Shanker Blog

The Thrill Of Success, The Agony Of Measurement

** Reprinted here in the Washington Post

The recent release of the latest New York State testing results created a little public relations coup for the controversial Success Academies charter chain, which operates over 20 schools in New York City, and is seeking to expand.

Shortly after the release of the data, the New York Post published a laudatory article noting that seven of the Success Academies had overall proficiency rates that were among the highest in the state, and arguing that the schools “live up to their name." The Daily News followed up by publishing an op-ed that compares the Success Academies' combined 94 percent math proficiency rate to the overall city rate of 35 percent, and uses that to argue that the chain should be allowed to expand because its students “aced the test” (this is not really what high proficiency rates mean, but fair enough).

On the one hand, this is great news, and a wonderfully impressive showing by these students. On the other, decidedly less sensational hand, it's also another example of the use of absolute performance indicators (e.g., proficiency rates) as measures of school rather than student performance, despite the fact that they are not particularly useful for the former purpose since, among other reasons, they do not account for where students start out upon entry to the school. I personally don't care whether Success Academy gets good or bad press. I do, however, believe that how one gauges effectiveness, test-based or otherwise, is important, even if one reaches the same conclusion using different measures.

No Teacher Is An Island: The Role Of Social Relations In Teacher Evaluation

Our guest authors today are Alan J. Daly, Professor and Chair of Education Studies at the University of California San Diego, and Kara S. Finnigan, Associate Professor at the Warner School of Education at the University of Rochester. Daly and Finnigan recently co-edited Using Research Evidence in Education: From the Schoolhouse Door to Capitol Hill (Springer, 2014).

Teacher evaluation is a hotly contested topic, with vigorous debate happening around issues of testing, measurement, and what is considered ‘important’ in terms of student learning, not to mention the potential high stakes decisions that may be made as a result of these assessments.  At its best, this discussion has reinvigorated a national dialogue around teaching practice and research; at its worst it has polarized and entrenched stakeholder groups into rigid camps. How is it we can avoid the calcification of opinion and continue a constructive dialogue around this important and complex issue?

One way, as we suggest here, is to continue to discuss alternatives around teacher evaluation, and to be thoughtful about the role of social interactions in student outcomes, particularly as it relates to the current conversation around valued added models. It is in this spirit that we ask: Is there a 'social side' to a teacher's ability to add value to their students' growth and, if so, what are the implications for current teacher evaluation models?

The Semantics of Test Scores

Our guest author today is Jennifer Borgioli, a Senior Consultant with Learner-Centered Initiatives, Ltd., where she supports schools with designing performance based assessments, data analysis, and curriculum design.

The chart below was taken from the 2014 report on student performance on the Grades 3-8 tests administered by the New York State Department of Education.

Based on this chart, which of the following statements is the most accurate?

A. “64 percent of 8th grade students failed the ELA test”

B. “36 percent of 8th graders are at grade level in reading and writing”

C. “36 percent of students meet or exceed the proficiency standard (Level 3 or 4) on the Grade 8 CCLS-aligned math test”

Differences In DC Teacher Evaluation Ratings By School Poverty

In a previous post, I discussed simple data from the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) on teacher turnover in high- versus lower-poverty schools. In that same report, which was issued by the D.C. Auditor and included, among other things, descriptive analyses by the excellent researchers from Mathematica, there is another very interesting table showing the evaluation ratings of DC teachers in 2010-11 by school poverty (and, indeed, DC officials deserve credit for making these kinds of data available to the public, as this is not the case in many other states).

DCPS’ well-known evaluation system (called IMPACT) varies between teachers in tested versus non-tested grades, but the final ratings are a weighted average of several components, including: the teaching and learning framework (classroom observations); commitment to the school community (attendance at meetings, mentoring, PD, etc.); schoolwide value-added; teacher-assessed student achievement data (local assessments); core professionalism (absences, etc.); and individual value-added (tested teachers only).

The table I want to discuss is on page 43 of the Auditor’s report, and it shows average IMPACT scores for each component and overall for teachers in high-poverty schools (80-100 percent free/reduced-price lunch), medium poverty schools (60-80 percent) and low-poverty schools (less than 60 percent). It is pasted below.

How Boston Public Schools Can Recruit and Retain Black Male Teachers

Our guest author today is Travis J. Bristol, former high school English teacher in New York City public schools and teacher educator with the Boston Teacher Residency program, who is currently a research and policy fellow at the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education (SCOPE) at Stanford University.

The challenges faced by Black male teachers in schools may serve as the canary in the coalmine that begins to explain the debilitating condition faced by Black boys in schools. Black males represent 1.9% of all public school teachers yet have one of the highest rates of turnover. Attempts to increase the number of Black male teachers are based on research that suggests these new recruits can improve Black students’ schooling outcomes.

Below, I discuss my study of the school-based experiences of 27 Black male teachers in Boston Public Schools (BPS), who represent approximately 10 percent of all Black male teachers in the district. This study, which I recently discussed in Boston’s NPR news station, is one of the largest studies conducted exclusively on Black male teachers and has implications for policymakers as well as school administrators looking to recruit and retain Black male educators.

Here is a summary of the key findings.

Social Capital Matters As Much As Human Capital – A Message To Skeptics

In recent posts (here and here), we have been arguing that social capital -- social relations and the resources that can be accessed through them (e.g., support, knowledge) -- is an enormously important component of educational improvement. In fact, I have suggested that understanding and promoting social capital in schools may be as promising as focusing on personnel (or human capital) policies such as teacher evaluation, compensation and so on. 

My sense is that many teachers and principals support this argument, but I am also very interested in making the case to those who may disagree. I doubt very many people would disagree with the idea that relationships matter, but perhaps there are more than a few skeptics when it comes to how much they matter, and especially to whether or not social capital can be as powerful and practical a policy lever as human capital.

In other words, there are, most likely, those who view social capital as something that cannot really be leveraged cost-effectively with policy intervention toward any significant impact, in no small part because it focuses on promoting things that already happen and/or that cannot be mandated. For example, teachers already spend time together and cannot/should not be required to do so more often, at least not to an extent that would make a difference for student outcomes (although this could be said of almost any policy).

Lost In Citation

The so-called Vergara trial in California, in which the state’s tenure and layoff statutes were deemed unconstitutional, already has its first “spin-off," this time in New York, where a newly-formed organization, the Partnership for Educational Justice (PEJ), is among the organizations and entities spearheading the effort.

Upon first visiting PEJ’s new website, I was immediately (and predictably) drawn to the “Research” tab. It contains five statements (which, I guess, PEJ would characterize as “facts”). Each argument is presented in the most accessible form possible, typically accompanied by one citation (or two at most). I assume that the presentation of evidence in the actual trial will be a lot more thorough than that offered on this webpage, which seems geared toward the public rather than the more extensive evidentiary requirements of the courtroom (also see Bruce Baker’s comments on many of these same issues surrounding the New York situation).

That said, I thought it might be useful to review the basic arguments and evidence PEJ presents, not really in the context of whether they will “work” in the lawsuit (a judgment I am unqualified to make), but rather because they're very common, and also because it's been my observation that advocates, on both “sides” of the education debate, tend to be fairly good at using data and research to describe problems and/or situations, yet sometimes fall a bit short when it comes to evidence-based discussions of what to do about them (including the essential task of acknowledging when the evidence is still undeveloped). PEJ’s five bullet points, discussed below, are pretty good examples of what I mean.

The Global Relationship Between Classroom Content And Unequal Educational Outcomes

Our guest author today is William Schmidt, a University Distinguished Professor and co-director of the Education Policy Center at Michigan State University. He is also a member of the Shanker Institute board of directors.

It is no secret that disadvantaged students are more likely to struggle in school. For decades now, public policy has focused on how to reduce the achievement gap between poorer and more affluent students. Despite numerous reform efforts, these gaps remain virtually unchanged – a fact that is deeply frustrating, and also a little confusing. It would be reasonable to assume that background inequalities would shrink over the years of schooling, but that’s not what we find. At age eighteen, rather, we find differences that are roughly the same size as we see at age six.

Does this mean that schools can’t effectively address inequality? Certainly not. I devoted a whole book to the subject, Inequality for All, in which I argued that one of the key factors driving inequality in schools is unequal opportunity to learn, or OTL.

It is very unlikely that students will learn material they are not exposed to, and there is considerable evidence that disadvantaged students are systematically tracked into classrooms with weaker content. Rather than mitigating the effects of poverty, many American schools are exacerbating them.

Not All Discipline Disparities May Be The Result Of Implicit Bias

Over the past few months, we have heard a lot about discipline disparities by race/ethnicity and gender -- disparities that begin in the earliest years of schooling. According to the Civil Rights Data Collection Project by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, "black students represent 18% of preschool enrollment, but 42% of preschool students suspended once and 48% of students suspended more than once." It also found that "boys receive more than three out of four out-of-school preschool suspensions."

This focus on student discipline disparities has also drawn attention to the research on implicit bias -- the idea that we all harbor unconscious attitudes that tend to favor individuals from some groups (whites, males, those judged to be good looking, etc.), and that disadvantage people from other groups (people of color, women, ethnic minorities, etc.). The concept of implicit bias suggests that good or bad behavior is often in the eye of the beholder, and disparities in disciplinary outcomes (e.g., suspensions and expulsions) may be influenced by unconscious stereotypes.

Part of me is very glad that we are finally having this conversation. Acknowledging the existence and consequences of subtle, implicit forms of prejudice is an important and necessary first step toward mitigating their effects and advancing toward fairness -- see my implicit bias series here. But it sometimes seems that the discipline and the implicit bias conversations are one and the same, and this concerns me for two reasons.

Where Al Shanker Stood: Democracy In Public Education

There is an ongoing debate in the U.S. about the role of democracy in public education. In March 1997, in his final “Where We Stand” column in the New York Times, Al Shanker addressed this issue directly. The piece, published posthumously, was an excerpt from a larger essay entitled "40 Years in the Profession," which was included in a collection published by the Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation.

Why do I continue when so much of what I’ve worked for seems threatened? To a large extent, because I believe that public education is the glue that has held this country together. Critics now say that the common school never really existed, that it’s time to abandon this ideal in favor of schools that are designed to appeal to groups based on ethnicity, race, religion, class, or common interests of various kinds. But schools like these would foster divisions in our society; they would be like setting a time bomb.

A Martian who happened to be visiting Earth soon after the United States was founded would not have given this country much chance of surviving. He would have predicted that this new nation, whose inhabitants were of different races, who spoke different languages, and who followed different religions, wouldn’t remain one nation for long. They would end up fighting and killing each other. Then, what was left of each group would set up its own country, just as has happened many other times and in many other places. But that didn’t happen. Instead, we became a wealthy and powerful nation—the freest the world has ever known. Millions of people from around the world have risked their lives to come here, and they continue to do so today.