Governor Dennis Daugaard has proposed that South Dakota increase the frequency of standardized testing of students from the current NCLB regime of once-a-year tests for grades 3, 4, 5, 8, and 11 to tests at the start, middle, and end of each school year for every grade. This explosion of testing would form the basis of 50% of the new teacher evaluation system Gov. Daugaard seeks to impose statewide (just one of many elements of HB 1234 that have not been revised at all since this awful bill was introduced last month). Those test scores would form a major basis for the competitive merit bonuses that Governor Daugaard thinks would whip South Dakota's laggardly teachers into shape.
Hooooonnnnk! Wrong again. According to psychology professor Daniel Willingham, value-added measures don't accurately measure teacher performance, for six reasons:
Missing data leads to bias, correlated scores are unreliable... oh, but there we go again, talking about science and facts. All we really need is to just really believe that it will work, right, Senator Nelson?
GOP leading war on education: Santorum not only earth hater candidate to decry college @WaPo.
The video was entertaining - completely one-sided - but entertaining. The final statement was a laugher - "It's not fair!" When is life ever fair?! I worked at a credit union for several years where we utilized the dreaded merit-based rewards system. I could come up with a whole laundry list of "fair" reasons why I didn't get a good score in a particular time period (a la your video post), but ultimately, if I consistently provided good service I would consistently get good rewards pay. What's so hard about that? Do I think this bill is perfect? Far from it, but at least it is trying to actually do something about the horrible state of education in our state (no pun intended :)).
Nathan,
Two quick questions: Was 50% of your evaluation based on your customers' performance? Was the rewards pay limited to only 20% of the employees? Did you supervisor see you perform your duties more than 3 times a year?
HB 1234 rewards merit pay on those criteria. Besides, there's no evidence that merit pay works
I guess that was 3 questions
No, no...and, as a bonus response...no. :) There are unique aspects to each job and bonus system. I am not arguing that this system is the same or different than my credit union job. I am simply arguing for the principle of merit-based rewards. If you perform well consistently you will get rewarded. How can you argue with that?...unless you are a bad teacher. :)
Under this system, 80% of the teachers are "bad teachers" and will not get rewarded. The Governor and his people designed the bill to make it that way, so I am not at all convinced that hard work and effectivenss will be rewarded under the proposed system.
I used the term "bad" tongue-in-cheek. I don't think that awarding the top performers says the rest are "bad." My understanding is that the state is actually increasing the amount of money paying our teachers through this bill. So, either leave the pay as is without the increase, or reward the top 20%. It sounds like a positive for most teachers.
Nathan, life is not fair. But that does not justify passing unfair laws, or policies that research says don't work.
A technical note: HB 1234 appropriates no money itself. It counts on next year's legislature to fund it. If this boondoggle creaks through the House (Senate just passed it amended 22-12), let's hope next year's legislators agree to pull the plug.
HB 1234 is not a positive for most teachers, Nathan. It perpetuates the war on teachers by claiming that our schools don't deserve to get back even the money that was cut in the budget crisis last year, let alone get more money, without jumping through even more hoops.
Do you ever think the legislatures do this kind of stuff just to yank you fellows around and keep your eye off the ball, then go home and laugh like those guys with capes that go "Mmmmuwahahahahaha?"
I'm just askin...
No, Grudz, I'm not quite convinced "they" are quite that devious... or that smart. But I can't wholly dismiss the suggestion. How many really believe this plan will produce the intended results? How many are doing this to fulfill an ideological agenda? And how many are using this bill as a smokescreen for... something? I give the first two more probability than the third.
Grudz, I'd be surprised to learn that any of our esteemed legislators had the wherewithal to be truly, purposefully diabolical. A little treacherous maybe... but diabolical? ...put it this way, if they are, they are doubly so in constructing the "ship of fools" facades they present.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, grudz. ;^)
...perfidious... most likely they are just preferidos.
http://www.cigar.com/cigars/viewcigar.asp?brand=333
...although there might be a couple of them who could pull it off... http://thrash618.deviantart.com/art/The-Villain-194765090
ip reader calls it: chemical toilet puts Bill Janklow's idea of public radio on the block.
Flipping through the channels I came upon that conservative show you love so much. One of the things mentioned was that we would be facing $50 million in added Medicare costs very soon. If that is truly the case, we won't have the money to fund merit pay next year. If the feds finally deal with the budget crisis in Washington, we might be seriously looking at another round of cuts and an increase in taxes.
Add that 50 mil to the 70-100 mil the SD is short in state retirement health care Michael. I think our Exec believes they addressed that issue with Obama Care, but, it is on the books.
I wondered if this testing was Mel but thought she was against NCLB?
There's a point that has me itchy, Les. We're bailing out of NCLB, but we're going to do three times as much the testing that made NCLB so bad in the first place... and in every grade! We didn't want to tie district report cards to tests, but we'll hang teacher pay on them. Something isn't connecting here....
I'm not sure I agree with merit pay for teachers, but it's rather attractive holding teachers accountable (and consequently rewarding them) for classroom performance.
I don't buy that teaching is an inherently unique and unmeasurable activity. It may not be as easy as mesuring how well a stock broker's portfolio performed for the company, but it's not mysticism either.
I'm also not sure I'm fully swayed by the arguments this professor lays out - survey mortality is unavoidable. Over the whole of a school, the survey size is large enough to not worry about it - on a classroom scale, there may need to be special dispensations.
When it comes to correlation, reliability, and difference scores, he's painting with broad strokes, and there's plenty of literature explaining how to get highly reliable data using difference scores where high correlation exists. (Brennan, Yin & Kane discussed doing so in an education setting, even).
However, getting the right fit and a measurement tool that's "good enough" is going to take some time, and should not be formed unilaterally at the 11th hour of our legislative session.
When it comes to administrator support, that's where we need good ways to ensure our administrators are doing their jobs as well (and not be handing out 5 year contracts). What's good for the goose is good for the gander; Administrators should be held accountable for how well their teachers perform.
WayneB--If a stockbroker has a stock that isn't performing--he can dump it. What if the stockbroker couldn't dump the stock, but somehow had to convince it to perform at a higher level????? Education is unique--our "product" is someone's child!
SHart - education is not unique.
There are plenty of fields where someone has less concrete measures than "did I earn the company X dollars". Should we not hold counsellors and psychologists accountable for how well they help their patients? How does a firm know if a psychiatrist is effectively performing his or her duties?
How is it we can say with a straight face that we can measure how well student Joe did in his 13 years in the South Dakota Regental system, achieved a diploma and a GPA... yet for some reason, we can't for the life of us figure out who or what has had a signficant impact on how well or poorly Joe got from Kindergarten to 12th grade.
Sure, you can't just dump Joe because it hurts your numbers. Neither can hospitals refuse to accept ER patients who are clearly going to die and hurt their outcome statistics. You do the best you can with what you've got, and constantly strive to find better ways to improve outcomes.
It's a value judgement to say that those institutions and individuals who strive to make the most difference should reap the greatest rewards for their efforts. I'm not philosophically opposed to the idea.
But I'm also not married to the idea. It's just very difficult for me to hear people say we cannot measure, reward, and punish people for their performance in their job because it's a special field. It's okay if everyone else is measured on their various widgets, but not me...
Just because we're dealing with developing human beings doesn't mean people shouldn't be held accountable for their actions and the impact they have on others' lives.
Is educating our children to the best of our abilities important? You bet. It's probably one of the most important things we can do for ensuring the quality of our lives and the ultimate survival of our species. But to hide the process in dogma and mysticism and to say you cannot possibly understand the components, mechanisms, and workings of this universe is not the way of the open minded, the social scientist. Our duty is to poke, prod, explore, hypothesize, validate and legitimize what works and what doesn't.
If the state forced school districts to standardize all curriculum, lesson plans and tests, we could test each student every day. We could then base teacher pay for that day based on whether the kids improved from previous day.
WayneB -- For the most part, psychologists and counselors deal with people who want to be there and who want to improve. Hospitals also deal with people who want help and want to be there. We deal with children who may not want to be here, and openly resist any effort to help them learn.
I disagree, SHart.
Hospitals spend the most time and money on the top 5% of chronically ill patients - people with diabetes, chronic heart failure, pulmonary issues... people who aren't compliant with directions or won't do anything to improve their condition.
Psychologists have to deal with emergent behavioral health, court mandated counseling, etc. These, again, are people who don't want to be there, or may even be hostile.
Think about parole and truant officers. From the stories my coworker's husband tells, only the Mexicans on parole are the compliant ones and give him the least trouble.
There are plenty of jobs where part of how well you perform with noncompliant people is part of the equation on your evaluation.
I've taught at the college level, and I understand where you're coming from - it's always amazed me how students will pay me to challenge them as little as possible (I taught an introductory, required class). My challenge is finding ways to engage as many of those students and inspire them to digest the material discussed. It's easier for me to say "well, they're adults now, so if they don't come ready and willing, that's their choice." but I just can't think that way - part of my job is to strive for more.
I see way too much of the blame game when it comes to education. Teachers blame parents for not participating and encouraging their kids to study. Teachers blame kids for not wanting to learn. Parents blame teachers for the whole gambit of their child's ill behaviors. Kids blame everyone.
Nobody seems to want to be held accountable for their actions and how their actions and attitudes can impact others... and that gets cloaked behind the curtain. Let's not hide. Let's fund education appropriately, but let's also hold teachers accountable for their performance.
Does that mean we should get rid of continuing contract and enact merit pay? Cory's done a pretty good job convincing me that won't help increase educational outcomes... but we also know that South Dakota gets pretty decent outcomes despite severely underfunding education. If we're going to fund it, let's fund it right.
Let's start with a goal, develop strategies and action steps to achieve that goal, and do everything in our power to ensure we keep that end in mind.
Cory's right that HB 1234 is premature. I've sent correspondence to my reps to vote it down and plan instead.
"There are plenty of fields where someone has less concrete measures than “did I earn the company X dollarsâ€. Should we not hold counsellors and psychologists accountable for how well they help their patients? How does a firm know if a psychiatrist is effectively performing his or her duties? "
Seems to me there have been studies indicating that time really does heal all wounds including many psychiatric wounds. Counseling may in fact be nearly useless with little difference with or without it.
As the son of a mother who taught for 35 years, I can tell you she knew exactly where each student's progress was. I can also tell you my mother was an absentee parent to accomplish this and probably took better care of her students than her own children.
Thanks Wayne for stating this in a way that does not diminish or elevate those in our ed system beyond their due.
Michael, at the point where you require me to teach each day from a lesson playbook from Pierre, I quit. I'm an artist, not a robot.
I agree with Wayne. Teaching skills can and should be evaluated. The things is, it is such a subjective endeavor that the evaluation process can be very tricky. I think it needs to have very accessible pathways for stakeholders, including the educator being evaluated, to be actively involved. Leaving evaluation to an administrator is a bad idea. (BTW, heightened scrutiny of administrators is a very good idea.)
How many of you saw "Moneyball?" I would say the major theme was accurate evaluation and innovation. It pointed out how flawed simple human evaluation is. The pro scouts, who had decades of experience among them, and evaluated human beings according to the scout's experience and knowledge of the game -- was frequently wrong.
What does that mean about our educator evaluations? Is there a correlation? I think the fact that in both cases it is human beings who are evaluated is a relationship to educator evaluations. But on the other hand, there aren't Educator Stats like there are Baseball Stats. The scouts were simply evaluating the players who wanted very much to be Big League baseball players. They looked at the players where they were at in one point in time.
Still, I wonder if we can get some ideas from that type of review. I really don't know.
Cory, you better get ready because logically it is coming in one form or another. Maybe it won't be daily lesson plans but class expectations will be standardized.
I loathe inevitability. Bring that system, and I will quit, and I will home school.
Great thoughts, Wayne. I won't appeal to dogma and mysticism. I'm having more fun pointing out that dogma and mysticism are all the few supporters of HB 1234 seem to have to support their position.