By Tom
Mark and Maren have both written about the news that
Washington State is in a little trouble for failing to follow the Department of
Education’s guidelines for the use of state tests in teacher evaluations. Here's a small example of how using state tests to evaluate teachers
can have some negative side-effects.
Last spring I was in a meeting with the other fourth grade
teachers in my school, along with our principal and the support staff. We were
planning for this coming year. Our principal made the suggestion that we might
want to place all six students who are on an IEP (Individualized Education
Plan) into the same classroom. The reason was simple: if they were all in the
same room, we could deliver support service more efficiently; the support
teacher could come into the room and help those kids, all of whom would be
working on the same lessons, and she wouldn’t have to coordinate with three
different teachers, who may or may not be focusing on the same learning activities.
It made sense to me, and I volunteered to be the teacher
into whose rooms those six kids would be placed. I was willing to “take one for
the team,” knowing that I would have way more than my share of high-needs
students, each of whom performed poorly on their state tests, but also knowing
that those six kids would have a more relevant support experience and the whole
fourth grade would be better off.
Under Washington State’s current (albeit illegal) teacher
evaluation system, I wouldn’t be penalized for having more than my share of
high-needs students. I’m planning to use a classroom-based reading, math and
writing assessment at three different points throughout the year, and I expect
all of my students to show growth, including those six kids who are on an IEP.
I’m not worried at all about collecting this data and showing it my principal
as part of my evaluation. It makes total sense.
However, should the Department of Education get their way,
forcing Washington State to capitulate to their demands, I would be a fool to
do next year what I did this year. Next year I will be evaluated based in part on
a comparison of the number of my kids who met state standard in third grade
with the number who met standard after a year with me.
And that means that those six kids would compromise my
evaluation. It’s more likely than not that those six kids will lower the
percentage of students in my class that pass the state test. Remember, they
didn’t pass their tests last year, when they were in third grade. This year
they’ll be taking the fourth grade test, which is harder. Even if they make academic
gains, they will be taking a harder test, and more than likely they’ll have some
problems. I don’t say that because I have low expectations of these kids. I say
that because all the data that’s ever been collected shows that kids who struggle
one year tend to struggle the next year.
Under next year’s evaluation system (assuming Washington State
bows down to Washington, DC) it will behoove me and every other teacher to start
the year with the strongest class possible. Think about it: high achievers have
already shown that they learn faster than their peers; that’s how they got to
be high achievers in the first place. On the other hand, low achievers have shown that it takes them more time to learn. Sometimes it takes them more than a year to learn what their classmates learn in a year. And if they start out behind their classmates, they can make a year's worth of progress and still not be at grade level when they take their state tests.
These are not excuses. This is not the "soft bigotry of low expectations." This is simple cause and effect. When a teacher evaluation system is based on state test scores, those who teach struggling students will suffer unfair consequences.
Which means that this is the last time I take one for the team.
Let’s hope like hell it never comes to that!
No worries. I would just hate to see teachers fighting for students, not because those teachers wish to help those kids but because it would help their ratings. Nightmare scenario.
drpezz… I agree, didn’t mean to miscommunicate. I know very well what you’re talking about. My building’s scores for reading (10th grade) have hovered in the mid 90s for a few years, and writing is in the high 90s. We have nowhere to go but down. That’s the reason we were “in improvement” for failing to meet AYP before tall this.
Mark,
My real point is that the high-end kids may have tested at 97-99% the year before which means there is little measurable growth available and much more room to fall. The tweeners regularly show large growth (regardless of meeting standard), but they often show the most growth moving from a 1 to 2 or a 2 to a 3 and so on.
I would like to respond to Kristin’s comment about LA vs. math. What about those of us who teach elementary? My fourth graders take reading, writing and math. I teach all three subjects? If my students show growth in one test and fall back in another, how does this impact my evaluation? Is it fair that elementary teachers are judged on three tests? Is it fair that k-2 and specialists don’t have students taking these tests? Our fourth graders came in very low in math. There are no interventions in math until fourth grade and only because we use our para help for math instead of reading.should I be held accountable for fourth grade standards and shown to be an ineffective teacher when my students come in unable to add to ten without using their fingers? I amso frustrated by the feds’ decision. Our state needs to fight this and do what is best for our kids!
…and we need to be focused on fostering growth with all kids, including those who are in that 99th percentile of excellence. They deserve a system that expects their teachers to help them grow as well. Let’s say my school’s pass rate on Test X is 62%. How much energy is then poured into the 38%? When we focus all (or most) our energy only on the 38%, we are also underserving the 62%.
drpezz… makes sense about the bubble kids, but the question is whether the “prized” data shows “growth” or “meeting standard.” I agree that the top tier kids are the most challenging, in no small part because we’re far past the rather clear-cut basics and up in the more ambiguous realm of application, creativity, synthesis, for which there are countless “right ways.”
I have found that the “bubble” kids make the most gains. These are the kids near the passing mark, and they frequently make huge jumps. Plus, if any measure requires test passage, these kids make that leap regularly.
The upper level kids can often be near the max score on tests already while the struggling students often remain far from the passage mark.
If I was fighting for students who could make me look good, I’d go for the bubble kids.
Well, I think my other point is valid too, but doesn’t change the fact teachers will be more reluctant to step up and take kids that are more challenging to teach.
Maybe it’s because I’m in secondary, but last year my honors 7th graders were reading so well that passing the MSP reading test, which asks things like “Why did Bobby rescue the Manatee?” was kind of like you finding the ignition on your car – there isn’t really any way they could do it better.
My students who came to me without an understanding of character, or revisiting the text to find evidence, or knowledge of how to answer a question, were able to show the MSP graders that they knew more than they did the year before, when they might have answered that question “IDK.”
Maybe it’s a situation we see more in secondary, when we have some kids who could hardly read better unless they learned to read nuclear physics. Actually, some of them can do that. So it’s hard to show growth.
Kristin, I don’t know that “it’s easier to make big gains the lower a child is when you get him.”
It sounds intuitive, but in my experience, that just isn’t how it happens. If you take two kids, both nine years old, one high performing and one struggling, what is the only constant? It’s the fact hat they’ve each had four years of school. But the high performer has learned much more in those four years than the other kid. High performers are faster learners, and that doesn’t necessarily change.
Nevertheless, your point is valid: state tests used for teacher evaluation is stupid.
ESEA is such a problem, in so many ways. We have got to get that thing changed–which seems to be a daunting task!
You are right. Although, if they’re looking at “growth,” it’s easier to make big gains the lower a child is when you get him. My district has already tried to “lead the way” by using Student Growth Ratings, where all IEP kids are compared to other IEP kids, kids who qualify for FRL are compared to other FRL kids, etc….. I put “lead the way” in quotes because my district feels very progressive using these strenuous teacher-measurement tools but is, at this very moment, trying to increase class size, which is at the back of the pack in terms of progress.
The people who think the state test should be used to measure growth are so misguided. They are people who haven’t spent time looking at how the state test connects to what we’re told to teach. They are people who are unaware that now we’re told to use Common Core, but Common Core is not assessed on Washington’s assessment, or that the assessment measures only reading and writing, or that I, as an LA teacher, have my students sit THREE tests (Reading / Writing/ Writing) and have only 50 minutes a day to prepare them whereas math teachers have to prepare kids for only one test. They are unaware that history, art, music, and science are important. They are unaware that a test that captures a child’s ability on one day doesn’t necessarily capture a child’s development over the course of a year.
Everyone’s excited to use test data to measure teachers because it’s easy. No one wants to put in the time and effort to design a meaningful, accurate way to measure a child’s growth, and no one trusts teachers (who can do it well) to do it honestly.
Good thing high stakes testing is always done honestly!
“When you fight authority, authority always wins.”
Which is too bad, Tom, because you’re exactly the kind of teacher that struggling kids need and deserve.
It is crazy, but I wonder if just foregoing the federal funding, and thus freeing ourselves of the mantle of top-down-stupidity, might be one way to go. That’s probably too reckless. But something tells me that reason, research, and logic will do nothing to sway the feds.