I completely agree with the notion that career ladders, which allow excellent teachers to share their work with other teachers, is the best approach to thinking about ways to provide additional compensation to outstanding educators.
As long ago as 1985 I wrote a policy paper for Irv Moskowitz, then in the Colorado Department of Education, making the same point. We definitely need to find ways to allow teachers to move upward in their profession without having them leave teaching for administration. Having highly skilled teachers take on new mentoring responsibilities can revitalize their professional life and, if done well, can improve teaching throughout the system.
My concern is the means that will be used to identify these outstanding teachers. State Sen. Mike Johnston speaks of multiple measures, but in fact Colorado has only one measure, the CSAP growth model. Reliance on this single battery of tests to determine the trajectory of teacher and principal careers increases the ways in which these tests can further distort the system.
First, teachers would have even more reason than ever to teach to the test rather than to educate students. The hyper-focus on the specific reading, writing, math and science skills and knowledge tested by the exams to the exclusion of other valuable dimensions of those disciplines will accelerate. In addition, the marginalizing of social studies, the arts and the social and emotional skills that all reformers claim to value will be exacerbated.
Second, the power struggles that already exist within most faculties to determine which students are placed with which teachers will intensify to the detriment of collegiality. Demands that all classes be perfectly matched cannot be met without removing all discretion from schools and even if the outcome is accomplished it is unlikely to be in the best interests of anyone.
Classrooms are communities of learners in which personality, peer influences, and chemistry play as much of a role in student learning as demographics. Schools need to be able to shape these classrooms without worrying about distorting the outcomes of the teacher compensation system.
Third, instances of outright cheating, which have already been documented in high stakes testing around the country, will undoubtedly come home to Colorado.
I absolutely support the creation of more robust, nuanced measures of student learning and teacher effectiveness so that a new system does not have to rely exclusively on CSAP growth measures. Unfortunately, every such system that has ever been proposed or developed that is able to meet reliability and validity concerns without being a standardized test is time consuming and expensive.
Even before the current budget crisis Colorado schools were underfunded and there is no reason to assume that this will change in the foreseeable future. Until the underlying school funding system is overhauled and placed on strong fiscal footing I don’t see how we can commit to either a new teacher compensation system or to the development of high quality student and teacher assessment systems needed to undergird it. We just don’t have the money to do the job right.
Trying to do it on the cheap with the information system we have will lead to all three outcomes described above as well as other unintended consequences that we cannot yet imagine.
We have three challenges in improving the quality of teaching. The first is finding fair ways to remove the relatively small number of incompetent teachers who have managed to acquire tenure. The second is finding effective ways to continually improve the teaching skills of all current teachers who wish to remain in the system. And the third is creating a profession that is attractive to the best and brightest.
The last two are system-changing but also expensive and therefore currently unattainable. My recommendation is that legislators work closely with unions to find new ways to address the first issue that are doable within our current fiscal constraints. That will make a difference we can all be proud of.
I’m all for changing the whole system. But not when we don’t have the means to do it right.
Rona Wilensky was the founding principal of New Vista High School, a small, innovative public school of choice in Boulder Valley School District. She retired from that position last June. This year she is a Resident Fellow at the Spencer Foundation in Chicago Illinois.
Popularity: 4% [?]
It’s pretty clear that no legislative solution will work perfectly, but it’s hard to argue that this bill will make things worse — and that should be the comparison point, not some platonic ideal. To argue both the the current system is indefensible, that the proposed system is flawed, and not to posit any solution does not seem like much of a viewpoint — I think one could make the same case about virtaully any piece of legislation.
If this bill has vices (and frankly “hyper-focus on the specific reading, writing, math and science skills and knowledge” does not sound all that bad to me), let’s acknowledge them and improve the system as we build it. We’ve tried the “do nothing” approach for some time. The first Wright Brothers flight went all of 120 feet and lasted 12 seconds — it did not commit air travel to perpetual failure. The first iteration is highly important, but shortcomings are inevitable and it is not the only step.
The problems with this bill are many. Ms. Wilensky does not even address the fact that only about 30% of teachers can be tied by their grade level or subject matter to a CSAP score. What about the other 70% ? This bill has some good purposes behind it, but the bill itself is flawed. There are no agreed-upon standards of teacher effectiveness for the entire state; there are no tests availalbe that can address my first point. There is not capacity in the system for every teacher to be evaluated every year. One of the big problems is how poorly trained and equipped many of our principals are to do a through job evaluating now, let alone when they have to do an evaluation for every teacher every year. And then the issue of “forced placements” which is really an involuntary transfer, is ridiculous. Most large enterprises have to move people around the organization as needs change. Do we say a soldier has a “forced placement”? No, it’s a redeployment. Corporate transfers are common as well. This really isn’t much of an issue outside of DPS.
This is a huge unfunded mandate and an encroachment into local control.
[...] – and we want a quality teacher in every classroom. SB 191 doesn’t help us get there. As an article posted today on EdNews Colorado says, “I’m all for changing the whole system. But not when we [...]
I’ve been reading these blogs for awhile, and I have to question whether Alexander Ooms has worked in a school recently if ever. The “hyper-focus” on subjects assessed by CSAP has not only pushed other essential programs (social studies, arts…) to the wayside, but it has damaged the way the CSAP-assessed content areas are taught, reducing classes to test-taking training grounds awash in textbooks and worksheets and reversing progress toward an education that truly addresses 21st Century skills and processes like critical thinking and media literacy. Furthermore, to suggest that schools “do nothing” about improving the system is absurd. Granted, progress has been excruciatingly slow, but it has been hindered by NCLB as well as other state mandates.
I think Kevin and I will have to disagree on the need for an intense focus on core subjects where DPS has 10th grade proficiency of 16% (Math), 29%(Writing), and 43% (Reading) — for those students who actually make it to 10th grade (or State averages of 30%, 47%, 66%).
Even if I bought the argument that one can pursue skills such as “critical thinking” and “media literacy” while unable to read, write and add at a 10th grade level, I’m afraid to say I know of no parents who believe their children should graduate from a K-12 education lacking these fundamental skills.
Hi all.
There is another, somewhat technical but potentially very impt, issue that I’m not sure has been raised.
One of the weaknesses with growth models is that they do not truly exclude outside influences on a given student’s test scores. So if Mary has a language arts score of 45 on a test taken in March 2011 and a score of 48 on a test taken in March 2012, part of that growth is likely attributed to the quality of her language arts teacher in the 2011-12 school year. But part is also due to a variety of other factors: (a) Mary’s earlier language arts teacher, in March-June of 2011; (b) Mary’s home learning during 2011-12; (c) Mary’s social studies teacher and other teachers who worked with her (or didn’t work with her) on language arts; and (d) Mary’s summer learning experiences (or lack thereof). Additional ongoing effects of wealth or poverty will likely contribute powerfully to her level of growth.
The reason why this seems important to me is not just the lack of construct validity of the high-stakes growth score. The problem is that these factors seem likely to result in a systematic bias in favor of teachers who avoid THE EXACT SAME SCHOOLS that Colorado policy wants to make more attractive to experienced teachers. That is, unless I’m missing something, the incentive system seems to say to teachers, “Avoid schools enrolling students living in conditions of concentrated poverty, because lowered average scores due to all the obstacles faced by those students will be blamed on their teachers.”
Alan? Alexander? Van? Am I wrong here? Or is this just a price you think is worth paying for adding the elements of this reform that you’ve concluded are more important?
Kevin,
You seem oddly to be suggesting that there is no valid way to control for outside variables while measuring academic progress, which surprises me given your position at a research institution. Is your argument really that there is no way to measure a teacher’s influence (or any other single variable) on academic growth?
Likewise, are you saying that you cannot construct an evaluation system that controls for SES across different schools? Or devise a system that encourages our best teachers to attend the schools where they are needed most (which might include a system of mutual consent)?
Lastly, as I’m acutely aware of your ability to find fault will pretty much any reform proposal, and just out of personal interest, are there any substantial educational reforms over the past decade or so that you support? And were those above criticism?
For four years I did minor statistical analysis on all the schools in Amador County, CA.
I translated standardized test scores on reading and math into a scatter diagram. That diagram used the horizontal scale to show average test reading results. The vertical scale showed av. math results. Thus each school became a point on the diagram. The av. reading and math scores for the US was the origin of the two scales. Japan and Great Britain were also shown. The first three years most schools showed modest gains.
After three years, California changed their standardized test. At first I thought that this was done only to make long term comparisons hard to do. But CA Dept of Education said, No. We did it because we were afraid that too many teachers were “teaching to the test”.
When I then drew arrows from each school’s previous graph position to its position on the new standardized exam . . . I saw that they were right! Three quarters of the schools “rained inward” (their arrows were long and pointed to weaker scores in both measures). Worries about “teaching to the test” are very valid.
Teachers, alone, will not be able to deal with factors such as attendance issues. But I believe SB 101 addresses this by incentivizing principals to establish collaborative cultures within a school. Principals will be assessed on student growth as well as the number of effective teachers in their building.
We have to move away from the idea that a teacher working alone, can know and do everything to meet the diverse needs of 150 students everyday. I think that SB 101 takes this into account. Let’s commit to the general idea that our current system is not working and deal with the inevitable bumps along the way as we try to reform education.
Again, and this isn’t a personal attack, but there seems to be a pattern here. Those who work in schools and understand the realities have concerns about the bill. Those who do not work in schools and therefore cannot fathom the realities of the system, but rely on stats and printed material, often support the bill. Since Alex did not say whether or not he works in a school, I would venture to guess he would fit in the latter category. It’s easy to be critical from the outside. I am critical from the inside, but this bill is not the direction we should be taking. See the book by Jacobs “Curriculum 21″ for some insight. One argument in that book is that high stakes testing is keeping us from pursuing education for the 21st Century. I’m all for basic skills, but those skills are mastered via engagement in meaningful educational pursuits, not training for tests. Administrators are leading teachers to take the most direct and seemingly efficient means to raise test scores, sacrificing the forest for the trees. One could argue that students often drop out because schooling has become a pursuit to improve test scores, which means nothing to the typical adolescent. What we need is education, not schooling, and though I agree that tenure is a problem, this bill is yet another mandate, another external intrusion, another cookie-cutter “solution” that won’t do the trick. I agree that it needs to be easier to remove ineffective teachers and that tenure should be abolished, but the rest of the bill is silliness. The problem is systemic, and so-called “bad” teachers are only a small part. W. Edwards Deming would have some things to say about this bill. Fear does not lead to quality. Focusing on quotas does not lead to quality. What we have here is an existential crisis where students wonder why they are in school and teachers wonder how they have found themselves required to teach in ways they promised themselves they would never… I’ve thought long and hard about this bill because, again, I believe tenure should be abolished – and I’m a member of CEA – but the more I read and think the more I am convinced this will be a fiasco. It’s another naive way to tinker with the system without addressing the faults in that system.
I have never drawn a salary or payment from any kind from a school if that is how you define “work”, although I expect I have spent more time inside schools than most “outsiders” — and I never turn down an invitation to visit a school if you care to make one.
I find the insular view that only practitioners of an industry can have valid views both condescending and undemocratic — we all vote and express our opinions to legislators for issues where we have no day-to-day experience, and there is no legislator who has personal expertise in all issues before them. Hopefully it is the quality of the ideas that matter, and not the personal experience of the person with the viewpoint or the idea.
As I’ve argued on the pages elsewhere, a legislative solution is not preferable here, and is bound to have lots of difficulties, but the principal actors — those who do “work in schools” have made no progress on a substantive teacher evaluation process over at least the past quarter century. Without progress from the people most intimately involved, other stakeholders are going to both take an interest and push for changes. It is precisely the colossal failure from insiders that leads to the presence of outsiders — far better to complain about this pressure would be to fix it from within.
I don’t know at which school Kevin teaches, but there nothing stopping them from designing an evaluation system and applying for innovation status to implement it. This would be my preference — for educators to step up and solve this problem themselves — but I’m sure Kevin will have plenty of reasons why an proactive stance of this sort is impossible.
Devaluing what someone has to say because they are not an educator is a trite and lazy argument. Less on motivations and more on substance please.
I am in the classroom. We make data-based decisons in our school. CSAP data is part of the data pool we use. We use the ACT, district common assessments, and in-school common formative assessments to help us make decisions. The teachers are committed to this and the students understand this. That’s why out of over 500 9th gaders, we had one refuse to take the exam. If you have a sound curriculum in place, use best practices, make data-driven decisions, and use “meaningful educational pursuits” tests will take care of themselves.
I agree with Mark’s last statement. The problem is that too many administrators take a different approach and force teachers to strip the meaning from the students’ experience in the pursuit of improving scores. Increasing the stakes seems likely to exacerbate that problem. But this is becoming circular…
I want to address my earlier statement regarding trained and experienced educators vs. those who are not. Call it lazy, trite, consdescending, and undemocratic, but when reps from CEA argued that they wanted to work WITH legislators rather than having this done TO THEM, isn’t that kind of what they are saying? I’ve heard several teachers say things like, “It seems like everyone who went to school thinks they’re experts about education.” That is not to say that those who are not professional educators don’t have some valid ideas, but it is saying that those who are not in the trenches can only imagine what it’s like to work in a school, especially when they also must endure bold lack of respect from legislators and taxpayers. It may not sound P.C., but I’m just putting this out there because it crosses people’s minds, as well as my own. I mean, I drive on roads and bridges frequently, and I can envision improvements to intersections, off ramps, etc., but I’m not going out there and suggesting to trained engineers how they should do their jobs. Imagine politicians deciding the standards for an effective bridge design and mandating that engineers are evaluated based on those standards.
It is interesting, though, that my earlier comments were called undemocratic, because if public schools are failing it is most certainly a failure of democracy. Perhaps this is because the representative system allows those who are most distant from the schools and sometimes incredibly un or misinformed about schooling to make the most sweeping decisions about the system. From local school boards to state boards (look at Texas) to state legislatures and the U.S. Congress, public schools are subject to all manner of misdirected yet often (not always) well-intended legislative mandates. The unintended consequences of NCLB could not be predicted by lawyers and senators in D.C., but teachers saw it coming. And has NCLB successfully resulted in its desired goals?
Teachers want the respect to be heard (and not just lip service) regarding the best ways to improve the system. Sure, there are weak teachers and plenty who need to leave the profession, but even quality teachers find this bill a disheartening attack on their integrity. To dismiss their views wholesale is condescending. For every ineffective teacher there are more effective teachers. To repeatedly accuse teachers, in general, of opposing accountability is simply stereotyping and prejudice. To argue that we must do something, anything, rather than take the time to settle on a better idea is reckless. And maybe we’re barking up the wrong tree. It seems like the more mandates tossed at schools and districts the worse things get. Indeed, it occured to me that if we are going to require that districts evaluate teachers and administrators in such specific ways, perhaps we need to also require that all students get PE, the arts, social studies, and perhaps even certain prevention programs. At least that way we can have the accountability system and ensure students experience what many call whole child education. Isn’t that what some are already trying to do? When will it end?
What we have here is a fight between local control and state control. On the one hand, some argue that the locals have proven their inability to take care of business, and on the other, they argue that state (or federal for that matter) politicians cannot be trusted to make effective decisions.
Who am I kidding? The state is winning this race, and the feds are gaining rapidly. But will the children be the winners?
There you have it; a CEA member who sounds a bit like a libertarian. How’s that for busting stereotypes?