- Emphasis on standardized test scores is not the way to evaluate teachers [Arts and Technology Academy, Community Academy Amos I, Hope Community Lamond, Meridian, and Washington Latin PCS mentioned]
- Bad faith in D.C.
- School choice is on the march: When educators compete, students win
Emphasis on standardized test scores is not the way to evaluate teachers [Arts and Technology Academy, Community Academy Amos I, Hope Community Lamond, Meridian, and Washington Latin PCS mentioned]
The Examiner
By Mark Lerner
April 16, 2013
The Washington Post's Emma Brown revealed the other day that the D.C. Office of the State Superintendent of Education has determined that cheating occurred in 18 public school classrooms during the taking of the 2012 D.C. CAS. The DCPS facilities involved include Brightwood, Winston, Beers, Hendley, Kenilworth, Langdon, and Minor. Four charter schools were listed as having cheated on the standardized test and are listed as Arts and Technology Academy, Community Academy Amos I, Hope Community Lamond and Meridian. The PCSB's Scott Pearson added some detail to this story by pointing out that the above charters had critical violations of testing procedures which means that academic results may have been altered. Three other charters had moderate violations in the way the test was administered not involving cheating and one school had a minor violation.
Of the charters that had critical violations all but one demonstrated an issue in one classroom only. At Meridian the PCSB indicates that five classrooms in grades four, five, and six were implicated that instruct over 40 percent of all students in the school.
As I have seen in organizations in which I have worked management goals that threaten the job security of individuals often provide powerful incentives for people to behave differently than they would normally. This has been one criticism of the DCPS teacher evaluation that ties ratings to student standardized test scores. One education leader I know who has been consistently strongly against the idea of using test score results as the major focus in grading instructors is the well-respected head of school for Washington Latin PCS Martha Cutts. I thought that this was a good time to ask her for her reasons for reaching this conclusion. Here's what she explained:
"Accountability is important, and as the leader of a public charter school in DC, I understand that the greater autonomy I have to lead my school comes with the requirement for greater accountability. While accountability is critical, I take issue with the strong emphasis prevalent today on using data from standardized test scores as a primary way to evaluate teachers. Hiring, supporting, and retaining the best possible faculty are the most important things I do and in determining a teacher’s effectiveness, I want to take a lot more into account than the results of the DC-CAS. The DC-CAS tests reading, mathematics and in some grades composition, science and biology. Should the Latin, art, geography, and physics teachers be evaluated based on the results of tests that don’t focus on these disciplines? Of course not.
The following are my guidelines for hiring; I am looking for teachers who:
- have expertise in what they will teach and love working with young people;
- can create in the classroom an atmosphere where the students know that the teacher knows them as individuals and wants them to be successful;
- allow students to take risks and admit mistakes without being humiliated; and
- communicate their passion for what they teach in a way that is exciting and fun.
The relationships between the adults and the students make all the difference in learning.
The ability to engender trust and respect are not measured by the results on the DC-CAS but they play a critical role in how successful a teacher becomes. A teacher’s willingness to go the extra mile for students, to work in partnership with parents, to be a role model and source of support when things aren’t going well are all important signs of a teacher’s effectiveness. These traits can’t all be measured quantitatively, and that is why smaller schools where the administrators can devote time to really knowing their staff and working with them as individuals are important. There can be myriad explanations and causes for a student’s performance on a standardized test, many of which have nothing to do with how good the teacher is at their job. When a student comes to school on a regular basis having had a poor night’s sleep or not enough nutritious food to eat, there is a price to pay in that student’s ability to focus and learn. Too many of our young people don’t have parents who can provide a sufficient space for doing homework or support and structure at home in making homework a priority. Too many of our young people are desperately worried about their parents who are working hard to make ends meet or even to get a job. These distractions detract from a student’s ability to sustain the necessary focus and effort to make significant academic progress.
At Washington Latin, we include the following responsibilities in every teacher’s job description and incorporate them into a teacher’s evaluation, in which both the teacher and administrator assess success in meeting these expectations:
• Teach, manage and appreciate students assigned to one’s classes;
• Implement current curriculum and contribute to its ongoing development;
• Create and maintain a respectful, orderly, safe environment in which academic inquiry is highly valued and ideas are freely explored;
• Establish and consistently administer high academic and personal expectations for students both in and out of one’s classroom;
• Return all student work in a timely, effective manner;
• Maintain current and accurate student records;
• Write thoughtful, timely, articulate comments about students’ progress;
• Provide extra help for students as needed, regularly being willing to give of one’s time outside of normal school hours;
• Provide support, guidance, and time to homeroom students and advisees;
• Attend important outside activities of homeroom students and advisees where appropriate;
• Carry out assigned student oversight duties (lunch, study hall, homeroom, bus, field trips, testing, etc.); and
• Hold oneself to the same standards to which one holds students.
Charter schools have the opportunity to be successful first and foremost because of their autonomy. That autonomy allows me to determine the size of the school and the size of the individual classes. Small class size is a priority for us at Washington Latin. Our goal as we move into our new campus next year is to have a maximum of 18-20 in any class. Some will be considerably smaller.
Bill Gates wrote a wonderful article on teacher evaluation that appeared in the Washington Post on April 3. I completely agree with him when he says:
What the country needs are thoughtfully developed teacher evaluation systems that include multiple measures of performance, such as student surveys, classroom observations by experienced colleagues and student test results. Ideally, teachers should take part in designing the procedure for their evaluation, but that can only happen in a school where there is an atmosphere of trust and respect between the administration and the faculty."
This makes perfect sense to me.
The Washington Examiner
By Jonetta Rose Barras
April 15, 2013
It would be perfectly understandable if families enrolled in DC Public Schools left en masse. Within the past year, they have been locked out of important decisions regarding the future of the system, made to jump through a series of unnecessary hoops and deliberately lied to. When Mayor Vincent C. Gray and Chancellor Kaya Henderson decided more than a dozen schools needed to be closed, they told parents they would hold community meetings and incorporate their concerns in any final decisions. Most of the schools on the list remained slated for closure after those so-called dialogues. Parents also were promised the closures would allow DCPS to enhance academic programs and provide additional resources, including music and art instructors along with full-time librarians, for which they had lobbied, signed petitions and pleaded.
But a review of the 2014 budget proposal offers evidence that the mayor and Henderson are reneging on those commitments. Further, a change in the definition of small schools from 299 to 400, which came without any warning, not only doesn't provide additional resources, it snatches some away from facilities that may have had them this year. The DCPS' proposed 2014 budget is nearly $819 million -- almost $7 million more than its current budget. So why can't it fund full-time librarians and art instructors at every school along with expansion of foreign language programs? Why weren't parents told, in advance, about changing the definition of small schools and the potentially negative consequences of such action? Did Henderson deliberately misrepresent her intentions about academic enhancements, particularly to parents east of the Anacostia River?
Henderson didn't respond to multiple requests to answers those questions. DCPS spokeswoman Melissa Salmanowitz claimed there wasn't sufficient time -- although the changes already have been incorporated into the budget. The indisputable degradation of academic programs in traditional public schools under the guise of reform is troubling. Equally disturbing is the cavalier way Gray and Henderson have treated parents and other District taxpayers advocating for quality education for the city's children. The D.C. Council's Committee on Education, chaired by David Catania, will begin public hearings Wednesday on the school system's 2014 budget. He already has raised his own concerns about cuts to anti-truancy programs, reduction in nonpublic tuition for special education students, planned construction of megabuildings without surety of increased enrollment and reductions in key academic programs, particularly in low-income communities. "I don't think we're making these schools better," Catania said. He has suggested he will push to secure funding for full-time librarians in public schools. Despite the ramp-up of neighborhood libraries' services and hours, some children live far from such facilities and can rely on only what their schools provide. Catania has suggested other important remedial action: A special "stabilization fund" could be created that would bring additional resources to low-performing schools in poor communities. Further, the city also may need to change the per-pupil funding formula.
"We need a weighted formula to make a system that is fair," Catania said. "This system is not fair."
The Washington Times
By Ed Feulner
April 16, 2013
These days, freedom is under fire in many ways. It’s nice to be able to report that in one area, at least, freedom is marching in the right direction: education. “Indiana’s highest court ruled unanimously in Meredith v. Pence that the Choice Scholarship Program, which provides vouchers to low-income and middle-income families in the Hoosier State, is constitutional,” the Heritage Foundation’s Lindsey Burke reported recently. “The suit, brought by the teachers unions, sought to end the country’s largest and most inclusive school-voucher program.”
We can be grateful the union’s lawsuit failed. Some 600,000 children across Indiana are now eligible to receive scholarships to attend a private school that meets their unique learning needs. The ruling will empower students and parents, instead of education bureaucrats. It also recognizes that while public education is a benefit to all, that doesn’t have to mean that the government should run all the schools. Competition, after all, improves education just as it improves most other things. When schools compete, parents can choose the one that’s right for their child’s learning needs, and that helps everyone. Education freedom is advancing elsewhere. In Texas, lawmakers are considering a measure that would remove the cap on the number of charter schools allowed in the state. There are only 215 right now, but at least 100,000 students are eager to enroll in one. It’s time to increase supply to meet that demand.
The Lone Star state is due for a shake-up. More than half of all public school students there are Hispanic. Yet, while 42 percent of white eighth-graders are proficient in reading, just 17 percent of their Hispanic peers can read on grade level. School choice has already made a big difference for special-needs children in Florida, where the state has made McKay scholarships available. “A survey of McKay Scholarship parents revealed strong rates of satisfaction with services provided in comparison to previous public schools,” researcher Matthew Ladner wrote for the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “The survey found that 92.7 percent of current McKay participants are satisfied or very satisfied with their McKay schools, while 32.7 percent were similarly satisfied with their public schools.”
Elsewhere, Alabama is also moving to expand choice. Its program will provide income-tax credits that will allow students to escape failing schools. Donations to scholarship funds will be tax-deductible. The governor says this is “the most significant piece of legislation that’s been passed in this legislature in years.” Tennessee is considering setting up a voucher program for low-income students who are stuck in underperforming schools. The program would only provide some 5,000 vouchers at first, but would expand to 20,000 over the next several years. Meanwhile, the Obama administration is trying to limit school choice in the nation’s capital. Its proposed budget provides no funding next year for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. This is odd: “According to the Department of Education’s scientifically rigorous evaluation of the program, the DCOSP has been a wild success,” Mrs. Burke writes. “Students who received a voucher and used it to attend a private school had a 91 percent graduation rate 21 percentage points higher than their peers who did not receive a voucher.” The administration wants to spend $75 billion over the next decade supporting a new federal preschool program (even though the government’s Head Start program is a proven failure), but aims to save $20 million a year by ending the voucher program. Talk about penny-wise and pound-foolish. Freedom is threatened on many sides. Obamacare marches forward, endangering religious liberty and personal health care choices. The United States plunges year after year in the Index of Economic Freedom, with big drops in business freedom, labor freedom and monetary freedom dragging us down.
At least in education, we’re seeing some positive steps. That’s good news for our nation’s future.
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