Obama and NCLB: The good--and very bad--news

[Starry Messenger]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/education-secretary-duncan/obama-and-nclb-the-good--and-v.html

The Obama plan does include funds for schools to broaden their curriculum and bring back some of the subjects that lost their presence — the arts, science, history, physical education, etc. Good.

And he said that he doesn’t want to penalize teachers under the NCLB when their students don’t improve.

But one of the most egregious efforts promoted by Obama and Duncan would link standardized test scores of students to teacher performance evaluations and pay. That means that all of the other factors that might go into a student’s test score — whether they are tired, or hungry, or can’t see well, or have a toothache, or were distracted in class, or have test anxiety, etc. — don’t actually matter.

Until this point Obama and Duncan had been on the wrong education course, promoting their $4.35 billion Race to the Top competition in which states actually compete for funds by proposing reform plans that include initiatives Duncan likes. The losing states don’t get anything. Too bad for them.

Her link to the Nick Anderson article in there is bad. Here's one that works:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/13/AR2010031301137.html?hpid=topnews

[mzteris]

1. What is ACTUALLY said is,

EFFECTIVE TEACHERS AND LEADERS

Our proposal will continue and improve formula grants to states and school districts to improve the effectiveness of teachers and leaders, and ensure that students in high-need schools are being taught by effective teachers in schools led by effective principals. To help meet these goals, states and districts may choose how to spend funds to meet local needs, as long as they are improving teacher and principal effectiveness and ensuring the equitable distribution of effective teachers and principals. To measure, develop, and improve the effectiveness of their teachers, leaders, and preparation programs, states and districts will be required to put in place a few specific policies and systems, including:
▶▶Statewide definitions of “effective teacher,” “effective principal,” “highly effective teacher,” and “highly effective principal,” developed in collaboration with teachers, principals, and other stakeholders, that are based in significant part on student growth and also include other measures, such as classroom observations of practice. As states transition to using these measures of effectiveness, we will maintain the provisions of current law relating to “Highly Qualified Teachers,” but with additional flexibility.
15
▶▶State-level data systems that link information on teacher and principal preparation programs to the job placement, student growth, and retention outcomes of their graduates.

▶▶District-level evaluation systems that (i) meaningfully differentiate teachers and principals by effectiveness across at least three performance levels; (ii) are consistent
with their state’s definitions of “effective” and “highly effective” teacher and principal; (iii) provide meaningful feedback to teachers and principals to improve their practice and inform professional development; and (iv) are developed in collaboration with teachers, principals, and other education stakeholders.

. . . School districts may use funds to develop and implement fair and meaningful teacher and principal evaluation systems, working in collaboration with teachers, principals, and other stakeholders; to foster and provide collaboration and development opportunities in schools and build instructional teams of teachers, leaders, and other school staff, including paraprofessionals; to support educators in improving their instructional practice through effective, ongoing, job-embedded, professional development that is targeted to student and school needs; and to carry out other activities to improve the effectiveness of teachers, principals, and other school staff, and ensure the equitable distribution of effective teachers and principals. Funds spent on strategies such as professional development and class size reduction must be aligned with evidence of improvements in student learning.

Measuring Success.
We will require transparency around the key indicators of whether students and schools have effective teachers and principals and whether teachers have the professional supports they need. Both states and districts must publish report cards at least every two years that provide information on key indicators, such as teacher qualifications and teacher and principal designations of effectiveness; teachers and principals hired from high-performing pathways; teacher survey data on levels of support and working conditions in schools; the novice status of teachers and principals; teacher and principal attendance; and retention rates of teachers by performance level. States will also be required to report on the performance of teacher and principal preparation programs by their graduates’ impact on student growth and other measures, job placement, and retention.


and this, in re: students:

To foster public accountability for results and help focus improvement and support efforts, states must have data systems in place to gather information that is critical to determining how schools and districts are progressing in preparing students to graduate from high school college- and career-ready. States and districts will collect and make public data relating to student academic achievement and growth in English language arts and mathematics, student academic achievement in science, and if states choose, student academic achievement and growth in other subjects, such as history. At the high school level, this data will also include graduation rates, college enrollment rates, and rates of college enrollment without need for remediation. All of these data must be disaggregated by race, gender, ethnicity, disability status, English Learner status, and family income. States and districts also will collect other key information about teaching and learning conditions, including information on school climate such as student, teacher and school leader attendance; disciplinary incidents; or student, parent, or school staff surveys about their school experience.

Measuring and Supporting Schools, Districts, and States. State accountability systems will be asked to recognize progress and growth and reward success, rather than only identify failure. To ensure that accountability no longer falls solely at the doors of schools, districts and states will be held accountable for providing their schools, principals and teachers with the support they need to succeed. We will ask States to recognize and reward schools and districts making the most progress, provide flexibility for local improvement efforts, and focus the most rigorous support and interventions on the very lowest-performing schools and districts.


adding some bolding for emphasis

[Hannah Bell]

3. blah, blah, blah PR-speak. "will be held accountable". so what? meaningless

without the specifics.


not that i expect you to acknowledge that. all you got is PR-speak.

cause when the nasty little details about charterization become public, support drops precipitously.

[Starry Messenger]

4. B-but Hannah!

It's a BROCHURE! All hail the Brochure of Authoriteh!!!1!

[msongs]

2. schools should ask for bombs and weapons, Obama has loads of this available lol nt

[RationalAltruism]

5. A more moderate way of putting it

would be that the other factors ("tired, or hungry, or can’t see well, or have a toothache, or were distracted in class, or have test anxiety, etc.") are expected to average out over students, teachers, and school districts, so that overall trends can still be seen. However, given that there are often factors like these that can affect classes as a whole (such as nearby construction, or ventilation system problems), and given that teachers don't teach all that many classes, this kind of standardized testing has the potential to be very unfair to teachers in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Implemented properly, something like this could make sense, but there are too many interfering variables that are too hard to account for.