Education Week 3/30/2011 issue

Task Force Recommends Student Scores Be Included in National-Board Portfolios, p. 8

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), which oversees national board teaching certification, is considering the inclusion of standardized test scores.  Currently, board certification requires a teacher to pass rigorous assessments (including content and pedagogy) and to submit four classroom-based portfolios, including an analysis of their instruction.  Certification can be in any of 25 areas.  Portfolios include items such as lesson plans, reflective analyses, and student work samples.  Current guidelines are flexible enough to allow teachers to submit many different kinds of student work in their portfolios.

The Board is re-evaluating its guidelines to make sure that its assessments are in line with its standards.  Although it has up to now stayed out of the current discussion and controversy regarding standardized test scores as a measure of student growth in learning, it now wants to consider these for possible use as another component of a program for evaluating teachers.  Critics point to the current patchwork of local and state assessments, concluding that standardized tests are highly in doubt as a measure of student learning and teacher effectiveness. 

[Comment:  My first thought was that while a review of standards for national-board certification may be in order, I’m not sure it was wise for this Board to wade into the standardized tests as a measure of teacher effectiveness controversy.  It might have been better to wait until some sort of consensus emerges on this issue first.  But then it occurred to me that maybe they want to weigh in on this topic and help create a consensus.  They seem to think that standardized tests should be one component in evaluating teachers, and this may be the consensus position that they are promoting.]

Education Week 3/16/2011

D.C. Success Must Go Beyond Test Scores, Study Says, p. 6

The National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies has been hired to evaluate the effectiveness of  reforms to the D.C.  school system that were made during the tenure of its previous chancellor, Michelle Rhee.  While test scores have been going up in the district since Rhee came aboard in 2007 and implemented some major  reforms, the NRC says that test scores alone cannot prove students are learning better, nor can they be attributed to specific changes made by Rhee.  The NRC wants the district to beef up its longitudinal student data system so it can properly evaluate the effects of Rhee’s reforms.  The system for gathering this data is not up and running yet.  Most urban school systems have more sophisticated data systems than those in D.C.

Some problems with the current data:  There have been demographic changes in the district in recent years, such as an increase in the poverty rate, a decrease in the numbers of students with disabilities or with limited English proficiency, a decrease in black students, and an increase in white and Hispanic students.  Demographic changes can skew the data.  Also, it was noted that test scores were beginning to increase before the reforms were made.  A closer look at specific schools and specific areas will be in order as more data become available.

Education Week 3/09/2011 issue

Colleges Play Catch-Up With HEA, p. 15

Title II of the Higher Education Act’s 2008 reauthorization placed new reporting requirements on colleges of education and on the states, and some are having to scramble to catch up with the new requirements.  Previously they only had to report passing rates on teacher licensing tests, but Title II now requires them to provide “scaled scores” on these tests, which will allow state-wide comparisons, in effect generating “report cards” for the states and for individual colleges of education.  The Educational Testing Service (ETS) is providing this scaled-score information to 35 states and territories.

Some deans at colleges of education have questioned the comparability of the scores.  Randy Hitz at Portland State points out that there is variation among institutions in how they define “clinical experience,” for example.  But others point out that any information that goes beyond simple pass or fail is bound to be an improvement.  Also, scaled scores can help a school identify areas where it is weak.

[Question:  how do Oregon colleges of education compare?]

Education Week 3/02/2011 issue

Money, Public Policy Tangled in Wisconsin Labor Feud, p. 1

Gov. Scott Walker’s proposal to cut back collective bargaining rights for most public employees has sparked a feud with teachers throughout the state.  Walker says that his proposal will help financially-strapped school districts by saving money to help offset upcoming reductions in state aid.  Wisconsin faces a $3.6 billion shortfall over the next two years.  His plan would require public employees to contribute more to their pensions and health care, so pension and health-care costs for school districts would be likely to decrease.  A more controversial part of his plan would limit unions’ collective bargaining to wages only, excluding benefits such as health care from these negotiations.

Local school administrators have questioned whether Scott’s proposals will in fact save them money in the years ahead.  If they do save them money in personnel expenses , thesesavings are unlikely to be enough to cover cuts in state aid.  They feel that such an approach will promote discord between teachers and school administrators, who often enjoy amicable relationships.

There is concern that Scott’s approach will spread to other states who find themselves in a similar budget crunch.  Ohio is considering proposals that would also limit collective bargaining in areas such as school assignments, class size.  It is also considering teacher pay based on merit and forbidding the exculsive use of seniority in determining teacher layoffs.  The feud in Wisconsin, with teachers staging a sit-in at the state capitol, has galvanized teachers’ unions  in other states.  More to come.

[A politic sidebar:  police and firefighters were excluded from the proposed changes.  Coincidentally, they were contributors to Walker’s gubernatorial campaign.]

Education Week 2/23/2011 issue

‘Disparate Impact’ Discipline Policy Criticized, p. 27

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, at its 2/11/2011 meeting, discussed the Obama administration’s efforts to reduce the overrepresentation of some racial and ethnic groups in school discipline cases.  Administration officials said that they were looking for intentional discrimination (“different treatment”) as well as disproportionate effects on a particular group (“disparate impact”), even though there may have been no intention of discrimination in the latter.  The goal is to make sure that schools are fairly meting out discipline.  One member of the Commission, Todd Gaziono, was concerned that this approach may put a heavy burden on the school to justify any disparity.

Some teachers have taken issue with this approach.  One resents having to give “a thought to disparate impact,”   viewing this as a constraint on effective discipline whenever he has to remove a disruptive student from class.  Another teacher complained about her district’s change in policies because of disparate impact.  She points out that when her district did away with penalties for students not attending class because of disparate impact, it puts an unfair burden on teachers to reteach the material and retest students when they are allowed to make up the work. 

Some school administrators backed the administration’s efforts, however, touting the approach called Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support, which reduced the proportion of African American males expelled from Rochester, NY, schools.  A new commissioner, Roberta Achtenberg, was sympathetic to the civil rights focus on disparate impact, but she also wants to look at whether the remedies actually work.  She wants to allay educators’ concerns that the federal government is interfering for the sake of “political correctness.”

[My thoughts:  This topic can be a political minefield for a teacher.  As teachers, we need to make sure that our disciplinary decisions are not influenced in any way by ethnic or racial stereotypes.  But we also need to be free to address actual behavioral issues that arise, without having to consider how our classroom management decisions will impact some administrator’s statistical scorecard.]

Education Week 2/9/2011 issue

‘College for All’ Confronted:  Harvard Report Proposes Diverse Academic Paths, p.1

Leaders of a group project called “Pathways to Prosperity” at the Harvard Graduate School of Education have called for changing the education system for those students who are not planning on pursuing bachelor’s degrees.   They contend that the “college for all” model is not working for many students, who instead need solid preparation for other occupations.  They note that by their mid- twenties, 60% of Americans have not earned associate’s or bachelor’s degrees.  At the same time, half the new jobs in the next decade will be in “middle skills” occupations that will require vocational or technical training.  They propose presenting career options to students in middle school and then identifying the course work and training required for these middle-skill careers.  They suggest having employers help define the skills necessary and also having them provide internships linked to students’ courses of study, similar to what is being done in Europe.  Early career counseling for students is another suggestion, which is largely absent today.

Members of the group acknowledge that their proposals raise familiar concerns about “tracking” students, however, where the less-capable students, often disadvantaged students, would be channeled into less-demanding programs with more limited prospects for the future.  Critics point out that when multiple tracks with different standards are created, a disproportionate number of poor students and students of color of end up going down the lesser track.  The group contends, however, that they simply want to change the system so that students have will have real choices to make when they turn 16, with their parents’ help.  They point to some exemplary career and technical education programs in California as examples of choices that may be good options for many students.

[My thoughts:  I believe that there are students being ill-served by a system predicated on a college-for-all model.  Vocational training and academic courses appropriate to these vocations are not much in evidence in many high schools.  Many students have to wait to get such training in community colleges, if they get that far.

I have reservations about having students make career choices at age 16, however, when many are still pretty immature and when most haven’t found their calling yet.  There is something to be said for getting a taste of the world before deciding what you want to do with your life.  But for those who are ready to make such a decision, there should be a vocational channel with appropriate resources available.]

Study Finds Academic Payoffs in Teaching Students Social Skills, p.8

Researchers have found that students who took part in social and emotional learning (SEL) not only improved their behavior but also improved academically, improving their grades and standardized test scores by 11 percentile points.  The aim of SEL is to provide a foundation for academic learning by teaching students skills in self-awareness, self-management, getting along with others, and decision-making.  For the study, researchers focused on SEL programs that taught broad universal social skills, rather than targeting specific students with specific behavior issues.  The students in these programs demonstrated improved social skills, less emotional distress and better attitudes, fewer conduct problems, and more frequent positive behaviors such as cooperating with or helping other students.  One SEL expert suggested that these improvements in social skills helped the students academically as well because their teachers could teach more effectively by staying on task with these calmer, more cooperative students.  A report in 2003 found that teachers lost as much as 30% of their instructional time dealing with behavior issues in class.

One surprise from the study:  simple teacher-led SEL programs were more effective than multifaceted programs that involved school-wide activities and parental involvement.  This may be due to the difficulty of coordinating the implementation of these more complex programs, however.

[My thoughts:  This study provides a strong argument for the importance of social skills training, and it did not even look at social skills training for specific behavioral issues such as bullying.  Not only did behavior improve, but also academic performance.  If the academic improvement by these students did indeed result from a more peaceful classroom, then all students benefited, not jus the students whose behavior was in need of correction.]

Education Week 2/2/2011 issue

ESEA Renewal Could Gain Momentum, p. 1

Progress has been stalled on a reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), pending since 2007.  The current version of the law is the No Child Left Behind Act, enacted in 2002.  President Obama is pushing for a more flexible version of NCLB, touting the $4 billion Race to the Top competition and recent efforts to develop common academic standards as approaches that could be incorporated into a reauthorization.  He would like to push back the goal to bring all students to proficiency on state tests to 2014, replacing this with new standards focused on getting students ready for college or for the work force.  He also wants to spend $100 million to recruit new science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) teachers.

There is bipartisan agreement in a number of areas that could be included in a reauthorization.  There is a desire to modify the NCLB yardstick known as “adequate yearly progress,” which is seen as punitive and inflexible.  There is agreement that the federal government should address the needs of lowest-performing schools and promote teacher evaluation and improvement.  The focus should be broadened to other subjects besides reading and math.  And leaders in both parties want to give more control to states and districts over the strategies that are used to improve student achievement.

There have been some disagreements, however.  Republicans want to hold down spending, often do not like federal standards of any sort, and some question whether there should even be a Department of Education.  Democrats have clashed over whether test scores should be a factor in teacher evaluations and pay.  One prominent House Democrat suggested that teachers need to know how their practices affect student learning, but he acknowledged that teacher organizations will have to be involved in teacher evaluations.

[My thoughts:  Some of Obama’s comments about and goals for education, as outlined in hi s State of the Union address, are certainly laudable:  “When a child walks into a classroom, it should be a place of high expectations and high performance.”  Instead of another race or competition for limited available funding, however, I would rather see funding sufficient to foster innovation and improvement in all schools that are underperforming.  Wouldn’t it be great if we funded education fully, and required the military to hold bake sales and fundraisers to raise the money for new weapons systems?]

Wanted:  Ways to Measure Most Teachers, p. 1

A big issue in teacher evaluations is what measure or measures to use to estimate how much of an impact an individual teacher has made on student learning.  Almost a dozen states last year took steps to require teacher evaluations to include consideration of students’ academic growth.  One controversial approach measures a teacher’s “value added,” a measure that looks at the difference between students’ test scores on standardized tests at the beginning of the course and again at the end of the course.  These standardized tests are typically available on in the areas of math and reading, however, and only in grades 4-8.  According to one estimate, about 70% of teachers teach in nontested grades or subjects.  One problem with using such standardized tests to guide or evaluate teachers is that they represent a snapshot in time, a picture of where students are at, but they do not tell the teacher what needs to be done next or how to improve teaching strategies.  They measure the endpoint and not the beginning point in student learning.

In some areas throughout the country, teachers’ unions, administrators, and content-area specialists are working together to develop measures of teaching effectiveness in areas other than math or reading.  They are looking at alternative measures such as projects, portfolios (scored using guidelines), and classroom-based assessments.  In one North Carolina district, schools help teachers set rigorous achievement goals for their students and select or craft assessments to measure goal-attainment.  Performance pay in the district is based on these outcomes.  Studies have shown a correlation between rigorous learning objectives and higher performance by students.  Individually-set student learning objectives are difficult to compare with other schools, however, unlike district-wide or state-wide measures.  Several states now require multiple measures of a teacher’s contribution to student learning.  Other issues with teacher evaluations include finding ways to assess teachers of students with disabilities, and making sure that some teachers are not penalized because of the demographic makeup of their classes.

[My thoughts:  Some subjects are more amenable to standardized testing than others (math, for example), and these subjects are probably better-suited to more standardized criteria for teacher evaluation.  Other subjects have more variation in their curricula and do not have standardized tests, making comparative measurement of teacher effectiveness more difficult.  And then there are the larger questions, such as how to measure a teacher’s contribution to the development of students’ critical reasoning abilities.  I’d like to see a formula for that!]