Randi Weingarten: VAM Is Junk Science
The United Teachers of Los Angeles reached an evaluation agreement that minimizes the use of test scores.
Perhaps they were burned by the inappropriate public release of teacher ratings devised by the Los Angeles Times.
I don’t understand how their evaluation system will work, but this is the key takeaway: AFT President Randi Weingarten called value-added modeling (VAM) by this term: “junk science.”
You read it
Perhaps they were burned by the inappropriate public release of teacher ratings devised by the Los Angeles Times.
I don’t understand how their evaluation system will work, but this is the key takeaway: AFT President Randi Weingarten called value-added modeling (VAM) by this term: “junk science.”
You read it
What’s With Edweek?
Over the past year, I have gotten several invitations to events by Education Week. All were promoting technology in the classroom and were sponsored by technology companies hawking their wares. I found this upsetting, even offensive. How can a newspaper report on companies while collaborating to sell their products? Why not just let these corporations buy advertising? Why have conferences to promote them?
Now Education Week is holding a conference selling the Common Core standards, featuring two prominent advocates. (Tony Bennett was supposed to speak in Indianapolis but he has been scrubbed since his electoral defeat; by March, he is likely to be State Commissioner in Florida and he could rejoin the panel).
Wouldn’t it be more fitting for a respected journal to have a conference debating the pluses and minuses of the
Now Education Week is holding a conference selling the Common Core standards, featuring two prominent advocates. (Tony Bennett was supposed to speak in Indianapolis but he has been scrubbed since his electoral defeat; by March, he is likely to be State Commissioner in Florida and he could rejoin the panel).
Wouldn’t it be more fitting for a respected journal to have a conference debating the pluses and minuses of the
Outlook for Common Core: Turmoil Ahead
Researchers usually find that students flourish where there is stability in the school, with an experienced staff, clear expectations, small classes, and a rich curriculum.
In Kentucky, first state to implement and test the Common Core, student scores fell and achievement gaps widened.
This teacher in Connecticut foresees rough weather ahead as the state and federal government launch a massive experiment:
I wonder about the impact specifically in Connecticut where we are rolling out a new comprehensive teacher evaluation system at the same time [as Common Core]….so we have teachers learning new standards, possibly
In Kentucky, first state to implement and test the Common Core, student scores fell and achievement gaps widened.
This teacher in Connecticut foresees rough weather ahead as the state and federal government launch a massive experiment:
I wonder about the impact specifically in Connecticut where we are rolling out a new comprehensive teacher evaluation system at the same time [as Common Core]….so we have teachers learning new standards, possibly
Why Is Big Brother Watching You?
When I worked in the federal Department of Education twenty years ago, I recall getting blizzards of postcards and letters from individuals and groups that were worried that the government was collecting too much information about them or their children. I pointed out repeatedly that the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which was in my tiny domain, did not collect information about individual students or their families. There was no vast federal storehouse of information about people.
Now I am no so sure. A reader just sent this announcement in a comment.
Here is the full comment:
In October, while announcing a series of actions to lower student loan payments, President Obama tasked the
Now I am no so sure. A reader just sent this announcement in a comment.
Here is the full comment:
In October, while announcing a series of actions to lower student loan payments, President Obama tasked the
How to Become a Teacher in Need of Improvement
A teacher explains how she went from effective to “in need of improvement”:
“I too have been highly effective for the 13 years I have been in the classroom, until last year, that is. I am now a teacher in need of improvement, not due to my teaching or my rapport with my students, but because I didn’t have my learning goal posted next to my rubric and I didn’t put descriptive feedback on 100% of the papers in portfolios )I missed 3 papers out of the 100+ that were in there). I didn’t refer to my rubric at the beginning,
“I too have been highly effective for the 13 years I have been in the classroom, until last year, that is. I am now a teacher in need of improvement, not due to my teaching or my rapport with my students, but because I didn’t have my learning goal posted next to my rubric and I didn’t put descriptive feedback on 100% of the papers in portfolios )I missed 3 papers out of the 100+ that were in there). I didn’t refer to my rubric at the beginning,
Joshua Starr: “Stop the Insanity”
Joshua Starr is the superintendent of Montgomery County’s public school system, the 17th largest district in the nation. He says that the “country needs a three-year moratorium on standardized testing and needs to ‘stop the insanity’ of evaluating teachers according to student test scores because it is based on ‘bad science.’He also said that the best education reform the country has had is actually health-care reform.”
He said that evaluating teachers by test scores is a very bad idea.
Starr said that “a good way to create assessments for Common Core-aligned curriculum would be to crowd-
He said that evaluating teachers by test scores is a very bad idea.
Starr said that “a good way to create assessments for Common Core-aligned curriculum would be to crowd-
The Financial Benefits of the Crisis in Education
Jeff Bryant writes here of the uses of a crisis.
When everything is terrible, terrible, and getting worse, the public can be convinced to go along with any crazy idea, even to hand their children over to for-profit entrepreneurs.
The next crisis, he predicts, will occur when the results of Common Core testing come in, as they already have in Kentucky. There, the proportion of students meeting proficiency levels dropped by nearly one-third and the achievement gaps grew larger. This is a crisis! More proof that our schools are failing!
As Rick Hess
When everything is terrible, terrible, and getting worse, the public can be convinced to go along with any crazy idea, even to hand their children over to for-profit entrepreneurs.
The next crisis, he predicts, will occur when the results of Common Core testing come in, as they already have in Kentucky. There, the proportion of students meeting proficiency levels dropped by nearly one-third and the achievement gaps grew larger. This is a crisis! More proof that our schools are failing!
As Rick Hess
MORNING UPDATE: LISTEN TO DIANE RAVITCH 12-10-12 Diane Ravitch's blog
Diane Ravitch's blog: [image: Click on picture to Listen to Diane Ravitch] What’s the Deal with Students for Education Reform? by dianerav Students for Education Reform thinks teachers should promptly agree to be evaluated by student test scores. They like standardized tests and want them to be the determinant of their teachers’ careers. They even held a demonstration at New York City’s City Hall to say so. But not so fast. Bruce Baker has studied and critiqued the New York State educator evaluation plan. He says it is so inaccurate that it should be rejected. He calls SFER “Sockp... more »