POLITICO New York’s Keshia Clukey: “The same day that Bethlehem schools Superintendent Jody Monroe received a certificate from the state Education Department saying six of her schools were Reward Schools, among the top performing in the state, she also received word that her teachers were some of the poorest performing. ‘It’s hard to explain to a teacher how they could have a score of 17 (out of 20) last year and then a two,’ Monroe said. ‘It’s especially tough when you really can’t explain it … our curriculum hasn’t changed that much.’ The Albany County district, along with other public schools across the state, received its growth scores from the state at the end August, ratings that determine how good teachers are at their job. As in many districts over the past few years, fluctuations in the scores of Bethlehem’s teachers were hard to explain.

“According to the American Statistical Association, the variation from year to year has to do with the model, which the association's president says shouldn’t be used to evaluate teachers.’It suggests something is wrong with the approach, frankly, and possibly the data itself,’ David Morganstein said about the swings in teacher scores...The model doesn’t work, Morganstein said, because the state tests were designed to evaluate students, not teachers. The model often uses incomplete data. For example, it does not include all students’ scores, and the computers themselves can have errors, he said. The formula would work for testing a large group, such as a district or even school, but the margin of error is too large and can lead to wide discrepancies, with teachers scoring low one year, high the next, and then low again, Morganstein said.

“On average, Bethlehem’s elementary school teachers scored about an eight out of 20 in the 2014-15 academic year, ranking them as ‘developing,’ and its middle school teachers were slightly higher at about 12, or ‘efficient,’ Monroe said...In Guilderland, a neighboring school district similar to Bethlehem, teachers scored pretty well, with the majority in the ‘effective’ or higher range, said district Superintendent Marie Wiles, adding that with similar teachers, it doesn’t make sense that Bethlehem’s didn’t do as well. ‘There are just so many issues with (the annual professional performance review) and the calculation of growth score. We don’t put a lot of meaning in them. I hate to say it,’ Wiles said... ‘We don't need APPR .. .The numbers, to us, are not a measure of the quality of the teachers.” http://politi.co/1XDwca7

The symbol of the irrationality of Cuomo's APPR teacher evaluation system is Sheri Lederman, who took the state to court over her test score VAM.

Lederman has gone from 14 out of 20 to 1 out of 20 to 11 out of 20 in the last three years even as students are scoring similarly on their tests.

More and more evidence is coming to light just what a mess Cuomo's APPR is.

And yet, that's the one thing that won't be "reviewed" as part of Cuomo's Common Core Standards/Tests/Curriculum review.

Cuomo has said his APPR teacher evaluation is the "bedrock" of the state's education reform agenda.

Given what a mess the "bedrock" is, it doesn't say much about the reform agenda, does it?

How Does NYSED Explain Sheri Lederman's VAM Scores?

Sheri Lederman is suing the state over her VAM.

In 2012-2013, she received 14 out of 20 on her VAM score as part of the APPR teacher evaluation system rating.

In 2013-2014, she received a 1 out of 20 on her VAM score as part of the APPR teacher evaluation system rating despite having test score results very similar to the previous year.

And for 2014-2015?

Sheri Lederman got her growth score today, 11 out of 20, will be ranked Highly effective #teacherevals http://t.co/0E1qEUmSUl

— Keshia Clukey (@KeshiaClukey) September 2, 2015

For those of you scoring at home, the tend is 14 to 1 to 11.

All in the space of three years.

And Cuomo calls this system "scientific" and "objective."

The judge in the Lederman case is expected to have a decision either this month or next.

Can Roger Tilles' Reversal On Test Scores Tied To APPR Be Believed?

So-called big news out of Long Island:

Roger Tilles of Great Neck, now in his 11th year on the state Board of Regents, told a teachers conference in Port Jefferson that Albany faces the risk of growing opposition to the job evaluation system unless it reverses course.

“I oppose the use of standardized tests to evaluate teachers and principals,” Tilles said, drawing applause from about 400 teachers and school administrators at Earl L. Vandermeulen High School in Port Jefferson. “Not admitting a mistake is making a bigger mistake.”

Tilles voted for the system in June, now he's opposed to it?

What changed in the last two months that Tilles sees the light all of a sudden?

Here's my response to the Tilles "news":

@leoniehaimson @edbobgreen @LIOptOut @carolburris @NYSAPE So why'd he vote for it in June? http://t.co/mxkuHJnma0

— rbe (@perdidostschool) September 3, 2015

@teka21bat Tilles is slippery. Has said good stuff before, but his votes contradicts his words.

— rbe (@perdidostschool) September 3, 2015

I'm not the only skeptic out there - here's a commenter at Diane Ravitch's post on the Tilles news:

This is not a reversal. Roger Tilles has been consistent. He’s come out publicly against student test scores linked to APPR since 2011. It’s just that he keeps voting for it anyway. So don’t be fooled into believing this big announcement means anything. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/ny-regent-dont-link-teacher-evaluation-to-test-scores/2011/05/17/AFsJFr5G_blog.html

Here's another:

Ditto to the above comment. Nowhere does Tilles state that he will vote “no”. This is a PR/spin campaign ( the motivation for which that I cannot figure out). Perhaps public figures who are sell outs, who fall short of the mark need to try to convince themselves as well as the public that they are actually “good guys”???

I titled the post "Can Roger Tilles' Reversal On Test Scores Tied To APPR Be Believed?"

Given Tilles' track record of contradictory statements and actions, the answer is - no, he cannot and should not be believed.

Until I see differently, I fully expect Roger Tilles to vote the way Merryl Tisch tells him to.

Vaunted New Cuomo APPR Evaluation Plan Not In Place For NYC Yet

Gotham Schools:

The first day of school is Sept. 9, but it will be at least a month before New York City teachers know exactly how they will be graded this year.

The de Blasio administration plans to wait until at least October to decide if it will comply with a new state law and make changes to its teacher evaluation system this year or seek to delay the process. Districts will lose state funding if the changes aren’t in place by Nov. 15, according to the law, but officials have said they will give districts more time if needed.

Excellent - nothing like uncertainty around evaluations.

Reformers seem to love changes, don't they?

Change the tests, change the standards, change the curriculum, change the PD, changes the evaluation system - over and over and over.

The cynic in me wonders if the constant change isn't meant to undermine students, teachers and schools, give reformers their "failure" metrics and data and help them push their privatization agenda.

The pragmatist in me thinks that's exactly the case.

There may be a saving grace this year on the evaluation changes, however.

The judge in the Lederman case is expected to issue a decision later this month or sometime next month.

If the test score component - the NYSED "Black Box" of "We rate you the way we want to and you'll take it and like it!" - is tossed, that could result in the whole evaluation system being thrown out and force Cuomo and the Legislature to start over again.

Won't that be fun?

The likelihood is that the state will appeal a Lederman decision like that, but that would just throw more uncertainty into the system.

And in the end, that seems to be the point of education reform and the Cuomo agenda.

Burn and churn, burn and churn, burn and churn...

NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia Ignores Teachers' Complaints About APPR

NYSED Commissioner MaryEllen Elia spoke to some teachers at Cairo, NY yesterday.

At the beginning of her remarks, she teased out that she would be addressing APPR concerns:

Indeed, Elia began the forum with a tongue-in-cheek question that she never actually answered: "You're probably all wondering, so OK, what is she gonna do about APPR? You are. Let's just get that out there."

The APPR formula has come to be known as the "black box" among teachers at Cairo, who say they still don't understand what metrics the performance review uses or why.

But as is so often the case with MaryEllen Elia, this was a coy PR remark that was never addressed substantively later:

Cairo teachers said they were encouraged that Elia would use their input to improve upon Common Core standards and Common Core-aligned tests. But they left the forum frustrated that their concerns about the Annual Professional Performance Review — the state's controversial teacher evaluation system — weren't treated with the same urgency or consideration.

"If she says it's going to take a while for the kids to get used to the Common Core standards, then why is the APPR being implemented at this time?" said Claire Mackey, a speech pathologist with the district. "If it's going to take years for these kids to get up to the standards, then why are we being judged on them now?"

What a great question!

With 50% of a teacher's rating now based upon these test scores as rolled through NYSED's "black box" - the inscrutable algorithm NYSED uses to come up with the test score component ratings but refuses to show to teachers - why are teachers being judged on the scores now?

And of course the answer is, because Andrew Cuomo wanted it so because his education reformer donors wanted it so and thus it is so.

Elia's just the functionary here, she has no real power to address the APPR mess, but since we all know that's the case, why tease out that she was going to address teacher concerns over APPR in the beginning only to ignore them in the end?

The only recourse to the APPR black box mess is the court system - the judge in the Lederman case is expected to announce a decision either later this month or sometime next month.

NYSED never did show how Sheri Lederman went from 14 out of 20 on her state test component to 1 out of 20 a year later with what were essentially the same scores from students.

I am hearing similar things from teachers this year - that the test score component of APPR seems random and pulled out of a hat by a rabbit high on PCP.

The inexplicable test component ratings that arrive from NYSED based upon an algorithm they refuse to disclose or explain in detail derived from tests that NYSED itself acknowledges are riddled with problems makes the entire APPR teacher evaluation system unfair and unjust.

If MaryEllen Elia truly cared about teachers like she says she does, she would acknolwedge these facts.

Instead she issues some PR jive and continues on acting as the head functionary in the Endless Testing regime.

The Next Time You Hear Some Edubabble Starting With The Words "Research Shows..."

...You can cut the person off by asking if they're sure the "research" they're citing isn't horseshit:

A painstaking yearslong effort to reproduce 100 studies published in three leading psychology journals has found that more than half of the findings did not hold up when retested. The analysis was done by research psychologists, many of whom volunteered their time to double-check what they considered important work. Their conclusions, reported Thursday in the journal Science, have confirmed the worst fears of scientists who have long worried that the field needed a strong correction.

The vetted studies were considered part of the core knowledge by which scientists understand the dynamics of personality, relationships, learning and memory. Therapists and educators rely on such findings to help guide decisions, and the fact that so many of the studies were called into question could sow doubt in the scientific underpinnings of their work.

...

More than 60 of the studies did not hold up. The project began in 2011, when a University of Virginia psychologist decided to find out whether suspect science was a widespread problem. He and his team recruited more than 250 researchers, identified the 100 studies published in 2008, and rigorously redid the experiments in close collaboration with the original authors.

Only 36% of the studies held up to scrutiny.  If you add in the so-called research in other fields, even that kind of accuracy is probably too high:

Dr. John Ioannidis of Stanford, who predicted in the early 2000s that about half of the findings across medicine were inflated or wrong, said that the 36 percent replication rate for psychology might even be high once the results for other disciplines, like economics, animal research, cell biology and other areas of biomedicine, were also tested.

“Many of the biases found in psychology are pervasive,” Dr. Ioannidis said.

It would be interesting to see a painstaking yearslong effort to reproduce 100 studies of education research to see what the replication rate is.

You hear people on all sides of education reform issues throw out the words "Research shows..."

Our culture has fetishized "research" and "science," as if to say if something has been found by "research" in a "scientific study," it must be so.

This is not so, as one commenter at the NY Times notes:

I applaud the researchers ability to recognize the limitations of their research and their standard of peer review. There is an old saying in medical research: "half of what is published is worthless; the challenge is figuring out which half." The measures adopted help figure that out.

The bigger danger, however, lies not with the scientists but by the talking heads that like to cite (often incorrectly) these studies. President Obama famously said he would "restore science to its rightful place", implying that science was the highest level of understanding. These findings prove what every honest researcher knows- that published studies are often incorrect, that established but untested norms of behavior are often correct, and claiming science as an authority is limiting. Placing blind trust in science is just as foolish as placing blind trust in faith.

The take home message is simple- if a single scientific study claims something different than experience suggests, it needs to be re-tested before it is claimed to be true. Remember that the next time someone proposes a sweeping social change based on shoddy and poorly explained science.

Gee, re-testing scientific research before proposing sweeping social change based on shoddy and poorly explained science - that would never happen in education, would it?

Nahh - the accuracy and validity of the studies on VAM, the Common Core State (sic) Standards, the small schools initiative, teacher evaluations based upon test scores, students who have teachers who raise test scores make more money over their lifetimes, et al. were all tested and re-tested and have been found to be "objective science," as Governor Cuomo is fond of saying.

Right?

Sure.

And "untested norms of behavior" that have stood the test of time are always suspect until Raj Chetty or some other "researcher" gets his/her hands on them for some of their rigorous, scientific research to test them.

Right?

No, not right.

As the commenter at the Times writes, blind trust in so-called science is no better than blind trust in faith.

When you get back to school in a week or so, you can bet you'll hear the words "Research shows..." at some PD meeting sooner rather than later.

It is high time to challenge the research fetishizers when they throw out their "Research shows..." jive to prove that the "research" they're citing is part of the 36% that can be replicated and not the 64% that can't.

Being A Teacher These Days Means Walking A Tightrope Without A Safety Net

There's this myth perpetuated by education reformers, politicians and the media that "bad teachers" can't be fired, that once you become a tenured teacher, all you have to do to remain in the job is breathe and not get convicted of a felony.

The truth is far from the myth as this commenter at Perdido Street School blog writes:

Who'd want to become a teacher anywhere? I don't teach in a struggling school (though its close) and the decision to come in to teaching ranks as the biggest mistake of my life. Financially, psychologically, etc. A toll is taken on the psyche when your profession is labeled as the reason for almost all the negative issues going on in our society, relentlessly, no matter how ridiculous. The volume of it and the incessant nature makes one a bit twitchy. It was a stupid call. At least working at Amazon, you are probably paid well for the few years you survive....and then you can go get another job.

The thing that isn't talked about so much, and should be, is that when a teacher is drummed out, for any reason really, they will never teach again in public school. It's an established, formalized, institutionalized, fully-legal blacklisting. So a public school teacher falling under the hatchet of reform faces a much steeper slope out of unemployment than does, say, a corporate person who gets fired. As always, the "accountability" and "disruption" on the corporate side is always somehow lighter than they want to impose on the public side.

A fired teacher is DONE....the one thing they have prepared and trained for is no longer something they can tap on in their job search. (Unless they go to work at a desperate private school that will pay them like $19k a year.) Even admin....they leave or get booted somewhere, they get to become admin somewhere else (see Elia). No deep institutional, legal blacklisting for them! Even principals, AP's, Directors, etc in my district who have been let go for deep incompetence always get another job in Admin by the next school year in another district.

So that's a thing and it matters. For teachers, our options become way way way limited after being fired. We are the ultimate tightrope walkers...no safety nets.

That's right - as I posted this morning, get the "I" rating smeared on your head and you're pretty much done - administrators will look to drum you out (especially if you're a senior teacher higher up on the salary step ladder), the system will look to drum you out (and with two "ineffective" ratings in a row, that can be done in an expedited manner), and no one will look to hire you.

I am in my fifteenth year as a public school teacher, before that I was in grad school and working as both a per diem substitute teacher and an SAT tutor.

I haven't had a job outside education since 1999.

Let's say I get dinged two years running under the new iteration of Andrew Cuomo's APPR teacher evaluation system and get an expedited trip out of my NYCDOE teaching job by 2017.

What would I do for work then?

As the commenter above noted, my experience and my resume is stuffed to the gills with education-related credentials and work.

Good luck to me trying to get a job doing something outside education with that kind of resume, but good luck to me trying to get a job inside education with the "ineffective" scarlet letter.

Walmart greeter here I come.

Welcome to Walmart, welcome to Walmart, welcome to Walmart...

It's time to dispense with the media myth that tenure is a lifetime appointment to a teaching gig.

The truth is, tenure no longer exists and it doesn't take a whole hell of a lot to have your career taken from you in an expedited (and rigged) process.

Think I'm engaging in hyperbole?

Head on over to a receivership school and see where you are in two to three years.

More Things Wrong With VAM

Sheri and Bruce Lederman argued before a judge this week that VAM was "irrational...a rating created in a black box that spit out predictions that compared his wife’s students to “avatar students.”

A commenter notes there is even more wrong with VAM:

There are way more things wrong with VAM.
It is good news though that the judge is onto them.
The VAM is also not allowing the teacher to earn a good rating based on their own scores. They are rated based on how other teachers scored.
For that reason you can't know in advance what it is you have to do. The criteria that your score is based on is shifting and not concrete.
VAM is also not transparent so that a teacher can understand in advance how they will be rated as is required by law.
VAM is also purported to be a growth model, however, it is not capable of showing the kind of vertical growth that needs to be measured from year to year.
And let's not forget that the Cut Scores are decided AFTER the kids take the test. And each year the scale changes. Not very scientific if you ask me.
It sounds like the Ledermans case is going well. Finally the charade is being exposed publicly for what it really is: a convoluted SCAM.

Indeed - there is so much that is wrong with VAM as an evaluation model

It's accountability moment has come.

We shall see if it is rated "ineffective" and thrown onto the trash heap where it belongs.

The Irrationality Of New York State's VAM Scores

Carol Burris has a piece in the Washington Post about Sheri Lederman's case against NYSED over her VAM score, which went from 14 out of 20 one year to 1 out of 20 the next despite her students' test scores remaining stable.

Burris points out Lederman is not the only irrational VAM score around the state:

Lederman was not the only teacher in the school to get a poor score. In 2014, 21 percent of the staff at E.M. Baker School received a score of “ineffective,” 21 percent “developing” and 57 percent were “effective.”  Just the year before, not one teacher received an “ineffective” score.

The irrationality was not limited to the teachers of Sheri Lederman’s school, one of the highest performing elementary schools in the state. In 2014, 44 percent of the teachers of the Fox Meadow School in Scarsdale received growth scores that said they were not “effective” teachers with 22 percent rated “ineffective.”  Yet 61 percent of the school’s students were proficient in English Language Arts, and 75 percent were proficient in math—more that double the state’s proficiency rate.   Similar results were found at the high-achieving Harbour Hill School in Roslyn, where 36 percent of its teachers received growth scores that labeled them “ineffective.”

The Lincoln School in Rochester, is a school designated as a priority/failing school by the state. Its proficiency rate was less than 3 percent. In 2014, 100 percent of its teachers received “effective” state scores, with 7 percent being rated “highly effective.”  At another school facing receivership, The Martin Luther King Jr School in Utica, New York, 60 percent of the teachers received “effective” VAM scores and 40 percent were given VAM scores of “highly effective .”

NYSED never showed cause for why Lederman received the 1 out of 20 on her VAM score the year after she received 14 out of 20.  They instead tried to have the Lederman case dismissed twice (here and here), arguing there was no harm to Lederman because she was rated "effective" overall despite the "ineffective" VAM score.

However the case did go to trial and the judge didn't sound like he was buying the "Because We Said So" bell curve argument NYSED showed up with for why Lederman was deemed "ineffective" on her VAM:

The more Ms. Galligan tried to defend the bell curve of growth scores as science, the more the judge pushed back with common sense. It was clear that he did his homework. He understood that the New York State Education Department’s VAM system artificially set the percentage of “ineffective” teachers at 7 percent. That arbitrary decision clearly troubled him. “Doesn’t the bell curve make it subjective? There has to be failures,” he asked.

...

“Did her students learn nothing?” Justice McDonough asked. “How could it be that she went from 14 out of 20 points to 1 out of 20 points in one year?” He noted that the students’ scores were quite good and not that different from the year before.

Back behind the bell curve Ms. Galligan ran. As she tried to explain once again, the judge said, “Therein lies the imprecise nature of this measure.”

Burris writes that a decision is expected in two to three months - the Lederman's have argued that not only Sheri Lederman's rating should be overturned but the court should  “declare the measure an abuse of discretion” because “the State Education Department does not get a pass on unreasonable and irrational actions."

Of course the evaluation system that the Lerdermans have out on trial has been made that much worse by Governor Cuomo and the Legislature this year, with test scores now increased to about 50% of a teacher's evaluation rating, so the "irrationality" of the state's APPR VAM matters greatly and a decision by the judge to declare the measure "an abuse of discretion" will have serious consequences for the governor, the Legislature, the Board of Regents, NYSED and teachers and schools all across the state.

With Amplify A Financial Disaster That Loses Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars, What's Joel Klein's VAM?

From the NY Times:

Amplify, a much-heralded push by News Corporation into digital education, led by Joel Klein, a former New York City schools chancellor, is nearing an inglorious end.

News Corporation, controlled by Rupert Murdoch, said on Wednesday that it would take a $371 million write-down on the education division and would move to wind down the production of tablets for schoolchildren, a key part of the unit’s offering.

Moreover, News Corporation’s chief executive, Robert Thomson, said in an earnings call with analysts that the company was in an “advanced stage of negotiations” with a potential buyer for the remaining education business.

$372 million dollar write down on the ed division.

What's Joel Klein's value-added measurement for that?

While we're at it, what's his value-added measurement for the tablets that set themselves on fire or broke when they flipped over?

It's illuminating when you see this "accountability" people go through their own lives without any accountability.

Why NYSED Never Wanted The Sheri Lederman VAM Case To Go Forward

Oral arguments begin in the Sheri Lederman VAM case today.

Diane Ravitch posted information from Lederman's lawyer, her husband Bruce, on how they are approaching the case.

One important thing to note about this case:

NYSED never wanted it to go forward.

They tried twice to have the case dismissed on the "No Harm, No Foul" rule (see here and here), arguing that since Lederman was rated "effective" overall despite the inexplicable "ineffective" rating on her test component, she wasn't adversely affected by the rating.

But under the current law, two "ineffective" ratings overall and a teacher can be fired and the test component part of APPR has been increased to 50% of the overall rating.

Going forward, if a teacher gets an "ineffective" rating on the VAM test component, it ensures an overall "ineffective" rating or, at best, "developing" rating - that means the test component score can and will have an adverse effect on teachers.

NYSED never provided the data for why Lederman went from 14 out of 20 points in 2012-2013 to 1 out of 20 points in 2013-2014 when the test score data was almost identical in both years.

I suspect the reason NYSED never provided the data is because they know the data won't stand up to scrutiny, that it was pulled out of John King's goatee rather than based on some objective, scientific reasoning.

We'll see as the case goes forward whether they've got some rational explanation for why Lederman went from 14 out of 20 points to 1 out of 20 points in VAM when the test data was almost identical.

But I would bet my own VAM they don't.

Cuomo And Tisch Double Down On Test-Based Evaluations As The Insanity Of APPR Goes National

Here is the best pushback against the coming reform effort from Governor Andrew Cuomo and Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch - the story of Sheri Lederman, a teacher declared ineffective on New York's APPR teacher evaluation system despite her students exceeding state averages on their state tests.

Lederman's story has gone national and makes it to The Atlantic, via The Hechinger Report:

Following a statewide ranking system put into place in 2012, for the first time 20 percent of her evaluation score was tied to local tests and 20 percent was based on whether students progressed on state tests administered every spring. The rest of the rating was based on classroom evaluations. Depending on the final percentage, teachers in New York receive ratings of highly effective, effective, developing or ineffective. Teachers who receive ineffective ratings for two consecutive years may face an expedited dismissal process.

The same year the new test-based evaluations went into effect, New York State launched the Common Core State Standards, which aim to deepen critical thinking and enhance problem-solving skills. And along with the new standards came much more difficult tests, which sent student test scores plummeting.

This was a problem for teachers now dependent on good scores to achieve a rating that didn’t also put their job in jeopardy.

Lederman was an early believer in the Common Core. With a doctorate in human development and educational psychology, she was drawn to the idea that students in different states would possess a similar knowledge base and skill set across an array of different subject areas. But the concurrent rollout of new standards on top of harder tests, not to mention the addition of a high-stakes teacher evaluation system, has more than soured her on the new standards.

Among educators, Lederman is hardly alone in her belief that that the one-two punch of Common Core and new test-based accountability systems is too much to handle and leaves teachers — and students — overwhelmed.

At first Lederman was fine. Nearly 70 percent of Lederman’s fourth-grade students met or exceeded reading and math standards on the new Common Core tests, far above the state average. With a perfect score on her classroom observations and local district tests, she easily achieved an effective rating.

But this year, the state awarded her only 1 out of 20 possible points on the state test ranking, because a new class of students didn’t do significantly better than her group from the year before. Instead, they dropped two percentage points in reading and increased slightly in math. Her 18 students far surpassed state averages in both subjects (often by more than double), and she once again did well on the district scores, but not well enough to overcome the low score on the state portion of the evaluation.

So, Lederman did what any frustrated educator, armed with a litigator spouse, would do. In late October, she filed a lawsuit against the New York State Education Department. The lawsuit alleges that such metrics punish rather than reward excellence, with educators whose students outperform state averages unable to show sufficient progress from year to year. A hearing is scheduled for March 20.

 Lederman’s lawsuit is one part of a major backlash that’s erupted in the last year against both teacher evaluations and the Common Core. The backlash has become mainstream, no longer relegated to teachers and administrators, and has fueled legislation and multiple lawsuits aimed at dialing back the new policies.

Lederman's story can be easily summed up into this bar graph:

The Hechinger Article attempts to rewrite the history of the Common Core and test-based teacher evaluations by making believe they weren't meant to be implemented at the same time - they were.

The Common Core and test-based teacher evaluations were part of a Shock and Awe education policy to scare parents into believing their children's teachers and schools were failing and the public education system was in need of dramatic reform.

The Board of Regents and NYSED purposely set the CCSS test scores so that 70% of students would "fail" them in the hope that parents around the state would rise up and demand dramatic reform of the public education system.

It didn't happen - parents instead rose up against the Common Core and the Common Core tests, with the state educrats getting earfuls wherever they went for their Common Core town halls.

As a result of the parent backlash, Common Core supporter Andrew Cuomo had to agree to a statewide slowdown on using the CCSS test scores for promotion decisions for students.

But now he and his compatriot in education reform, Regents Chancellor Tisch, are pointing to the "failure" rate on the Common Core tests and the "effective" and "highly effective" ratings of teachers on the APPR evaluation system and saying the two should look similar.

Why should 70% of students be "failing" their tests while 90%+ of teachers are deemed "effective" or "highly effective" by the APPR evaluation system goes their argument?

On the face of it, that argument can sound reasonable to people outside the system - until you see a story like Sheri Lederman's that exposes the APPR system as a sham.

How could a teacher whose students performed so well on their state tests be declared "ineffective" by APPR?

Cuomo and Tisch are going to demand that APPR be revised so that 40% of a teacher's evaluations are linked to the state tests.

They are going to demand that any teacher who comes up ineffective on that 40% must be declared ineffective overall.

And they are going to demand that any teacher rated ineffective two years running be removed from the classroom and slated for firing by her/his district.

As The Hechinger article makes clear, other states are slowing down tying test scores to teacher evals for fear of the backlash that unfair evaluations will cause among teachers and parents.

But not Andrew Cuomo's New York State - he's all in on test-based teacher evaluations, saying publicly that APPR done right will be an "objective" way to assess teacher effectiveness.

The big problem he's got is Sheri Lederman and other teachers like her - well-respected teachers, good teachers - who are getting unfairly dinged by the APPR teacher evaluation system as currently constituted and will get it even worse if Cuomo and Tisch get the "reforms" they want.

That bar graph exposes the Cuomo and Tisch evaluation system as the sham it is, as will the lawsuits that Lederman and other teachers file against the state.

Teacher evaluations, particularly the way the merry men and women in reform are developing them these days, are complicated things, but there's nothing complicated about Sheri Lederman's story.

She's gotten screwed by the system and now she's got a case winding through the courts to prove it.

Center For Unions Facts Is Right - Randi Weingarten Is Ruining Public Education

Lyndsey Layton reports the Center for Union Facts is attacking AFT President Randi Weingarten again:

The 11-page mailing, on expensive paper stock, was sent first class to 125,000 households across the country this week.

“I’m writing to you about Randi,” the letter began. “You probably don’t know who Randi is. Most people don’t. The terrible impact Randi has on America’s educational system is something that I hope you will give me a few minutes to explain.”

The writer, Richard Berman, is a D.C.-based corporate communications consultant who is waging a national campaign against Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Berman has run a highly personal attack on Weingarten for the past year, paying for two billboards in Times Square that featured an unflattering two-story image of her, a full-page ad in the New York Times, radio spots and, now, lengthy mailings. He also paid workers to hand out anti-Weingarten flyers during Labor Day weekend in East Hampton, N.Y., where she has a home.

In the mailing, Berman refers to Weingarten as “a vicious individual” who is “on a crusade to stymie school reform and protect the jobs of incompetent teachers — the bad apples that drain so much of our tax resources and sabotage the efforts of parents and caring teachers.”

This is a nasty attack on Weingarten, just as the billboards and other attacks Berman and the Center for Union Facts have launched against her were nasty.

But to be frank, I agree with one part of Berman's attack:

Weingarten and the teachers unions are ruining public education - but for the exact opposite reason Berman gives.

Want to know why there are so many tests in public schools these days?

Because Weingarten and the teachers unions have embraced test-based accountability and the Endless Testing regime.

Want to know why teachers are evaluated using error-riddled value-added measurements based upon test scores?

Because Weingarten and the teachers unions embraced VAM a few years ago and haven't mounted much of a challenge to these accountability systems even now that they're claiming "VAM is sham!"

Indeed, in 2008 Weingarten happily okayed the Teacher Data Reports in NYC that saw 4th-8th grade ELA and math teachers rated using a value-added system with margins of error as high as 87%.

Those reports were published in the New York news media, exposing teachers who had been rated with this error-riddled data system Weingarten collaborated on to public humiliation.

Want to know why Common Core math is confusing children nation-wide and Common Core informational texts have replaced literature in ELA classrooms and children are crying at night over the Common Core homework they're given that doesn't make any freaking sense?

Because Weingarten and the teachers unions have embraced Common Core, have taken money from Common Core proponents like Bill Gates to shill for the Core and have threatened to punch anybody who opposes Common Core in the face.

Want to know why pro-ed deform teacher-hating politicians like Andrew Cuomo are in power and doing all the damage they're doing to public education and the teaching profession?

Because Weingarten and the teachers unions are backing them, engineering putschs when certain union leaders turn against them, then ensuring that there will be no third party candidates to run against them and making robocalls for them when it turns out a primary is closer than it was supposed to be.

Sure, Weingarten and the unions aren't solely responsible for these crimes against children, teachers and public education, but they certainly helped along the way and you can make a pretty good argument that without union collaboration from Randi and the other teachers union leaders, they wouldn't have happened at all.

So I agree with Berman and the Center for Union Facts - Weingarten is ruining education and teaching.

I just don't agree with Berman's rationale for how she's ruining it.

It's not because Randi is out to "stymie school reform."

It's because she is so willing help out the reformers, to collaborate with and shill for the corporate entities, NGO's, billionaires and politicians focused on privatizing the school system, standardizing the nation's curriculum and turning the teaching profession into at-will work with no job protections.

I can't get all worked up over this attack on Weingarten from the anti-union guy - she's done too much damage, engaged in too much duplicity and shilled for too many deform causes and entities for me to put up the barricades and defend her. 

Cuomo Sets Up Another Strong Man Over Teacher Evaluations

From Daily Politics:

Cuomo also defended his Common Core implementation panel’s recommendation that math and English assessment tests not count toward grade promotion or be put on the permanent records of those in third through eight grades while at time not recommending a delay in applying the new standards to teacher evaluations.

He said teacher evaluations are considered an integral part of reforming education by showing which instructors need help and which are succeeding and should be rewarded.

Told an upstate teacher on his panel put out a statement against some of the recommendations, Cuomo said he is not surprised. “The teachers have opposed teacher evaluations in various forms for many many years,” he said.

Teachers aren't opposed to a fair and just evaluation, governor.

They're opposed to the junk science in your APPR system that uses value-added measurements to gauge how much "value" teachers have added to student test scores, a practice so unscientific that it has margins of error as large as your ego.

They're opposed to being evaluated using the same tests you say were so poorly implemented that children shouldn't be evaluated with them.

They're opposed to an evaluation system that values compliance and standardization over professionalism and creativity.

In short, they're opposed to the piece of garbage you shoved down everybody's throats a few years ago.

The first law suits are commencing over that garbage system this week, with Rochester teachers suing over the APPR VAM.

We'll see if the courts think your evaluation system is as integral part of reforming the education system as you think it is.

What Was Your Regents Exam Grading Experience Like Today?

I spent today getting "normed" for the ELA Regents exam.

I have been tasked with grading the Part 3 component - the Question #26 (Controlling Idea Paragraph) and the Question #27 (Literary Element Paragraph.)

There was not one teacher in the room who thought the Part 3 component from this administration of the ELA Regents test was a fair or well-designed task.

Not one.

Many teachers were really angry that the NYSED decided to use "insight" as the topic for the Controlling Idea Paragraph.

The consensus seemed to be that many students would not know exactly what "insight" meant, and even if they did, they wouldn't be able to develop a controlling idea using the two passages the NYSED provided for this part of the exam because the passages didn't fit well together with the topic or each other.

The anchor papers and practice papers for this part of the exam were not favorable to students either - the full credit examples and practice papers were quite advanced and it seems unlikely that, given how much difficulty students had with the passages and the topic, we'll see a ton of short response paragraphs getting full credit.

With the grading chart being quite harsh (see here), I have a difficult time seeing the ELA Regents exam scores doing anything other than plummeting this time around.

I hope I'm wrong about that.

Alas, many other teachers I spent the day "norming" with today felt the same way.

Those of you out there grading, what was your experience like?

I am particularly interested in hearing from ELA and ESL teachers.

Were there many teachers out there who thought the test was well-designed or fair?

Were there any?

Brutal ELA Regents Exam Grading Chart From NYSED

Okay, they're looking for a high failure rate at SED on the ELA Regents exam, that's for sure.

Students need to get 20 out of 25 multiple choice questions right in order to get only a 6 on their writing component.

Given how hard the passages were, I suspect we are going to see lots of 6's on the writing components.

That means we're going to get lots of failures.

The chart is even harder than last August's when students had to get 19 out of 25 multiple choice right in order to pass with a 6 out of 10 on their writing components.

That was a brutal test too.

But IMO the Regents and the SED saved the best for the latest - a truly brutal test with a brutal scoring chart.

It's not an accident that as teacher evals have been tied to Regents scores, the charts and tests have gotten harder each time.

Commissioner King, Regents Chancellor Tisch and Governor Cuomo have a political agenda here - to prove that public schools are failing and public school teachers are failures.

The children of the state just happen to be collateral damage in all of this.

I have some students from a remedial class who have failed the exam three or four times, depending on whether they took it over the summer or not.

It is really difficult to see any of them passing today's exam with the scoring chart handed down from King and Tisch.

I don't know what to say to them when they say "You mean I have to spend another five months preparing for this exam I can't pass?"

Space Aliens, Yellow Dust And Stars On The ELA Regents...

Normally when I finish proctoring the ELA Regents and see some of my students outside the building after the test, they say that test wasn't so bad, here's what I wrote for this part, etc.

Today when I saw students outside the building, they all said "What was up with that test?"

I also heard:

"What was up with those passages?"

"I wasn't sure about that quote..."

And...

"What was that yellow dust thing about?"

We'll see what the grading chart looks like, but if it looks anything like the charts from last January, June or August, the passing percentages for this ELA Regents exam season aren't going to be too high.

I'll wait to see the scoring chart before I declare today's ELA Regents exam a deliberate doubling down on low test scores in NY State.

But judging by the reaction of students after the test, it's not looking so great.