Trouble for the Teaching Fellows?

A new survey by the UFT finds pretty big discrepancies between the perception of training by NYC Teaching Fellows versus traditionally trained teachers.

Just 5 percent of teachers who answered the union’s survey said their training through the city’s Teaching Fellows program was “excellent,” compared to 21 percent of graduates of education schools. And while 18 percent of education school graduates called their training “poor” or “fair,” that figure was nearly 50 percent for Teaching Fellows.

As a former Teaching Fellow, I never thought the training was particularly bad.  Like everything, it could have been better -- but it always seemed to me that there were dozens of much larger issues.  So, I wonder how much of this is driven by the fact that Teaching Fellows were more extensively trained in another field before getting a crash course in education and rushing into difficult positions in troubled schools.  Those people in those circumstances might feel very differently about equally good training than would an ed school graduate who'd been preparing for his/her position for years and landed a less stressful job.

Assuming the survey is representative, though, these stats really don't look good for the program.  Of course, since only 81 out of over 9,000 active Teaching Fellows took part in the survey we can' be sure about this (which doesn't necessarily mean it's not representative, just that we're less confident about its representativeness than if, say, 900 teachers had taken part).  The initial response of the Fellows was to point out the small sample size, but that could backfire if a larger sample size eventually responds similarly.

What I think is even more interesting, though, is the larger context of this survey for the Teaching Fellows.  The article describes The New Teacher Project (TNTP), the fellows' parent organization as "a nonprofit group that also lobbies on teacher quality issues including in favor of evaluations that consider student test scores" (emphasis added) . . . which I think says a lot.

I first wrote about this almost five years ago, but TNTP and TFA seem to keep branching out into areas well beyond filling openings in troubled schools.  TFA has started getting a lot of push-back, and I think that's due more to their policy positions, lobbying, support of school board candidates, etc. than it is their actual day-to-day operations.  If this survey is any indicator, TNTP may soon find itself in a similar position.

In other words, while I'm sure many are concerned about the actual recruitment and training of teachers, I'd wager that fewer people would be as concerned if TNTP weren't also lobbying for all sorts of unpopular changes.

On the one hand, I blame TNTP for branching out too far.  If they'd just focus on recruiting and training teachers, they could do their job a lot better and with less risk of interference.  On the other hand, it would be a shame if TNTP's work mattered less than its lobbying when reviewing its performance.

Frustrating Work Conditions and Schools

It seems like a growing number of people give lip service to working conditions in school, but without many specifics.  If teachers are frustrated by the working conditions in their schools, how would we expect their behavior to change?

We're using Bolman and Deal's textbook in the Organizational Theory course I'm teaching this semester, which includes a large section on human resources in organizations.  Part of that section discusses Chris Argyris' work on the differences between human personality and management practices.  Argyris contends that workers have six options when trying to escape frustrating working conditions (pp. 128-130).  See how many of these seem familiar to you when thinking about schools:

They withdraw -- through chronic absenteeism or simply by quitting
This certainly happened at my school -- working conditions were so bad that the vast majority of teachers took all 10 of their sick/personal days each year (which compounded the problem, since we usually couldn't find any subs to come into the building).  I'm not sure what's been published on the topic, but I do know that if one looks through the NYC School Report cards that a lot of schools average a lot fewer teacher absences.

They stay on the job but withdraw psychologically, becoming indifferent, passive, and apathetic
This is the quintessential "bad teacher" right here.  The tenured burn-out who can't be bothered to do much of anything anymore.

They resist by restricting output, deception, featherbedding*, or sabotage
Sounds just like the legion of obstinate teachers who refuse to implement the latest, greatest curriculum or other reform handed down to them from above.

They try to climb the hierarchy to better jobs
As teachers in my school used to say: "those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, become principals" (I should note that there's some emerging evidence that many principals had above-average VAM scores when they were teaching).  Either way, it's pretty clear that a lot of teachers try to escape the classroom to become coaches, coordinators, and administrators of all types.  In my school, the most veteran teachers who hadn't moved into one of those types of positions all taught in positions that got them out of the classroom (e.g. "resource room," in which they'd pull out a couple kids at a time).

They form alliances (such as labor unions) to redress the power imbalance
Unions certainly play a large role in many schools.  What we often forget, though, is why the unions came about.  If teachers aren't frustrated and don't distrust their supervisors, they don't usually form (or utilize) unions.

They teach their children to believe that work is unrewarding and hopes for advancement are slim
I haven't seen any evidence of this happening with teachers . . . hopefully it doesn't get that bad.


I definitely see evidence of five out of these six behaviors, though it's unclear whether any of these are currently increasing.  I'd argue, though, that ameliorating the conditions that lead to these types of behavior should be one important goal in our quest to raise teacher quality and turn around low-performing schools.

If we instead go the opposite direction (sterner management, scripted curricula, etc.), we risk turning our schools into highly organized, poorly performing factories.  Taken to the extreme, teachers essentially become mindless drones.  The authors quote Ben Hamper (a former factory worker who then wrote about his experiences) saying that "Working the Rivet Line was like being paid to flunk high school the rest of your life" (p. 131).  Work like that certainly won't inspire anybody to become the high-quality teachers we all agree we need.


*"Featherbedding is a colloquial term for giving people jobs that involve little or no work" (p. 138).

Mad Libs for Writing about Strikes

The commentariat and blogosphere sure love a showdown between a union chief and schools chief -- as evidenced by the flood of articles and posts this week on the strike in Chicago.  Unfortunately, about 90% of what's written is entirely predictable and, in the end, utterly useless.

Why?  Because almost every article is written using a secret mad libs cheat sheet that gets rolled out every time there's any controversy involving unions.  The result is that we could replace a few words in just about any piece to fit any strike or labor dispute anywhere in the country.  Regardless of the location, context, or actual issues at stake.  I've posted the cheat sheets below so that you can follow along:


For those opposed to teachers' unions

The [insert controversy] in [insert city] could be a turning point for educational reform in this country.  The union's [insert mildly derogatory adjective] leader, [insert name], has decided to place the needs of adults over the needs of children and [insert local leader] has finally stood up to make sure these children aren't forgotten.  While teachers and unions in most other cities have gotten the memo, the teachers in [city] are stubbornly clinging to the past; the evidence that value-added scores matter is overwhelming, and yet they're standing firm against the district's plan to use VAM scores to account for [X]% of a teacher's evaluation.  It looked like the union might see the light, but after [leader] said [quote taken out of context], it's clear that he/she has his/her head buried in the sand.  This is, indeed, a sad day for the children.  All hope of rescuing our abysmal education system now lie with [district/city leader], who seems to be embracing this challenge, saying [quote taken out of context].  We should all wait with bated breath while this most important of events plays out.


For those who defend teachers' unions

The [insert controversy] in [insert city] could be a turning point for educational reform in this country.  The union's [insert synonym for "heroic"] leader, [insert name], has decided to stand up for the rights of teachers and unions everywhere while [insert local leader] refuses to treat teachers like human beings and is determined to bust the union.  While teachers and unions in most other cities have caved and accepted the anti-union agenda, the teachers in [city] are standing up for their rights and what's best for children; the evidence that value-added scores are unreliable is overwhelming, and yet the district refuses to budge from their plan to use VAM scores to account for [X]% of a teacher's evaluation.  It looked like the union might cave, but after [city/district leader] said [quote taken out of context], it became clear that the union must finally decide that enough is enough.  This is, indeed, a glorious day for unions, the dying middle class, and potentially our entire country.  All hope of preventing the gutting of our indispensable public education system now lie with [union leader], who seems to be embracing this challenge, saying [quote taken out of context].  We should all wait with bated breath while this most important of events plays out.

"One Test on One Day" isn't "BS"

I'm all for calling people out when they say ridiculous things, but it seems like we're a little too hasty with the accusations and eye-rolling nowadays.  Particularly when unions are involved.

A lot of people don't like teachers' unions and union leaders.  I get it, I really do.  Unions exist to protect their members, and union leaders are almost obliged to spin, frame, and spout off in order to do so.  And this not only results in them sounding ridiculous from time to time, but also prevents all sorts of things from occurring that might help, or at least satisfy, other people.  Much like politicians, union leaders often engage in hyperbole and cling to stupid ideas in order to get what their constituents want.  They deserve to be called out when they do this, and I think, increasingly, they are.  Maybe it's just my relatively short experience in the field, but it seems like unions have made more compromises on previously off-limits ideas (e.g. merit pay, performance evaluations, testing, seniority rights, etc.) in the past few years than maybe in the previous few decades (if you're a historian and know otherwise, please feel free to correct me).  And it seems to me that this is largely because criticism of union talking points has been widespread across both parties and newspaper editorial pages from both ends of the political spectrum.  How many times has the NY Times run editorials in the past couple years in favor of things that teachers' unions don't particularly like?  And I think that a lot of good might come from the resulting compromises and experimentation with new ideas.

But I think we may be taking it too far.  While unions have taken somewhat indefensible positions on firing teachers, seniority rights, pay raises, and other topics over the years, there's really no reason to automatically assume that every statement from every union leader's mouth is automatically ridiculous.  Just because all the cool kids are bashing union leaders doesn't mean you have to too.

Why am I suddenly annoyed by this?  While skimming through my google reader before bed, I noticed two otherwise reasonable commentators agreeing that something a union leader said was ridiculous -- but it was really their reactions that were ridiculous.

Stephen Sawchuk's posts are usually -- and I don't mean this in a bad way, I swear -- quite bland.  They're written by a reporter, and they stick pretty close to the facts without a lot of extra fluff and verbiage.  But his latest post is different.  He makes at least two crucial mistakes while rushing to jump onto the "union leaders are ridiculous" bandwagon.

His post is a response to the statement by NEA head Dennis Van Roekel that it's "absurd" to judge teachers based on "one test on one day."  Sawchuck's reaction?  He says that value-added scores use tests from at least two different points in time and, therefore, teachers aren't judged on one test score.  But that's actually a far more ridiculous statement than the first one b/c it's based on a complete misunderstanding of the first statement.

I suppose I could be mistaken, but it seems fairly obvious to me that Van Roekel is referencing the fact that when value-added scores are calculated they're based on only one test (unless a teacher teaches multiple subjects) in the year that the teacher actually teaches the students (whether or not these tests are one day is a legitimate question -- NYC moved from one day, 50 minute tests my first year to multi-day tests afterward, which I gather is fairly typical).  In other words, the situation he's comparing it to is one in which teacher effectiveness is measured by other measures of student progress in addition to the singular state test -- whether that be observations, portfolio assessments, or simply more tests.  And this is a legitimate point.  Ask a psychometrician if we could better measure student ability by giving more than one test in a given subject.  Ask an economist if we could better estimate student growth if tests were given, say, monthly.

Under most current systems, a student's score on the state test may be unrepresentative of their actual ability for any number of reasons (they were sick, they were short on sleep, it was hot that day, or maybe they just guessed right every single time).  If we used multiple tests over a longer period of time, there would be regression to the mean and we'd get more accurate estimates of what students do and do not know.  It's basic statistics. 

Van Roekel is right to raise the point, and policymakers would be wise to take it into consideration.  It's the reason why value-added scores are only weakly correlated from year to year (recent research finds that it takes three years of value-added scores to obtain a reasonably stable measure of a particular teacher's effect on student test scores).

So, bottom line, Sawchuk botched that one.  Mistakes happen.  I've botched blog posts before, and it doesn't (I hope) make me a bad guy, so I'm willing to assume that Sawchuk is simply human as well.

But the end of his blog post raises questions in my mind regarding how much time and thought he actually put into the post.  He writes:

But recall that not all that long ago NEA's single test-score line managed to really tick-off House Education and Labor chairman Rep. George Miller. Isn't it a sign that it's time to update a talking point when even lawmakers start to roll their eyes in response?

As I read it, this was supposed to support his argument that many years of data means that teachers aren't judged on only one test.  I was surprised to see that somebody else had made the same mistake, so I clicked on the link to read about Miller saying the same thing.  But it's actually a completely different complaint.  Miller was upset because he thought Van Roekel was insinuating that, under the proposed law, teachers would and could be judged only on test scores and nothing else.  So he strenuously defended the proposal by saying there was nothing in there that prevented other measures from being used as well.  In other words, Miller interpreted Van Roekel's statement the same way I did, and raised a completely different objection to it than does Sawchuk.  And Miller's objection is irrelevant in this case, b/c value-added scores, at least as far as I know, never take any measures other than test scores into account.  So, if anything, Miller's statements refute Sawchuk's point.

But, like I said, one bad post doesn't invalidate a career's worth of respectable work.  What actually annoys me more is the response of Andy Rotherham on his blog.  In a post entitled "When Sawchucks Attack" he simply writes "Don't bring that BS into his house..."  End of post.

When I first started reading education blogs, it was pretty clear that Rotherham's "Eduwonk" blog stood head and shoulders above all others in terms of the sheer amount of information it contained relating to education news.  But over the past couple of years or so, it seems to me like the posts have gotten shorter and the language snarkier.  Where once background information and analysis were provided, he now seems content to simply lob verbal bombs at anyone opposed to reforms he likes and move on with his day.  Perhaps he's gotten busier, perhaps he's grown weary of constantly explaining himself, or maybe he's just frustrated that everybody won't listen to him.  All would be understandable.  But, whatever the reason, the quality of the blog has significantly deteriorated in my eyes.  And his latest post is a perfect example of why.

I'm not quite sure if he's agreeing with Sawchuk or simply pointing readers in that direction b/c he thought it was entertaining -- which is precisely my problem with his posts lately.  I assumed that he was agreeing with Sawchuk when I first read it, b/c if he was disagreeing I'd assume he would've indicated that in some way.  But whether he's just standing back and saying "wow, look at that" or saying "wow, great post," the labeling of Van Roekel's statement as "BS" is off the mark.  It's hyperbolic, sure, but it's also important to take into consideration.  And I take issue with the snarky marginalization of important statements.

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it seems like I've been reading more and more of these snippy knee-jerk reactions to anybody opposed to any aspect of the DOE's favored reforms lately.  I agree that there are a lot of bad arguments against charter schools, merit pay, school turnarounds, etc. but that doesn't mean that everybody who points out any weakness of any of the above should automatically be dismissed with the wave of a hand and bit of derision.

The irony is that one of the greatest weaknesses of value-added scores are their instability (largely due to the small sample sizes) and that testing more would yield more accurate scores.  So proponents of value-added scores who dismiss the "one test" criticism are actually arguing for weaker, less meaningful value-added scores -- which isn't going to help them become ubiquitous any time soon.

Declining Reform or DeKleining Intelligence?

The teaser on Time's home page for Joe Klein's new commentary on teachers' unions said something about them stopping reform.  Of course unions have prevented reform over the years.  But that, in and of itself, doesn't make them evil.  You see, not all reform is good.  Preventing a bad reform from occurring would actually make the union the good guys.

Now, of course, I don't actually see that line in the article -- so it may have been all the headline writer's idea instead of Joe Klein's.  But there are plenty of other problems:

1.) Teachers' unions do a number of both good and bad things.  I cannot take seriously any article or person that doesn't acknowledge that -- the idea that unions are either purely good or purely bad is pure nonsense.

2.) He writes that "it is near impossible to fire a teacher" in NYC and that "miscreants are stashed in 'rubber rooms'."  I still don't buy that it's nearly as hard to fire a teacher as many claim.  And even if it is, the argument is still overstated since there are far more teachers that walk away quasi-voluntarily than there are teachers who are sent to the rubber room (in other words, getting rid of bad teachers probably isn't as hard as you think).  Is it too hard to fire teachers?  In many cases, yes, it probably is.  But it's not impossible.  And all the hand-wringing is unnecessary.  When I see a bad teacher remaining in a school, I blame the principal more than the union.

3.) Klein writes that "authorities are forbidden, by state law, to evaluate teachers by using student test results."  This is true.  Sort of.  Technically they're forbidden -- for now.  The law that was passed only mandated a two-year moratorium on this practice -- it didn't forbid it for eternity.  Besides, there's plenty of evidence that using the scores would've created more problems than it solved.

4.) He summarizes the Hoxby et al study as showing that "students in New York City's charter schools . . . have closed 86% of the gap in test results between the poorest neighborhoods of the city and ritzy suburbs like Scarsdale."  Notice the word have in the sentence.  The study showed nothing of the sort.  Based on snapshots of data, it projected that students enrolled in these charter schools (which, by the way, were only the charter schools popular enough to be oversubscribed and have an entrance lottery) would eventually close 86% of the gap.  A subsequent study from other Stanford researchers again found that the charters were doing better than traditional public schools, but that the gains aren't nearly that big.

5.) All of these arguments have been made before.  And they were just as weak then.  When I was told Joe Klein had a new column out on education, I was expecting something insightful.  I love some of his other work.  Hopefully he was distracted because he's in the midst of writing the next great political novel.

Do Unions Place Adults Before Children?

A few months ago I characterized Johnathon Alter's statement that unions "believe that protecting incompetents is more important than educating children" as "sheer and utter nonsense." But he's far from the only one saying things like this.

Just yesterday the NY Times published an article in which Michelle Rhee said that "Tenure is the holy grail of teacher unions, but has no educational value for kids; it only benefits adults."

Simon Campbell, the founder of stopteacherstrikes.org (the name explains the purpose of the site), argues that "A child's right to a strike-free education supersedes a teacher's right to strike."

Beyond the world of education, The Economist's blog on American politics recently wrote that "With American carmakers nearing extinction the argument that unions are bad for business carries more heft than usual."

They're not exactly the same, but arguing that unions are bad for students and bad for profits are roughly similar. In both cases, the person making the argument believes that the union's main goal is not the same as the main goal of the organization/business. In some broad sense, there's a grain of truth to this.

A business example: The UAW's main goal is for their members to be paid and treated well -- GM's main goal (for example) is to make money. It's possible that GM could make more money by hiring a lot of workers for dirt-cheap wages and treating them like crap. But that doesn't mean they don't have common goals. Both groups have a strong interest in the company being profitable (an unprofitable business can't keep workers employed, yet along give them raises) and both groups hopefully have some sort of concern for society and humanity at large. In this sense, even if GM could make a lot of money through unethical means I would hope that they would think twice about their responsibility to do otherwise. And employing a bunch of people who have stable jobs and earn enough to make a decent living is good for the country.

For schools, I'd hope that the main goal of a school would be to educate its students as well as possible. One could argue that the main goal of a teachers' union is to ensure that its members are treated fairly and paid well, and they would have a point; that's probably their main goal. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they do that at the expense of students. Ultimately, teachers care about their students . . . and a union of teachers, when you boil it down, is really just a large group of teachers.

In the short run, I can see the argument that teachers going on strike or fighting for tenure isn't necessarily in the best interest of students. But when you look at the big picture, I don't think there are any grounds for declaring that unions believe adults are more important than students or protect adults at the expense of students. And I say that for a number of reasons:

1.) Unions aren't perfect, but they're not evil as some seem to believe. There is no sinister plot by the unions to take over the world. They don't hire monsters to hide under your child's bed at night. Their black helicopters aren't coming to get you. And any rhetoric to the contrary shouldn't be taken seriously.

2.) Much of what is in the best interest of teachers is also in the best interest of students. A more stable and professional teaching force, smaller classes, and a more orderly environment are a few of the things for which unions fight. All are in the best interest of both teachers and students.

3.) While a single bad teacher remaining in their position or a single district going on strike may not immediately benefit the students of those teachers, that doesn't mean that the broad rules surrounding such events doesn't benefit students. The fact that principals can't dismiss teachers at whim both protects some teachers who shouldn't be protected and prevents a class full of second graders from losing their wonderful teacher in the middle of the year because that teacher disagree with the principal about something. Similarly, the right to strike sometimes hurts students in the short-run but, in the long run, it could lead to a union that has more leverage to fight for the types of things I discussed in #2.

4.) Unions aim to make teachers happy, and I find it hard to believe that unhappy teachers benefit anybody. In fact, according to a recent internal study in Austin, happier teachers may lead to more successful schools.

I get the feeling that part of the reason that people don't take these things into account is because of the positions that unions are forced to take. When Michelle Rhee wants to ax a large number of teachers, the union has is forced into a corner and has no other option but to fight the plan (or at least parts of it). And fighting against a plan designed to get rid of poor teachers makes the union look bad. But I don't think any union, or any union member, would argue that we should protect bad teachers. My guess is that if Rhee had asked the union to propose a plan that they would have some sort of provision that allowed for the dismissal of the worst teachers. But the ways in which teachers are vilified by so many in the education policy arena doesn't allow unions to take the offensive in ridding their bodies of their worst members because they're too busy defending those that aren't the worst.

Anyway, here are some concluding thoughts: Are unions perfect? No. Should they perhaps be a little more flexible? Yes. Could they do a better job of working with reform-minded superintendents? Cetainly. But, are they the scourge of the Earth sent from hell to ensure that children don't learn? No, they're not, and don't believe anybody who says so.

Ridding Schools of "Bad" Teachers

A recurring theme in education commentary is that there are too many bad teachers -- largely because teachers are too hard to fire. The latest blurb on this topic comes from the Fordham blog and cites a statistic that only 1.9% of teachers with at least three years of experience were dismissed or didn't have their contract renewed due to poor performance. The leap to connecting the bevy of bad teachers to burdensome contract rules is, thus, easy to make. Before we can draw any firm conclusions, however, we'd need the following info:

How many teachers are actually "bad" enough that they should be fired?
This is, of course, subjective -- but we have to have some ballpark figure of how many people should be fired before we can determine that not enough are

How many teachers are fired in their first three years?
Ideally, tenure should be granted only to effective teachers -- meaning that the vast majority of less effective teachers would move on in the first few years

How many "bad" teachers leave voluntarily?
Efficacy is closely related to satisfaction in teaching, and it stands to reason that less satisfied teachers would be more likely to leave

How many "bad" teachers are counseled out rather than officially sanctioned?
Just because only a small number are actually fired doesn't mean that only those teachers are leaving the profession. Beyond those who leave voluntarily, I'm willing to bet that many more people are "counseled out" than are officially fired.

How hard is it to actually dismiss a teacher?
I hear a lot of complaints, but I'd like to know if it's really impossible or if it simply takes more effort than many are willing to put forth

What percentage of "bad" pre-tenure teachers are thoroughly reviewed by their principals?
If teachers are making it through the tenure process unscathed despite being ineffective, that doesn't strike me as their fault -- part of a principal's responsibility is to evaluate teachers, particularly novice teachers

How many teachers become "bad" after being granted tenure?
If principals thoroughly review beginning teachers and allow only the best to be tenured, but these teachers then burn out and stop trying then we might want to reevaluate the idea of tenure. On the other hand, it would also be worth considering why they burn out.

In short, citing a statistic about a low number of teachers being fired fails to fully describe the situation. It doesn't tell us how many people should leave, are leaving, or why they are/are not leaving.

In Need of Alteration

I saw an opinion piece in the latest issue of Newsweek yesterday that I caught my attention. In it Johnathon Alter offers some thoughts on what's wrong with and should be done about education in the United States.

I'm always glad when education gets more attention in the mainstream media, and Alter raises some valid points, but the piece leaves an awful lot to be desired. If you haven't yet read it, it's short and it's worth a glance. To those of you who read the education blogs regularly, I don't think you'll see anything particularly new.

To paraphrase, he essentially argues that unions are ruining our schools, that we need to hold teachers more accountable, make schools more like KIPP schools, and that Obama should go against the unions and find ways to bring and keep better teachers in our school.

Unfortunately, Alter makes a few errors. Perhaps most grievous, at least to those of us with research training, is his false statement about how students are selected for KIPP and other charter schools. He says that students are "randomly selected" to attend. Random selection is a technical term meaning that the sample (in this case the students attending KIPP) was selected completely at random and, therefore, no person should be more likely to be included than any other person. This is simply not how KIPP works. Parents and students have to apply in order to enroll. Yes, students are admitted from the pool of applicants by lottery -- but this does not constitute random selection because they were randomly chosen from a non-random group.

Alter acknowledges that KIPP schools aren't fully replicable, but not necessarily for the right reason. He argues that there simply aren't enough effective teachers to go around. That may well be the case, but I hardly think that KIPP has a monopoly on effective teachers or that "effectiveness" is necessarily what sets KIPP teachers apart from teachers at other schools. As far as I can tell, a large number of teachers at KIPP and other similar schools are young and without families and, therefore, willing to essentially devote their life to the school for a few years before moving on. What we really lack is enough people who are willing and able to do this in order to run all schools like KIPP.

I must also take issue with his overly strong statement that "we know what works to close the achievement gap." Some people appear to have done it, and we have some good ideas -- but that doesn't mean the solution is just sitting out there waiting for everybody to latch on.

I'll give Alter credit for arguing that we need to devise ways to measure how well teachers teach rather than simply arguing that we need to measure them and then hold them accountable.

Perhaps the most ridiculous thing that Alter writes -- and the statement that gives away the ideological underpinnings of his argument if anybody wasn't already aware -- is that unions "still believe that protecting incompetents is more important than educating children." Unions are far from perfect, and this is far from the most inflammatory rhetoric that I've read about them, but it's still sheer and utter nonsense. Alter disagrees with unions, so he essentially resorts to exaggerating their misdeeds and calling them names. Though more polite, it's the intellectual equivalent of calling somebody with whom you disagree a Nazi or a terrorist.

If I were a union leader, however, I would mull over Alter's final point. He argues that unions should "change their focus from job security and the protection of ineffective teachers to higher pay and true accountability for performance." The statement is a bit over the top, but the general idea that unions could view submitting their members to more scrutiny in exchange for higher pay is something on which both sides might find some common ground.

More on the NY Tenure Law

I wrote before on the tenure law that was passed in NY and had no intention of writing about it again, in part because I think the end result is essentially inconsequential. But the more I read about it the more annoyed I become with critics of the law. Not because it's not a bad law -- it is -- but because the effects of the law are constantly overstated.

The latest offender is Kevin Carey over at The Quick and the Ed. I hesitate to pick on him b/c I've read more ridiculous assertions than his, but his just happened to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Before I begin let me say that he's written a lot of other things that I thought were very good.

Though not the main focus of his post, Carey implies at the end that using standardized tests to make tenure decisions would eliminate a lot of bad teachers in NY. That theory, of course, makes sense on paper -- but it plays out differently in reality.

The tests are ill-suited for use as a measure of the amount that students learned in one year for three major reasons: 1.) They're given well before the end of the year, 2.) They're not designed to be value-added tests -- they're designed to determine proficiency in each separate grade, and 3.) The majority of teachers do not teach tested subjects.

Carey writes that academics are too cautious about endorsing programs, and he may have a point, but this one case where the caution is merited. It's not the case that the information gathered from these tests would be only a little helpful rather than a lot, it's the case that the information gathered from the tests would be so inaccurate as to be useless.

He writes that there are a number of bad teachers in NYC (and references this as proof). Of course there are a number of bad teachers -- anybody who disputes this is dead wrong -- but would the information gained from these tests really solve the problem?

First of all, a number of the bad teachers referenced in that blog post do not teach a tested subject (3rd-8th grade Math or English) and would, therefore, be completely unaffected by the use of the test scores. This means that a 4th grade English teacher, say, with slightly sub-par scores might face some heat while the Spanish teacher who takes his shirt off in class will not. Secondly, all of the offenses mentioned in the post are observable by peers and supervisors -- a test will not inform a principal that a teacher had an affair with a student. Thirdly, because the test results would be somewhat random it very likely that a good teacher could get bad results and a bad teacher good results -- completely defeating the purpose of using the tests in the first place. In short, using test results would likely hurt at least as many people as it hurt.

It is clear, then, that the test results should not be a deciding factor when evaluating teachers. The argument that NY should hold off for a couple years until they develop a better value-added testing system is correct.

As I previously wrote, it is a heavy-handed law and was passed in a devious manner -- which are both worthy of negative press attention -- but it is quite clear that the rule regarding the use of test results will not, in and of itself, do substantial harm over the next two years. I find any argument that it will to be disingenuous.

Let me end with two clarifications. 1.) I do not object to change. Not in the least. Bad teachers should be removed from schools. I will never, ever, argue this point. The tenure law, however, does not prevent bad teachers from being removed from schools. 2.) I bear no personal ill-will toward Kevin Carey. If I've been unfair to him then I assume either he or somebody else will let me know.

Update: I've been informed that I misspelled Kevin Carey's name 4 out of 5 times in the previous edition of this post. My apologies -- it's been corrected.

Standardized Tests and Tenure

Earlier this week, New York passed a law banning the use of standardized test results when making decisions on teacher tenure. The little afterthought of a law that was stuck in a big budget bill has set the education blogosphere aflame. It contains a piece of almost all of the major issues of the day: unions, standardized tests, teacher quality, and the intervention of politicians.

Here's a recap of how various people reacted to the decision:

Joel Klein: The sky is falling, and it's all the union's fault
Randi Weingarten: We don't need no stinkin' standardized tests
The NY Times: It's not a good idea, and it wasted valuable time
The Quick and The Ed: It's bad . . . and anyone who argues it's not is stupid
Education Notes: It's good . . . and nobody is honestly refuting my argument
The Socratic Method: It's both unnecessary and stupid
Eduwonkette: People are overreacting
Sherman Dorn: Let's not forget that it's a moratorium, not a ban

My guess is that the way people view this law is largely the same as the way the view unions. If they don't like unions, they don't like the law; and vice-versa. And that's really a shame, because it's the sort of polarizing pseudo-argument that overly-partisan politicians in Washington use to paralyze our country.

The reality, in this situation, (as it always seems to be) is somewhere in between. The idea that unions are either purely good or purely bad is pure nonsense. In this case, unions went out of their way to push a law that may or may not have been unnecessary, but probably won't really hurt anyone in the short-run, though it could prove harmful if it became permanent. In the meantime, it's possible that the state government would have been more productive if they'd been doing something else. What? Exactly. Let's break this down:

The Means: Unions clearly used the back door route to pressure politicians to tuck what they wanted in an unrelated large bill. I can't fault anybody who doesn't like the way they did it -- they're not exactly setting a stellar example here.

The Ends: Districts aren't allowed to use data from state tests to make decisions on teacher tenure for the next two years. This might be a bit extreme, but I see little evidence that the data would have radically transformed decision-making. The last time I checked, the state English test was given in Mid-January and the state Math test was given in Mid-March (approximately 55% and 75% of the way through the school year). Furthermore, I'm not sure that the tests are designed to be used as value-added assessments (meaning that you can compare the results from one year to those from the previous year to see how much a student learned) as they are in TN and some other states. Throw in the fact that the majority of teachers do not teach 3rd-8th grade Math or English, and you have a set of information that is far from perfect. Maybe two years from now they'll have a better system, but right now I don't see any compelling reason to believe that a district or principal gains much from using the data or loses much from not using the data. Meanwhile, the possibility that inaccurate data is used to decide whether a teacher stays or goes is eliminated.

The Context: How much of an effect the law has over the next two years largely depends on how many principals and districts were planning on using the data from state tests to make decisions on tenure over the next two years. If nobody was planning on doing it, then the law was a gigantic waste of time for everybody involved. If a lot of people were moving in that direction, then the state just intervened in a heavy-handed way that might result in fairer tenure decisions over the next two years.

So, in the end, these are really the questions we should be answering:

1. Did the ends justify the means?
2. How can we obtain better information on teacher performance than is currently available?
3. Is it possible for all of us to say the word "union" and remain rational?

update: I just read the comment that Sherman Dorn left on Eduwonkette's post, and he raises a very good point. The two-year moratorium means that NYC won't be able to use this data while Bloomberg (and, likely, Klein) are in office. That's gotta sting for them.

Will Bad Teachers Quit for 10K?

Yet another off-the-wall idea, courtesy of the local newspaper. Apparently an anti-union group (The Center for Union Facts) is starting an odd kind of contest in an attempt to stir up conversation about how hard it is to fire bad teachers. The contest? Nominate the worst teacher you know and the center will pick the 10 best entries (or, I guess, worst) and offer them $10,000 to quit. They'll also write about them on their website.

Now the idea of offering severance pay to make it easier to get rid of some bad apples might be a good one, but I'm not sure if they're actually expecting somebody to both quit their job and let their name and misdeeds be exposed for a paltry 10K. I'm sure there are at least 10 awful teachers in the country, but I don't think this is an effective way to get rid of them. To be fair, I don't think the center does either -- they pretty much say that it's a stunt designed to start a national conversation.

What worries me more, however, is the premise behind the idea. While I absolutely agree that bad teachers cause problems in schools, I'm not convinced that there are any more bad teachers than there are bad lawyers or pastors or mechanics. It's odd that teaching gets held to a higher standard in this regard and not in others. I'm also constantly amazed that unions get 100% of the blame for bad teachers -- the narrative being that everybody has their hand tied because unions make it impossible to fire teachers. Is it difficult to fire a teacher? Absolutely, especially one with tenure. Maybe it's harder than need be, but it should be difficult to fire somebody -- particularly in a position where politics can get involved.

Furthermore, I've never understood why it's only the union's fault that a bad teacher doesn't get better or get fired. Isn't it the principal's job to evaluate their teachers? How do principals manage to escape all blame for this? I've never tried to fire a teacher, so I might be wrong, but I think this whole "impossible to fire a teacher" thing is overblown; is it really "impossible," or is it just difficult enough to deter action? Even if it were impossible to fire a tenured teacher, I've seen no evidence that tenure is being used as a screening process. Perhaps if principals or, if they're too busy, somebody else did a better job of evaluating teachers before awarding tenure then there wouldn't be so many bad apples. Part of the reason that the tenure process works (at least a little bit) better at the college level has to be that tenure is somewhat difficult to get; one is thoroughly evaluated by their peers on a number of criteria before being awarded tenure.

The center says they want a national conversation, so here are my two cents:
-Propose a more realistic use of severance pay
-Stop blaming unions for everything
-Hold somebody accountable for evaluating teachers
-Make tenure review a more meaningful process

Randi Weingarten

Randi Weingarten gave the keynote address at a conference on performance incentives here last night. If you're thinking that it's odd for the head of a large teacher's union to be addressing a roomful of education economists you are correct. She essentially walked into the lion's den, confronted the lions, and lived to tell the tale. Whether you agree or disagree with her politics, you have to be impressed with her moxy.

My previous experience with Randi was limited to newsclips of her leading rallies, so I was pleasantly surprised by both the mechanics and the substance of her speech. She focused on two issues: bridging ideological divides to focus on what helps children (which, depending on your ideology, is either highly ironic or very fitting for a union head to say) and incorporating teachers in all reforms. She argued that the start of a pilot incentives program has gone smoothly in NYC because teachers had a role in its creation and management and because they were being rewarded rather than demeaned.

I think the strongest argument she made was that it is virtually impossible for most reforms to succeed without teacher buy-in. She asked a rhetorical question to the effect of "why would any teacher implement a reform in which they do not believe in their classroom?" To me, this is something too easily forgotten.