Vergara v. California: Concerns Beyond Teachers |:

Vergara v. California: Concerns Beyond Teachers

 I received this “public letter” via email and felt compelled to share it with you all. It is written by Ed Johnson, “Advocate for Quality in Public Education” and devotee of W. Edwards Deming. It is about the quite honestly shameful testimony of Harvard Economics Professor Raj Chetty (the source of prior posts here and here), his testimony’s impact on the Vergara v. California decision last week (see two recent posts about this court decision here and here), and the deleterious implications of the ways that Chetty and those whom he advises (including Obama’s key leaders) think about educational measurement — implications that unfortunately span well beyond the teachers at the center of what is now so many similar VAM-based measurement systems.

June 17, 2014

Thanks mainly to Raj Chetty’s testimony, corporate school reformers won, or bought, the Vergara v. California case.  Now, in consequence, there should be grave concern.  California Superior Court’s ruling and Chetty’s cheerful and gleeful testimony offer insight into the kind of intelligence-without-wisdom that can only lead to hastening the demise of democratic ideals along with the rise of plutocratic ideals and attendant morally and ethically corrupt and corrupting ways of social life legitimized in public law.  It is worth spending nearly two hours to watch and listen to Chetty’s testimony, so one may disallow oneself ever being able to claim, as some in Germany once claimed, “I didn’t know.”  Be sure to listen to Chetty explain President Obama’s and the White House’s involvement.

Chetty based his testimony on having posed and answered for himself the question: “Are teachers’ impacts on students’ test scores (“value-added”) a good measure of their quality?”  He testified that his research findings brought him to answer the question in the affirmative.  As if nothing much beyond test scores matter, Chetty concluded that Vergara v. California: Concerns Beyond Teachers |: