SB 5246: test scores for me, but not for thee

Washington State stands to lose $44 million in federal funds if the legislature fails to meet Obama Administration demands to include state test scores in teacher evaluations, The Daily O reports:

State law already requires that student growth data be a significant factor in teacher and principal evaluations. But current law allows the districts to decide which tests to use: classroom-based, school-based, district-based or statewide.

The U.S. Department of Education has set a May deadline for the state to change the system in order to keep its waiver.

Solution #1: pressure the DOE to backpedal.

[S]ome Democrats are hoping that the state’s congressional delegation will persuade U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan and the U.S. Department of Education to grant Washington a waiver anyway, even if state lawmakers fail to specify which tests must play a role in teacher evaluations.

It's a risky strategy, given that other states have already been denied waivers. Hence, Solution #2:

Senate education leaders are trying to address the problem themselves, rather than relying on members of Congress. A Senate education panel last week advanced a bill that would not only require students’ scores on statewide tests to be used in teacher and principal evaluations, but also specifies how.

That how is found in Senate Bill 5246, which is currently sitting in the Rules Committee. It's worth a closer look, as it contains not one, but two problematic features.

First, the bill establishes evaluations that are inherently unfair, by holding otherwise similarly-situated teachers to different standards.

...for teachers who teach reading or language arts or mathematics in a grade in which the federally mandated statewide student assessments are administered, one of the multiple measures of student growth must be the student results on the relevant assessments.

"Student growth" is statutorily defined as progress measured in two points at time. So, if I'm a high school English teacher (and I am) teaching sophomores who are taking the Writing HSPE (which I'm not), then my students have to improve their performance over the last time they tested.

It sounds reasonable, until you take the time to reason it out. Even if the middle school test (the MSP) is carefully calibrated to be "the same" assessment of student ability, and even if the student performs to her true testing level in each session, and even if we can rule out natural maturation, there's a massive structural flaw.

As it stands, the assessments are taken three years apart. There's no good reason to praise the latest teacher for growth--or to punish the same teacher for lack of the same--when there are two or three (or maybe more) teachers who contribute to that growth in a three-year timespan.

Even if the assessment cycle can be kicked into higher gear--say, a pre-test in the Fall, and the "real deal" in the Spring--the system, at least above the elementary school level, still fails. I'm not going to take sole credit (or blame) for my hypothetical sophomores' argumentative writing skills, which they've honed (or dulled) in science or social studies and any other class that includes essay-writing. My class isn't offered in a vacuum.

The inequity exists horizontally as well. If you teach Band, Psychology, Calculus, or any other high school course that lacks a federally mandated assessment, you are held to a different standard; so, of course, the pessimistic (likely?) conclusion is that, in the name of rigor, policymakers will rush to test in those subjects as well.

Of course, should you get a raw deal in this dubious system, you can expect your district to navigate the nuances with respect for your unique situation and all the complex variables, right? Well...

Districts must use student growth data to create a rank order of teachers based on the amount of average student growth achieved in each teacher's classroom. The bottom quartile of teachers in the rank order shall be identified by the district as requiring additional support.

The arbitrary relative ranking proposal would force a high-performing district to provide "additional support" to its least awesome employees, even if their entire workforce is already awesome.

And I haven't even considered the practical and mathematical impossibilities of ranking teachers with diverse curricular assignments (for instance, I teach two "traditional" classrooms and two online-based Apex courses, so good luck comparing my impact to someone who teaches five 9th-grade Physical Science classes), or the inequity of ranking teachers who are test-bound against those who aren't.

I have no idea what the bill's prospects are. It could die a quiet death in the Rules Committee. It could fail on the Senate floor. It could get jammed in the House or in a conference committee. It could fail to get ink from Governor Inslee. Or, it could lurch zombielike past all those obstacles and start tearing at the guts of teacher morale.

Time will tell, and I will blog.

deconstructing merit pay

Ryan at I Thought a Think explains why merit pay is never a simple matter.

So, who is your Most Valuable Teacher?

Is it Teacher A, who added the most value to her class over the course of the year?
Is it Teacher B, who had more of her kids meet the year-end goal?
Is it Teacher C, whose class scored the highest in the spring?
Is it Teacher D, who turned around more failing kids than any of the others?

"Value" is a homophone; there's the value signified by the numbers, but there's also the values of the school, the district, and the state which have to be superimposed atop any effort to link the data to the teacher. If the incentive pay/merit pay/whatever pay in this case goes to only one of the four teachers, you're making a statement about the value of the work the other three did, and it's a pretty lousy thing to say to the other three who also made progress that their success didn't matter as much.

And, of course, there are even more fundamental assumptions at work:
1. That the differences across teachers are statistically significant. (In small sample sizes, chance is magnified.)
2. That there are no mitigating factors that better explain students' growth within and across classes. (How much is due to good ol' maturation? Are all relevant factors controlled for?)
3. That the test measures something important.

We run into more trouble when we deal with mobile populations, or when we consider high school teachers who see their students for only fifty-five minutes a day in a single subject.

This is not to say only nay to the prospect of performance pay for teachers. I'm sure with today's data collecting and crunching powers, some magic formula can be worked out--something akin to the Netflix prize for education--but as Ryan shows, first we have to agree on what we actually value.

Barack Obama hearts merit pay

Perhaps as a way to help Americans escape from their economic nightmares, Obama's talking about merit pay. It's working.

In his first major speech on education, Obama said the United States must drastically improve student achievement to regain lost international standing.

"The future belongs to the nation that best educates its citizens," he said. "We have everything we need to be that nation ... and yet, despite resources that are unmatched anywhere in the world, we have let our grades slip, our schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short and other nations outpace us."

His solutions include teacher pay and charter school proposals that have met resistance among members of teachers unions, which constitute an important segment of the Democratic Party.

I am--gulp--a union member who sees room in educational compensation for merit pay. I know this means coming out of a closet of sorts, but if research connects teacher quality to student achievement, and teacher longevity to competitive compensation, then some reasonable form of merit pay combines the best of both worlds.

What I haven't seen is a merit pay scheme that is truly fair. I can't see any worthwhile use of test scores. For example, as a high school teacher with two vastly different sets of classes--say, two periods Remedial Math and three periods AP Calculus--then roughly 60% of my performance is not directly comparable to the other 40%. Furthermore, I'm standing on the shoulders--or running with the parachutes--of 10 or more elementary and middle school teachers.

Show me a sophisticated metric to fairly compensate performance, Obama team, and I'll be on board.

Until then, I'll remain cautious, optimistic, and--yep--hopeful.

(Charter schools? Evidence of their success is pretty thin. But I'm open to persuasion.)

Jeff Nejedly shares his thoughts

I spoke with Jeff Nejedly, who's running against Frank Wilson for the District 1 seat on the Olympia School Board, and he gave me permission to post this publicly. All blockquoted words are his, unedited except for a removed phone number.

Hello Jim,



I was told by a teacher friend of mine about some of your comments posted on your blog, and went to your web page as well. I’m wondering why you think that I am in favor of pay for performance? I don’t recall this question being asked in the OEA interview. As a manager at the Dept. of Ecology, I am given merit based raises for Growth and Development. I can see why some might consider merit based pay for Principals, as school managers (of course not based on student scores). I personally would have to investigate if and how this has worked (or not) in other high functioning districts like ours, to see if I would support such a proposal.



I do not support Merit based pay for teachers. Although I would think this would be obvious to most, given my background as a teacher’s son who stood on picket lines with my father in Wisconsin, I am adamantly against Pay-For-Performance in any form for teachers. I am also keenly aware of how underpaid teachers are, and as a state worker and manager, I support annual increases in base pay based on time in service which equates to experience.



I was told that the OEA endorsement of Frank was due to his school involvement. I have been very involved volunteering in my children’s schools both in the classroom, school improvement projects, and PTA fundraising. Additionally, my wife was Fundraising chair and PTA Vice President for Boston Harbor, and chaired many other student activities at BHS. My wife also served on the Budget Advisory Group 2005-2006. Additionally, I have been to the majority of Board meetings in the last 2 years, and have learned a great deal.



I have serious concerns when the number of administrators grows in a year (2006) that the BAG is told that they need to carve $2Million off the budget to prevent the significant shortfalls that we are seeing now. I have concerns with the increase in other administrative costs that OSD is experiencing at this same time. It would be terrible to see teachers let go (as happened in 2004) due to budget shortfalls, at the cost of more administration.



I’m also concerned that the Math Adoption Committee was made so political by the district administration. In the past this committee would have been made up of teachers only. No administrators and no hand-selected parents (one was a principal’s wife!). The folks who will be teaching the curriculum should be able to fully weigh in on a decision of this type, as has always been the case in the past.



I opposed the middle school curriculum adoption, not only because the curriculum was weighted too heavily with one teaching style, but more importantly because of the process involved in the adoption. It has cost me politically, but that is fine, since my ultimate goal is not political, but an open, honest, and accountable school district administration. This would benefit the teachers in this district, as well as the students.



Since you’ve met with Frank several times (per your blog) and as of yet haven’t attempted to meet or even talk with me, I realize that you have already made up your mind on which candidate you are supporting. I send you this information, in hopes of clarifying the record.



Sincerely,

Jeff Nejedly

www.jeffnejedly.com

I'd like to thank Jeff for his thoughts. Although I have made up my mind, I realize that other voters haven't, and should consider all the relevant facts when doing so.

Three things I should point out: in his first paragraph, Nejedly apparently refers to this post. As readers can see, I was talking about Russ Lehman, who, although he supports Jeff Nejedly, does not share all of Nejedly's views. (I was answering a question about what concerns I had about some of Lehman's--not Nejedly's--positions.)

Second, there's a simple reason I didn't contact Nejedly after the OEA interview process, when I first met him. After members of the committee labored through the difficult decision to support one candidate over another, and once the choice was made, I was asked to speak with Wilson about specific teacherly issues, to act as an informal liaison between the union and its endorsed candidate. Thus, I never imagined that my (small, informal) role in the process would go beyond that. I met with Frank a few times and blogged about the experience--it only confirmed that we had chosen well, especially since we couldn't make a bad choice between the two. Once the school year started, my political activities tailed off considerably.

I support Wilson because of his proven ability to build bridges and work with opposing sides through controversy, because of his kind and thoughtful personality, because of his willingness to reach out and actively seek opinions from those who aren't being heard, and because of his remarkable and highly-regarded career as a volunteer and participant in our schools. I wish I could vote for him. Too bad I live in the wrong district.

Now, back to breakfast.

why merit pay merits skepticism

Ryan of I Thought a Think explains.

These are the stories that will be passed around like folk tales when some district here in Washington takes the leap and tries it, and these are the problems that merit pay supporters don’t have ready answers to. Why would teachers risk public embarrassment for $100? How can we distinguish between the luck of the draw and truly effective teaching when it comes to evaluating the growth of a classroom?

Nobody really knows. Except me.

"merit pay" is hot, hot, hot

When Washington Learns released its report, it became obvious to me that its merit pay proposal would start topping agendas.

Evidence: the Sunday Times' editorial, which calls for a more stable funding structure for education (hear, hear) to support all-day kindergarten, higher education enrollment, professional development, improved high school curricula, and, you guessed it: merit pay.

Question is, when will the WEA address it?

Washington Learns report released: make way for merit pay

Today Washington Learns released a sixty-page behemoth that will transform the way we bureaucratize education [pdf]. Among (many) other things,

Subject to appropriations, by June 2009, the professional Educator Standards Board will set performance standards and develop, pilot and implement a professional teaching level assessment and licensing system based on demonstrated teaching skill.

By June 2009, the Professional Educator Standards Board will revise the requirements for college and university teacher preparation programs to match the new knowledge- and skill-based performance system.

Subject to appropriations, by June 2009, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction will design and pilot a professional development delivery system that focuses on teacher knowledge and skill areas identified by the state.

Subject to appropriations, beginning with the 2007-2008 school year, the teacher salary allocation model will include pay for performance, knowledge and skills.

By July 2007, a state committee will begin development of a professional performance-based educator salary system and will identify the elements and support systems necessary for implementation. The committee will involve teacher and administrator groups, the Professional Educator Standards Board, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the Office of Financial Management and the Legislature.

I hope and pray the pay scheme rewards higher WASL scores, thus leaving 11th and 12th-grade teachers out in the cold where they belong.

merit pay, WASL okay, GOP dismay

A trifecta.

First, Bush has a new plan to promote standardized testing: pay teachers for improved scores.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings planned to announce the first of 16 grants, worth $42 million, including $5.5 million for Ohio, on Monday. The government has not announced the other grant winners.

Using the old-fashioned incentive of cash, President Bush's program encourages schools to set up pay scales that reward some teachers and principals more than others. Those rewards are to be based mainly on test scores, but also on classroom evaluations during the year.

Would they pay based on improvement, or sheer results? It'd make all the difference in the world. (It's also a bad sign for a late-term president when he asks for $500 million, and gets $99 mil from Congress.)

Second, state leaders want the math and science portions of the WASL to stay on timetable.

The failure of 49 percent of 10th-graders to pass the math section of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning last spring touched off widespread alarm. Those students, in the class of 2008, are the first who must pass math, reading and writing on the test to earn a high-school diploma. Passing the science portion of the test becomes a requirement in 2010.

In the past few weeks, the state PTA and an organization of school-board members have voted to push back the math requirement by three years and science by four.

But rather than delay the math and science requirements, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Terry Bergeson said she'll ask the Legislature for an additional $199 million for the coming biennium to help this year's juniors pass the math, reading and writing portions of the WASL.

It's the inverse of the Notorious B.I.G. Mo problems, mo money.

Last, pundits are calling the upcoming for the Democrats, in a big way.

Two independent analysts predicted last week that the Democrats will pick up at least the 15 seats they need to seize the House for the first time since 1994.

"The broad national environment has improved for Democrats," said Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report. He forecasts Democratic gains of at least 15 seats and possibly as many as 25 to 30, up from his earlier range of 15 to 20.

I predict that the Dems will pick up a five-seat majority in the House, but won't get the Senate. Why? Because I can.