New York releases teacher ratings today, but cautions against drawing conclusions. Then, why release them?
After bitter legal battles, criticisms by researchers and protests by teachers, New York City released performance rankings of 18,000 teachers today.
And the condemnation was immediate.
“It is outrageous that the New York City Department of Education is releasing teacher rankings that, by their own admission, are based on bad, unreliable data,” said American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. “Publicizing this data reneges on a deal I made with former Chancellor Joel Klein years ago that it would only be available to teachers and their supervisors for purposes of improving instruction. Today’s release amounts to a public flogging of teachers based on faulty data.
“Instead of working with teachers to develop and implement an evaluation system that assesses teachers based on multiple criteria and helps them improve, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the city’s education officials preferred to publicly ridicule teachers,” she said.
The release was accompanied by a caveat from the district to not use the scores alone to judge teachers, which I find strange as what else would parents be expected to do with the data? The rationale for releasing teacher grades or ratings is to better inform parents which teacher are effective and which are not, according to proponents.
New York was ordered to release its data because a court ruled the teacher ratings, which had been collected and used internally, were public documents.
The push to release the individual rankings began in August 2010, when New York City education officials contacted the reporters who most closely cover the city’s public schools and encouraged them to submit Freedom of Information Act requests for the teachers’ rankings. Until then, the city had refused to release the names with the rankings, citing issues of privacy.
On the eve of the rankings’ release, the teachers’ union filed a lawsuit. The city has acknowledged the reports are not perfect, but one of the judges who ruled on the case as it made its way to the state’s highest court said imperfection was no reason to hide them. Last week, after the union lost its last appeal, the city announced the rankings’ release.
“City officials are disingenuously telling parents, reporters, principals, teachers and others that they shouldn’t draw conclusions based on these scores alone,” said Weingarten. “But who wouldn’t, when they have nothing else to use?”
According to the New York Times: (Please link and read the entire story before commenting.)
At a briefing on Friday morning, an Education Department official said that over the five years, 521 teachers were rated in the bottom 5 percent for two or more years, and 696 were repeatedly in the top 5 percent. But citing both the wide margin of error — on average, a teacher’s math score could be 35 percentage points off, or 53 points on the English exam — as well as the limited sample size — some teachers are being judged on as few as 10 students — city education officials said their confidence in the data varied widely from case to case.
“The purpose of these reports is not to look at any individual score in isolation ever,” said the Education Department’s chief academic officer, Shael Polakow-Suransky. “No principal would ever make a decision on this score alone and we would never invite anyone — parents, reporters, principals, teachers — to draw a conclusion based on this score alone.”
Nevertheless, the data is ripe for analysis. One fact shared by the Education Department: Many of the teachers included in the database are no longer working in city schools. Officials said 77 percent of the 18,000 who received reports were still employed by the Education Department, but of those who remained, many had moved on to administrative jobs or teach subject areas or grade levels that were not included in the reports.
For example, the teacher who was rated most highly, based on his scores for the 2009-10 school year, is now an assistant principal at another school, according to his online profile. His rating encompassed only one year of data and was based on 32 students’ test scores.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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109 comments Add your comment
Public HS Teacher
February 26th, 2012
11:33 pm
@Ole Guy –
In the news today…. An 11 year old girl in elementary school dies after a fight with a classmate in an alley after school. The girl had gone home after the fight and her mother put her to bed. Later that night, the mother took the 11 year old to the hospital where she was in a coma and passed. Her mother had talked to the TEACHER and the teacher said that she was going to talk to the girls on Monday.
Get it? The MOTHER wanted the TEACHER to do the job of the parent!
That is what’s wrong with education! Parents do not want to do their job and put it on the teacher!!!!!
Education will NEVER improve until we allow teachers to teach and not burden teachers with doing EVERYTHING from parenting kids to buying them pencils to providing them with food and so on.
Good teaching is a full time job. When you pile everything else onto the responsibilities of the teacher, it just cannot be done by anyone.
Ole Guy
February 26th, 2012
11:41 pm
Prof, when I was learning the intricacies of flying aeroplanes, I had my fair share of difficulties. My teachers…my instructors…pulled all sorts of “tricks” out of their bags; eventually, I “got it”, but not before one of my instructors said “I can offer all kinds of “practical advice”, but YOU have to complete the mission ON YOUR OWN”.
You’ve read my comments; you know what should be done/what SHOULD have been initiated a long long time ago. I don’t have to “fly” this particular ship…YOU do! I’ve seen the grizzley side of MY profession, pushed through, and survived. You’re wanting practical advice from me is tantamount to the captain wanting guidance, from the passengers, on how to navigate from point A to point B. YOU, the teacher corps, know where you currently are; where you SHOULD be. If you feel that your “current location” is fine, then hold fast…you’re doing your job of getting these kids ready for that which lies ahead. If, on the other hand, you feel that the educational skies are “below minimums”, REROUTE before you fly into a mountain.
Ole Guy
February 27th, 2012
12:15 am
I read the story, Teach…very sad indeed. Your’s…the teaching profession…is most-certainly not an easy road to navigate. I see, what amounts to, a slippery slope pretending to be public education. I don’t have all the answers; I don’t believe I have ANY answers which would be “warmly received”. Speaking as an old timer, I see a self-perpetuating system of social decline. The parents who refuse to accept parental responsibilities are, themselves, products of the early decline in education. So the big question(s) remain: WHERE/WHEN DID IT START? WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT CORRECTIVE ACTIONS ARE REQUIRED? HOW ARE WE TO ACHIEVE THOSE ACTIONS?
These are questions which many, both in and out of YOUR profession, ask.
I often feel extremely fortunate to be a part of my particular vintage. The educational systems across the Country were being geared up with the sole intent of preparing a generation, called the Baby Boom, to face the global challenges of a space race, and post-war technological achievements. The Nuns ensured that 4th graders were proficient in stuff which seems to stymie too many older kids today. The Nuns also ensured that kids were fully aware of the relationships between actions and consequences. Both high school and college graduations (for me, anyway) were EARNED; the results of much “mental torture”.
While it is far too easy to simply say “Godspeed, Teachers”, one must wonder if this is the first time in the checkered history of mankind when someone didn’t feel that the “social applecart” had to be upset.
Mary Elizabeth
February 27th, 2012
12:36 am
@Brandy, 9:43 pm
From the NY Times article you linked, p. 2:
“The Atlanta and Washington situations are similar in several ways. Ms.(Michelle) Rhee and Beverly Hall, the former Atlanta superintendent, both relied on fear to motivate, relentlessly driving their work forces. Dr. Hall told principals that if scores didn’t go up enough in three years, they’d be fired. Ms. Rhee bragged about how hard she pushed. ‘We want educators to feel the pressure,’ she said.”
============================================================
“. . .both relied on fear to motivate. . .”
This is the polar opposite approach needed to motivate teachers and students. Creating a school environment of fear and intimidation is not productive for teachers, nor for students.
Test scores should be used primarily for diagnostic purposes to target and enhance instruction for the benefit of students. The purpose of the data should be enlightenment, not punishment.
If test data is used to assess teachers and schools, then that data must also contain knowledge of student potential, as indicated on IQ tests, to be fair, valid, and complete. Test score data, if used for teacher evaluations, should only be one of many factors with which to assess teacher competency. Test data should not be used for heavy-handed intimidation, but as an aid for improvement. Fear inhibits. Education should be about growth, not fear. To enhance growth, teachers and students must exist, together, in a relaxed environment, in which excellence, and respect, are valued.
Prof
February 27th, 2012
11:58 am
@ Ole Guy. Given the amount of time it must have taken Mary Elizabeth to type out her 12:36 am post above, she must have been writing it about the same time that you were writing your own 12:15 am post; so it most probably was not intended as an answer to your post. But it certainly does that.
It seems that what you really wish is that teachers today would be kamikaze pilots…all for the good of public education, of course.
To Ron F from Good Mom
February 27th, 2012
5:12 pm
You observed that “Especially now as the baby-boomers are retiring. In the next ten years, we’ll need a lot more new teachers than we’re going to be attracting I’m afraid.”
except this one fact…the baby boom generation is the biggest generation. Subsequent generations are much smaller, therefore, we will need fewer teachers, not more.
When the population swells again, we’ll need more teachers but for now, the gen x, gen y and other gens are smaller in number. We actuallly need more children to earn salaries and pay taxes to support the huge baby boomer generation’s social security payroll and medicare costs. Actually, we need more kids.
GM
Jonathan
February 27th, 2012
9:20 pm
The actual data on teachers and schools is here http://teachrate.com
Ole Guy
February 28th, 2012
12:11 am
Prof, you just don’t get it, do you. It’s all about the level of RESPECT between a SKILLED, DEDICATED labor group and the powers that be: educational & governmental leadership, and, of course, the concerned public. Recent history has seen these entities target the teacher corps as sacrificial lambs on the alter of fiscal mismanagement…WHY? Because the teacher corps has proven itself to be “an easy target”…a source of quick fiscal fixes…a source which will offer absolutely no resistance, and will, in fact, encourage the “whipping boy” label which educational leadership is quick to ascribe. Expending personal resources for supplies (copy paper, for example) which ANY other organization would view as simply the cost of doing business, dutifully treking to school on OFFICIAL FURLOUGH DAYS, and watching, in complete political silence, their peers…some recent winners of (artificial) acolades being arbitrarily dismissed in the name of expedience…are all reasons for educational leadership to have absolutely no respect toward the teacher corps.
Your previous remarks have suggested my propensity toward “arm’s length” advice…I’VE had my battles within my ocupational domains; I’ve won some, and I’ve come out with a “bloody nose” on a few. The battles, however…win, lose or draw…all resulted in some form of new-found RESPECT; a willingness to explore new ground.
I realize it’s probably a little late to even consider battle tactics…these are issues which surfaced on the education front many many moons ago. However, judging from your nom de plume, I would presume you are…or should…in some position of responsibility and authority within the corps of teachers. For this reason, YOU, and many other (supposed) leaders within the corps should be considering positive steps toward the future of Ga teachers and, of course, the youth to whom YOU have been entrusted.
I find it both interesting…and a bit sad that you equate my thoughts to those of the Kamikaze. The Kamikaze, you may or may not know, was a last-ditch effort of a country pretty much “on the ropes”; rocked back on their “national heels”, and with no other option. They had been systematically worn down by constant bombardment from overwhelming forces and, far far more importantly, A WILL TO PREVAIL. U.S. Ground, Naval, and Air Forces still received “bloody noses”. Following the initial attacks on 7 Dec 41, Japanese leadership, in the name of one ADM Yamamoto, observed that by presuming the U.S. to be an easy target, Japan had, in reality, “Awoken A Sleeping Giant AND FILLED HIM WITH…RESOLVE.
Prof, we may “joust” back and forth, but do not dare to presume any relationship between Japan’s resorting to Kamikaze tactics and the current situation in which the corps of teachers reside. YOUR battle has been severly limited to the whinning, complaining and whimpering of scared rabbits, not the valiant, though fruitless efforts of a lost cause.
Prof
February 28th, 2012
12:50 pm
@ Ole Guy. Like you, I’m on the sidelines of this educational battle, for college/University professors have nothing to do with K-12 teachers, and their working situations are very different. And the K-12 teachers know that. Professors have the sort of autonomy and authority for which you call, because they have tenure. Their students are there voluntarily, and can be ousted quite easily and legally. So I don’t presume to give them advice, because I’m safe from any retaliation as they are not….just as you are.
I will observe, however, that what you equate with cowardice– buying classroom supplies themselves and coming in to teach on furlough days–I equate with putting their students before themselves, children’s interests before adult’s interests. And I respect them for that, although you clearly do not.