A Quartet of Articles

Good morning!  Obviously, yesterday’s PSAE day gave me too much time to get stuff together to send you:

Remember “Is Making Us Stupid?” published in the Atlantic a couple years ago?  They’ve just published “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” by Stephen Marche.  It’s free online:  http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebook-making-us-lonely/8930/   It’s not short, but it would be an interesting thing to look at with kids about how the author spins together narrative and research.  The author’s weaving of an macabre introductory narrative through the essay is pretty cool – it’s about an ex porn star who dies with her computer on and isn’t found in her apartment for days.

This morning on NPR was a short piece about “Poem in your pocket day” (which is Thursday, but at HC, according to the signs hung around school, Friday).  One cool idea from the program – a high school teacher from Oklahoma says that he’s having kids write poems in sidewalk chalk in the courtyard of his school so all kids read them during lunch.  http://www.npr.org/2012/04/25/151339990/celebrating-poem-in-your-pocket-day

Sibyl passed the hard copy of NCTE’s policy brief entitled “Evaluating English/Language Arts Teachers” to me.  This reads a good corrective to all the news about “value added research” that we’ve been reading.  If you have only 3 minutes, check out the “Dimensions of Teacher Quality” on the third page.  Not to brag, but our CPPs have it pretty much right.  http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/CC/0213-mar2012/CC0213Brief.pdf

Heather sent me this USA Today article yesterday about “essay grading machines.”  “Study: Machine scoring of essays shows promise”  http://usat.ly/IklU8s   Here’s an interesting bit:

  Jeff Pence, an English teacher at Dean Rusk Middle School in Canton, Ga., uses computer-aided scoring for his 120-plus students, since hand-grading just one set of writing drafts "with any sense of thoroughness" could take two weeks. The computer takes about three seconds to deliver feedback. So far, each of his students this year has completed more than 25 essays. …  He understands the limits of computer grading but says that teachers have limits too. "I know, as does every teacher out there, that on that 63rd essay, I am nowhere near as consistent, accurate or thorough as I was on the first three."

(Here’s another take on these grading machines (which is not a euphemism for “English teacher”) that Jan Bujan sent me.  It’s a blog post that’s linked to the original studies:  )

http://gettingsmart.com/news/automated-essay-scoring-systems-demonstrate-effectiveness/

Distracting e-books, Teacher Eval screw-up, lying "truth-o-meters"

Three articles published in the last couple days

“Find Your Book Interrupted… By the Tablet You Read it On” by Julie Bosman and Matt Richtel NYT 3.5.12

Teaser: “People who read e-books on tablets like the iPad are realizing that while a book in print or on a black-and-white Kindle is straightforward and immersive, a tablet offers a menu of distractions that can fragment the reading experience, or stop it in its tracks.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/business/media/e-books-on-tablets-fight-digital-distractions.html

“Hard-Working Teachers, Sabotaged When Student Test Scores Slip” by Michael Winerip (NYT in the “on Eduction” column) 3.5.12

This is about some unintended consequences involved with NY’s “value added” teacher evaluation system. Four teachers who seem to be doing a great job are all shown – by the test, at least – to have taken AWAY value from students. Learn about how “numbers lie” here.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/nyregion/in-brooklyn-hard-working-teachers-sabotaged-when-student-test-scores-slip.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=hard-working%20teachers&st=cse

“True Lies: Media umpires confront the challenge of dishonest facts” by Eric Zorn Tribune 3.2.12

Interesting for all, but especially for rhetoric, AP Lang, expos… This article comments on the group of new “fact-checking” websites run by various media outlets. Things like Truth-O-Meter and PolitiFact and the Washington Posts “Pinocchio” awards (the cleverest of the bunch). Are these meters too dumbed-down?

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2012/03/truelies.html

"Top Teachers" in NY's Teacher Data Reports

Teacher rankings are out now in New York. The teachers' union has fought for more than a year to block the release of the ratings, taking the fight to the Supreme Court. All of this comes about because of a state-mandated overhaul of the teacher evaluation system that the state promised Washington in order to qualify for $700 million in federal Race to the Top funds.

At the top, according to the New York Times today, is Walter Galiano, Jr., who, now an assistant principal, is traveling in Italy. Alison Epstein, another teacher at the top of the city's Teacher Data Reports, has been transferred to a gifted class from teaching special education in small class settings. "It's definitely a benefit to have a smaller classroom," she said of her class of 17, "because you can differentiate so much easier."

The rankings come with asterisks and margins or error. (See an example, teacher names and naked statistics here.) But they purport to tell the truth about which teachers are adding value to students and which ones are not. The "top teachers" themselves interpret the results differently. Epstein says that it's largely because of class size that allows her to focus on individual students. Another teacher at the top of the list, Natalie Guandique, who has also left the classroom to finish a master's degree at Columbia, attributes her success to having high expectations for her special-education students. "I came in and said, 'They will learn this,'" Ms. Guandique said. "It may take us a longer time and we may have to take a different path, but they will learn what the other students are learning."

What do these "top teachers" have to teach us? It's a tantalizing question. Is it differentiated instruction? Is it a "can do" attitude? Would a close examination of their classrooms, their attitudes, their assessments, their opening-class routines demonstrate something reproducible? My mind reels at the notion that we could watch the game film of these teachers in action and learn some valuable tricks to spread to other instructors, like that poor teacher with a 2% rating. It could be the case that there's a treasure chest of information there.

I worry: is this search for top teachers a red herring, filled with too many statistical anomalies to be considered useful? Would we learn anything new.... anything, say, that you wouldn't find in Doug Lemov's fine book about instruction, "Teach Like a Champion"? And I worry about the fact that all of the teachers have moved on from their "winning" classrooms. I worry about what that means about the sustainability of this kind of teaching.

I suspect that it could be, as Alison Epstein, one of the "top teachers," says, that the focus on these tests "at times detracts from the overall curriculum." The halo of pressure about the ranking, about student performance on a single test, on out-thinking and out-teaching the test has more detrimental effects than the positive effects of the ranking. "The pressure for teachers and children to perform for tests," Epstein continues, "that do not really show how intelligent a student is, or how amazing a teacher might be, is substantial."

If the goal is to improve instruction for all teachers, this seems like a bizzarre, Byzantine way to do it.

What are Teachers in control of?

Teaser:

By Thomas Hurst

When is it fair to blame teachers for student performance? If you do your homework, you’ll learn that teachers are not to blame for as much as many — including U.S. policymakers — may think.

Research shows that there are a host of factors that can affect student achievement. A 2009 report released by the Educational Testing Service identified 16 variables that impact student achievement:

1. Curriculum rigor

2. Teacher preparation

3. Teacher experience

4. Teacher absence and turnover

5. Class size

6. Availability of instructional technology

7. Fear and safety at school

8. Parent participation

9. Frequent changing of schools

10. Low birth weight

11. Environmental damage (i.e., lead, mercury)

12. Hunger and nutrition

13. Talking and reading to babies and young children

14. Excessive television watching

15. Parent-pupil ration (# of parents)

16. Summer achievement gain/loss

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/teachers-blame-only-where-blame-is-due/2011/04/18/AFXszF2D_blog.html

Weingarten urges dismissal overhaul

NY Times article reporting that AFT leader Randi Weingarten has proposed a radical (my word there -- it certainly is a huge change to status quo) change to how teachers are dismissed. Here's a teaser:

Responding to criticism that tenure gives even poor teachers a job for life, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, announced a plan Thursday to overhaul how teachers are evaluated and dismissed.

It would give tenured teachers who are rated unsatisfactory by their principals a maximum of one school year to improve. If they did not, they could be fired within 100 days.

Teacher evaluations, long an obscure detail in an educator’s career, have moved front and center as school systems try to identify which teachers are best at improving student achievement, and to remove ineffective ones.

The issue has erupted recently, with many districts anticipating layoffs because of slashed budgets. Mayors including Michael R. Bloomberg of New York and Cory A. Booker of Newark have attacked seniority laws, which require that teacher dismissals be based on length of experience rather than on competency.

Ms. Weingarten has sought to play a major role in changing evaluations and tenure, lest the issue be used against unions to strip their influence over work life in schools — just as Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin and Ohio are trying to do this week.

Critics say that removing teachers is nearly impossible because of the obstructions that unions have put up. Administrators also bear some blame. Most evaluations are perfunctory — a drive-by classroom observation by a vice principal — and hearings to prove incompetence can be long and costly.

In Ms. Weingarten’s proposal, which she presented at a meeting of union leaders and researchers in Washington on Thursday night, teachers would be evaluated using multiple yardsticks, including classroom visits, appraisal of lesson plans and student improvement on tests.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/25/education/25teacher.html?_r=1&ref=education&pagewanted=print

Bill Gates funds teacher evaluation study

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/04/education/04teacher.html?_r=1

Baltimore Teachers agree to groundbreaking contract

No more steps. Student assessment data key.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-teacher-contract-revote-20101117,0,7170739.story

Preparing student teachers for evaluation

How are ed schools responding to the new norm of student assessment as part of teacher evaluation.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/bs-md-education-schools-reform-20101031,0,2886024.story

Diane Ravitch on Value Added Teacher Evaluation

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2010/10/25/2010-10-25_valueadded_data_add_no_value.html

NPR story on teacher pay/ evaluation

Here's the lead to a recent story on NPR titled "New Evaluation Laws Split Teachers Even More" about new teacher pay models taking hold across the states.

When summer ends, many teachers will face a new reality: A number of states have passed new laws and policies that tie teachers' job security to how well their students do in class. Some teacher groups dropped their longstanding opposition to this idea, and now say it will be good for the profession. Still, many teachers fear the new evaluation systems are part of an attack on their profession.

//

Teachers Evaluated by Student Test Scores in NYC

Yesterday's NYT story, "Agreement will alter evaluations of teachers," by Jennifer Medina details a NY teahers' union agreement to overhaul teacher evaluations "and tie them to student test scores" something "the unions had bitterly opposed for years. Check this out: "Teachers would be measured on a 100-point scale, with 20 percent points based on how much students improve on the standardized state exams. Another 20 percent would be based on local tests, which would have to be developed by each school system. After two years, 25 percent would be based on state exams and 15 percent would come from the local tests."

Is this coming to a state near you soon? Too soon to say, but this detail from the article is interesting: NY Teachers will be will be placed in one of the following categories: highly effective, effective, developing, and ineffective. Illinois has agreed to move to that same system next year.