Educators Release Updated VAM Score for Secretary Duncan
By Educators for Shared Responsibility.
In 2012, concerned that accountability for US student outcomes was being unfairly characterized as the sole responsibility of classroom teachers, a group called Educators for Shared Accountability emerged from the classrooms of the heartland and made a bold statement with a single press release. These educators didn’t accept the bald conceit of education reformers and Department of Education functionaries that teachers alone should be branded when American children struggle to meet learning and growth targets. These teachers wanted badly to share the accountability that had been hung around their necks with decision-makers who not only earned more money than them but who also had their hands on levers of educational influence that the teachers would never come near. After describing the harsh accountability environment that existed for teachers in 2012 (and remains little-changed today), the press release said this:
Strangely missing in all of this, of course, is any sort of mechanism for holding people like Arne Duncan publicly accountable for student-level data attributable to their performance in an important position of leadership.
Educators for Shared Accountability contended that the provision of a quality education for America’s schoolchildren was the responsibility of many, not just the burden of the men and women standing in front of classrooms. Policymakers, federal and state politicians, appointed officials, taxpayers, voters, lobbyists, and activist philanthropies—all these players have an effect on what happens in classrooms. All of them have fingerprints on the children and, as such, none of these actors should be held more or less accountable than the others. They all work in concert to craft the practices that ultimately drive student-level outcomes.
If our children are failing to meet academic expectations, Educators for Shared Accountability believed it to be tremendously dishonest—though politically useful—to pretend that teachers alone bear the fault. Instruction is not the only input affecting the education of children. Is funding equal from school to school? Teachers have no say over this. Are resources sufficient? Teachers have no say. Are schools crumbling? Are libraries stocked? Are nurses available? Are there arts or other creative opportunities available to the children? Extracurricular activities? Are adequate social supports in place for students?
Teachers have no say.
Yet until 2012, teachers alone enjoyed “accountability.”
Operating under the belief that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, Educators for Shared Educators Release Updated VAM Score for Secretary Duncan - Living in Dialogue:
