When Did The Teachers Become The Bad Guys? For decades teachers were recognized as underappreciated and underpaid public servants whose commitment to their profession and dedication to our children were recognized and admired by nearly everybody. If you read the paper or watch the news today, you are bombarded with stories that denigrate public schools and blame the teachers (and their unions) for the problems. Let’s start with the fact that today’s teachers are just as committed and dedicated as their predecessors. Are the schools worse than they used to be? In some ways, yes! But, they are worse because individuals and companies with a personal, financial interest in replacing public schools with profit-making charter schools have conspired to impose rules and requirements on the schools that have deliberately made the schools worse – in the name of ‘school improvement’. Add to that the testing and test-prep companies pushing accountability in the form of high-stakes testing and the teachers lose another round. Instead of working in a thriving learning environment, teachers are forced to teach to the test and students are bored with memorizing facts for recall. The profiteers have rigged the game to produce poorer results, and then they push to close the schools and replace them. In the midst of this maelstrom of negative press, the teachers get much of the blame. I spoke at more length about profiteering in my February 27th post, so if you want to read the details go to the earlier post. Suffice it to say here that big money is behind the campaign against teachers. Assume there are two teachers in the same school with the same type of students in their classes. Teacher A dogmatically focuses on raising test scores. Therefore she concentrates on topics that will be tested. She drills, practices, discusses, and tests with the fervor of a true believer. The students are glassy-eyed but they become excellent test-takers and show major improvement in their test scores. Teacher B is a believer in developing the whole child, so she takes her students on field trips, assigns projects, discusses current events, works on science experiments, etc. Her students love school and think learning is fun, and they show a reasonable improvement in test scores. (But less that teacher A’s students) From test score differential and the NCLB testing perspective, Teacher A is the winner. But which classroom do you want your child to be in? I’ve always liked the Mark Twain quote, “I never let my schooling interfere with my education.” In my example, teacher A was focused on schooling, while teacher B was more dedicated to education. Most people who elect to become teachers do so with the Teacher B model in their mind. Unfortunately, faced with the testing and accountability metrics, many teachers feel compelled to behave like teacher A. One of the most insidious and unfair tactics being used to make teachers look bad is a process called “Value Added Metrics” (VAM). The previous example is a simplified version of VAM. One of the big problems with VAM is that on the surface it sounds rational and appropriate. Rather than trying to summarize the important flaws in this pseudoscience, I have provided a link to an excellent resource. This article, by John Ewing, originally appeared in the May Notices of the American Mathematics Society. It gives a comprehensive look at the history, current use and problems with the value-added model of assessing teachers. It is long but well worth your time. I am quoting from the version that appeared in The Answer Sheet column in the Washington Post. It fully debunks the ‘science’ of VAM. washingtonpost/blogs/answer-sheet/post/leading-mathematician-debunks-value-added/2011/05/08/AFb999UG_blog.html The following quote from the article highlights a key problem with the insistence on metrics. “This last problem plays a larger role as the stakes increase. This is often referred to as Campbell’s Law: “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to measure” [Campbell 1976]. In its simplest form, this can mean that high-stakes tests are likely to induce some people (students, teachers, or administrators) to cheat ... and they do [Gabriel 2010]. But the more common consequence of Campbell’s Law is a distortion of the education experience, ignoring things that are not tested (for example, student engagement and attitude) and concentrating on precisely those things that are.” The emphasis on test results has had both of the negative effects predicted by Campbell’s law. It has caused people to find ways to cheat – from teaching to the test to physically changing student answers to improve scores. It has also caused a profound change in what happens in the classroom. Classrooms have ceased to focus on student learning and are instead focused on memorization for testing recall. In the middle of all of this, the poor teachers get blamed for the students’ lack of performance! It’s not their fault. Don’t be fooled by the bad press. Your teachers are still the warm, caring, dedicated educators they always were. Take the time to let them know that you don’t blame them for the irrational conditions that they are forced to work in. Support them when they resist the destructive rules. Become more informed about VAM and opting out of the high-stakes testing that drives the destructive behaviors. Read the March 23rd post for more information about opting out. Become an advocate for less testing and more learning. Focusing on test results is both the cause of the problems and the club the profiteers use to beat up on the teachers. Take away their weapon and stand with our teachers in defense of our children. #VAM, #profiteering, #educationreform, #Education, #Teachers
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 13:54:36 +0000
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