My Book on VAMs on Pre-Order, and Available on May 4, 2014 |:

My Book on VAMs on Pre-Order, and Available on May 4, 2014

 The book I spent all last year writing, titled “Rethinking Value-Added Models in Education: Critical Perspectives on Tests and Assessment-Based Accountability” is to be released by my publisher, Routledge, on May 4, 2014, although it is now available for pre-order.

For those of you who are interested (and who have also inquired about this book’s release), you can (pre)order this book on Amazon, here, for $34.62 (free shipping, of course, on orders over $35); you can find it via Barnes & Noble, here, for $34.42; but you can also go directly to the Routledge site, here, and (pre)order it for $31.96 if you use the following 20% off discount code at checkout: IRK69.

Just so everybody knows, though, I am donating all of my personal royalties to theACODO Orphanage in Siem Reap, Cambodia. You can find out why I am doing this in the beginning of the book, where I explain how Cambodia relates to my take on VAMs. But on a more general note I have no financial interest in this. While I do care deeply about this topic, as evidenced herein with this blog, and I do feel like as a scholar I am fighting a good fight particularly against those who are not making very informed and/or research-based decisions when it comes to VAMs, I do have absolutely no interest in making any money off of the many (many of which are shameful) consequences coming about as a result of inappropriately attaching high-stakes consequences to, and/or making high-stakes decisions as based on VAMs.

Below are some of the more specific details on the book, in case this information helps you make your decision to purchase, and of course read, and hopefully use widely, and if the situation calls for it, wildly!

Paperback: 256 pages; Chapters: 8 and titled as follows:

1. Socially Engineering the Road to Utopia
2. Value-Added Models (VAMs) and the Human Factor
3. A VAMoramic View of the Nation
4. Assumptions Used as Rationales and Justifications
5. Test-Based, Statistical, and Methodological Assumptions
6. Reliability and Validity
7. Bias and the Random Assignment of Students into Classrooms
8. Alternatives, Solutions, and Conclusions

4-20-13 Curmudgucation : How To Do Real Teacher Evaluation

CURMUDGUCATION: How To Do Real Teacher Evaluation:

How To Do Real Teacher Evaluation

The fans of Reformy Stuff are not wrong about everything. For example, they are correct that the general state of teacher evaluation in this country was pretty useless. Their mistake was replacing Inertly Useless with Actively Destructive. The old system was a simple two step process (1- check for teacher pulse; 2- award perfect score [edit--or, in some Bad Places To Work, award lousy score just because you want to]) while the new step is a little more involved (1- apply random groundless unproven mathematical gobbledeegook to big bunch of bad data; 2- award randomly assigned bad score).

Years ago, frustrated with the old mostly-useless model and before the current looney tunes empire took hold, a friend and I had started to rough out an evaluation system. Let me sketch out the basics for you.

What Should a Good Teacher Eval System Do?

1) Provide clear expectations to the teacher. One of the wacky things about teaching is that everybody is sure that everybody knows what a teacher's exact job description is, and yet it invariably turns out that nobody agrees. In many districts, teachers enter their classrooms with no job description and no really clear idea of what is expected of them.

2) Provide useful feedback and remediation. That includes setting the stage for meaningful remediation if it's called for. Only a small percentage of new teachers will be awesome right out of the box or clearly hopeless. Most are waiting to be guided toward either excellence or despair, and most districts depend on a system that I like to call "Blind Luck." I swear there are teachers out there whose careers could have gone a completely different direction if they had just eaten lunch with a different set of veteran teachers in their first few years.

3) Provide the district with clear information on whether they need to retain, retrain or refrain from hiring permanently.

Assumptions in Building the Eval System

1) Precise, observable data is the enemy or real, useful information. In the hands of hard data overlords, traits like "maintains good communication with parents" ends up being some numerical observable, such as "calls at least two parents every five days." Hard data fans like really precise measures, and so their data may be precise, but their conclusion is always wrong. Mr. McSwellteach may personally visit 150 parents a month or sing in a church choir with half of his total parental 

4-19-13 Curmudgucation Week

CURMUDGUCATION:School Accountability Has Changed ForeverRegardless of how the battle for the soul of public education shakes out in the end (or at least in the future-- I don't know that we'll ever see an end), there are things that we have already lost for at least a generation, collateral damage, the china in a shop over-run by a herd of clashing cattle.Perhaps the biggest casualty is the trust

by mike simpson / 7min 

WHEN IT COMES TO EDUCATION- DON'T REMEMBER THE ALAMO - Perdaily.com

WHEN IT COMES TO EDUCATION- DON'T REMEMBER THE ALAMO - Perdaily.com:



WHEN IT COMES TO EDUCATION- DON'T REMEMBER THE ALAMO

(Mensaje se repite en Español)

Although the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that supposedly ended the Mexican-American War was signed in 1848, it seems like the last battle of this war is still being fought in Texas, where Texas School Board member David Bradley expresses the 10-5 Republican majority's feeling that a Mexican-American studies program would be a form of "reverse racism," instead of something that might finally reverse a long Texas tradition of institutional racism. In this battle, what seem of greater concern to the more rational members of the Republican party is the state's hispanic population, which is now a majoritary 51%. 

Texas  Conservative Republican White folks have dominated the state's politics, since it became okay to give up the 100 year Dixiecrat tradition in the 1960s. This fight over Mexican-American studies seems to put them between a rock and a hard place. Clearly, the Republican Party can no longer ignore its burgeoning Mexican American population and continue to hold political power by not addressing the concerns of this Mexican-American population that has traditionally voted with the Democrats and clearly holds the balance of political power in Texas' future.

The present conflict over a class in Mexican-American studies doesn't exist in a vacuum, but goes back to when Texas and what WHEN IT COMES TO EDUCATION- DON'T REMEMBER THE ALAMO - Perdaily.com:

“Love is Come Again, Like Wheat that Springeth Green”. An Easter Reflection. | Missouri Education Watchdog

“Love is Come Again, Like Wheat that Springeth Green”. An Easter Reflection. | Missouri Education Watchdog:

“Love is Come Again, Like Wheat that Springeth Green”. An Easter Reflection.

inShare

 Happy Easter from Missouri!

My favorite Easter hymn was sung at church today, Now the Green Blade Riseth.  It speaks of hope in the midst of despair:

John MacLeod Campbell Crum (1872-1958)
© Oxford University Press

Now the green blade riseth from the buried grain,
Wheat that in dark earth many days has lain.
Love lives again, that with the dead has been:
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

In the grave they laid him, love whom we had slain,
Thinking that he’d never wake to life again,
Laid in the earth like grain that sleeps unseen:
Love is come again like wheat that springeth green.

Up he spring at Easter, like the risen grain,
He that for three days in the grave had lain.
Up from the dead my risen Lord is seen;
Love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.

When our hearts are weary, grieving, Lord, in pain,
By your touch you call us back to life again,
fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:
love is come again, like wheat that springeth green.“Love is Come Again, Like Wheat that Springeth Green”. An Easter Reflection. | Missouri Education Watchdog:

Schooling in the Ownership Society: What happened to McGrory's Miami Herald story on Feds' charter investigation? I asked...

Schooling in the Ownership Society: What happened to McGrory's Miami Herald story on Feds' charter investigation? I asked...:

What happened to McGrory's Miami Herald story on Feds' charter investigation? I asked...

Fernando Zulueta, president of Academica, gets a drink at the bar in Cain at The Cove, an exclusive beach club in the Bahamas' Atlantis resort. Academica held a leadership retreat for principals of several charter schools there. MIAMI HERALD PHOTO

Last month I wrote about Florida's great charter school profiteers, Rep. Erik Fresen, his sister Maggie, and brother-in-law, Fernando Zulueta who runs Academica Charter Schools, one of the largest charter chains in the country.

Today, Bob Sikes at Scathing Purple Musings re-posts a story which he incorrectly credits to columnist Mary McGrory from the Miami Herald, "Academica Charter Schools Under Federal Investigation." Actually, Sikes got it wrong. The great Washington Post Reporter Mary McGrory has been dead for 10 years. The piece on Academica was written by Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald staff writer Kathleen McGrory. Regardless, it's a good, solid news piece about the Education Department’s Inspector General Office audit of the South Miami-based Academica Corp. as part of a broader examination of school management companies nationwide. The story implicates the powerful Zulueta family as well as Fresen.

McGrory writes:

The auditors found that three of the schools in the network — Mater Academy, Mater High and Mater East — entered into leases with development companies tied to the Zulueta family. Two of the leases were executed while Zulueta sat on the Mater board. In addition, Schooling in the Ownership Society: What happened to McGrory's Miami Herald story on Feds' charter investigation? I asked...:

Teacher Pensions: Illinois Democrats and Florida Tea Party Republicans are Twins | Reclaim Reform

Teacher Pensions: Illinois Democrats and Florida Tea Party Republicans are Twins | Reclaim Reform:

Teacher Pensions: Illinois Democrats and Florida Tea Party Republicans are Twins

Posted on April 20, 2014by Ken Previti

Ken Previti:

Fifteen months later, the twins are still pretending to be two separate parties, with two separate education agendas, with two separate sets of ideologies, and two separate political platforms. Twin toadies to corporate entities have a tendency to lie like this.

Originally posted on Reclaim Reform:

State pension plans differ widely, especially teacher pension plans. The attack on state pension plans is the same because the big money behind the power politics wants it to be.

Illinois Democrats and Florida Tea Party Republicans are twins – not identical twins, but twins nonetheless. Neither is trustworthy or completely honest. Pension reform?

Florida: “Legislative presiding officers told journalists Wednesday a fundamental shift in the Florida Retirement System — making new public employees join 401(k)-style investment plans rather than the traditional ‘defined benefit’ pension system — is the only way to avoid obligating future lawmakers to impose massive tax increases on state residents.”
“If you wait until you’re a 45 or 50 percent pension fund, like Illinois or California, you can’t afford to transition into a defined contribution because you’ve got to continue that scheme going to fund the broken model.”
Read the full article HERE.

In Illinois…

View original 185 more words

De La Torre’s fateful recommendation | BCS in Context

De La Torre’s fateful recommendation | BCS in Context:

De La Torre’s fateful recommendation

 Former Santa Clara County Schools Superintendent Charles Weis (left) was relieved of duty when Xavier De La Torre (right) was hired as his replacement in June 2012. Weis had his share of problems at SCCOE (and at his previous gig), some of which are chronicled here.

De La Torre came to SCCOE after a three year stint as Superintendent of Socorro Independent School District in El Paso, Texas. At their April 3, 2013 meeting, less than a year after landing at SCCOE, De La Torre presented a ‘white paper‘ to the County Board developed in conjunction with CSCA. It’s an overview of the charter school landscape in Santa Clara County, with typical demographic stats and standardized test scores for each of the county’s charters.

What I found most interesting were the Superintendent’s recommendations:

“Given the position that the SCCOE Board of Education has taken in being “bold” and “courageous” in authorizing countywide charters as well as those charters that come to them on appeal, and the voiced concern of creating charter school “urban sprawl” one of the key recommendations from this preliminary overview is for the SCCOE to develop a strategic or master plan for charter schools. A more detailed look at where future charter schools are to be located as well as the student grade levels to be served is certainly warranted in addition to what it is that charters offer that make them unique.”

Here the Superintendent steps in front of a political bus by saying the county board needs a master plan based on the specific needs of Santa Clara County. You get that? A plan based on demonstrable need. That would be a major departure from this board’s politics De La Torre’s fateful recommendation | BCS in Context:

4-20-14 Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida

Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida, red in Washington, dark sky-blue in Israel and public school in Education:

Academica Charter Schools Under Federal Investigation

From Mary McGrory in the Miami Herald: TALLAHASSEE — The state’s largest charter school management company has come under scrutiny from the U.S. Department of Education for potential conflicts of interests in its business practices, federal authorities have confirmed. The Education Department’s Inspector General Office is auditing the South Miami-based Academica Corp. as part of a broader examina

by Bob Sikes / 46min 

4-19-14 Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida ALL Week

Scathing Purple Musings | Color me purple in Florida, red in Washington, dark sky-blue in Israel and public school in Education:Scathing Purple Musings  Color me purple in Florida ALL WeekMeet the New FCAT, Same as the Old FCATSunshine State News reporter Allison Nielson writes of FCATs last year with a paradox: “Parting is such sweet sorrow — sort of.” And also this: After a dramatic drop in FCAT

by mike simpson / 23min 

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 4-20-14

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit:

“Obamacore”: REPUBLICANS SEE POLITICAL WEDGE IN COMMON CORE

By JONATHAN MARTIN | New York Times | http://nyti.ms/1nhrkqJ      “You have this unlikely marriage of folks on the far right who are convinced this is part of a federal takeover of local education, who have joined hands with folks on the left associated with teachers unions who are trying to sever any connection between

by smf / 33min hide  //  save

L.A. Nonprofits Get Nearly $1 Million To Train Parents To Advocate For Their Kids’ Education

Deepa Fernandes | Pass / Fail | 89.3 KPCC http://bit.ly/1i2eYRd Ashley Myers-Turner/KPCC | A preschool aged boy uses his recess time to play with a word puzzle. April 17th, 2014, 1:13pm  ::  Two Los Angeles area non-profit groups received grants of about $900,000 from theW.K. Kellogg Foundation to train families of young children in the Los Angeles Unified School District to advocate for

by smf / 35min 

Academic Advantage: TUTORING CENTER PUSTED FOR SCAMMING MILLIONS IN FEDERAL DOLLARS

by Vanessa Romo, LA School Report | http://bit.ly/1niswtK April 18, 2014 11:56 amA tutoring company billing itself as “The trusted name for specialized tutoring” may not be so trustworthy after all. Unless, that specialty is in defrauding the federal government. The Academic Advantage, whose website is endorsed by The Governator himself —Arnold Schwarzenegger – and former LA Unified

by smf / 45min 

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit 4-19-14

4LAKids - some of the news that doesn't fit:4LAKIDS - SOME OF THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T FIT  Field Poll: 3 out of 5 OF CALIFORNIA VOTERS SUPPORT UNIVERSAL PRESCHOOL FOR 4-YEAR-OLDSNews stories/Follow the links: Majority of California voters support universal preschool for 4-year-olds -- Most California voters think the state should increase the availability of preschool for the state’s 4-year-olds, ac

by mike simpson / 45min 

4-20-14 Wait What?

Wait What?:

Happy Easter…

And a belated happy Passover, Holi, Paryusan, Ostara and other spring holidays to all my readers. Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love! – Chief Sitting Bull May the longer days and brighter light bring […] The post Happy Easter… appeared first on Wait What?.

by jonpelto / 30min 

4-19-14 Wait What? All Week

Wait What?:  Wait What? All WeekMalloy political operation sidesteps Connecticut law limiting contributions from lobbyists.Limiting the financial influence of lobbyists was one of the most important elements of Connecticut’s post-Rowland campaign finance reforms. In its final form, Connecticut law states that, “…lobbyists and their immediate families may make qualifying contributions of up to $100

by mike simpson / 29min 

4-20-14 Schools Matter

Schools Matter:

Cherry Blossoms

There's nothing like being in Washington, DC during Cherry Blossom season. The Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials, the Capitol Building, the Washington Monument and the new World War II Memorial. There's the Vietnam Memorial, the Martin Luther King Memorial, the Holocaust Museum and so much more. The city is a shining light on the hill but the  Congress is dysfunctional, ineffective and embattled in

by freetoteach / 2h 

Newark Citizens United Against CorpEd Miseducation Plan

Signed by 77 local ministers:

by Jim Horn / 0min 

4-19-14 Schools Matter All Week

Schools Matter:  Schools Matter All WeekCitizen Jack's analysis of Michelle Rhee's recent mendaciousness"In an even more disturbing revelation heard on the tape Rhee laughs about when the tape was removed hurting the children and some even started to bleed." — John Kugler "Jack," a frequent commenter on Professor Ravitch's site, sent me the following analysis in which he compar

by mike simpson / 53min