Guest Post: What was DiCarlo thinking?
By John ThompsonAs conservative school "reformers" bemoan their defeat in the 2012 election, and as some seem to admit the failure of their "reforms," some accountability hawks are doing some self-criticism. For instance, Fordham's Kathleen Porter-Magee says that the reform movement suffers from "group think," and it could be heading for its educational Bay of Pigs. Porter-Magee criticizes her allies' demonization of educators, but she still suggests there is an equivalency in this educational civil war. She still seems to believe that teachers who are fighting back against an unprovoked assault launched against us share complicity in the venous politics of school reform.
Exhibit A in demonstrating that educators' struggle to defend our profession is different is Matt DiCarlo's "Value-Added for the Record." At a time when test-driven evaluations are reeling from political defeats, when many or most teachers want to drive a stake through their heart, DiCarlo, argues that "value-added should be given a try in new teacher evaluations." He is uncomfortable with counting test score growth as 40-50% of a teacher's evaluation, but he seemed willing to