Value-added and the non-random sorting of kids who don’t give a sh^%t

[Hannah Bell]

Last week, this video from The Onion (asking whether tests are biased against kids who don’t give a sh^%t) was going viral among the education social networking geeks like me. At the same time, the conversations continued on the Los Angeles Times Value-Added story, with LAT releasing the scores for individual teachers.

I’ve written many blog posts in recent weeks on this topic. Lately, it seems that the emphasis on the conversation has turned toward finding a middle ground – discussing the appropriate role for VAM (Value Added Modeling) – if any, in teacher evaluation. But also, there is renewed rhetoric defending VAM. Most of that rhetoric seems to take on most directly the concern over the error rates in VAM – and lack of strong year to year correlation between which teachers are rated high or low.

The new rhetoric points out that we’re only having this conversation about VAM error rates because we can measure the error rate in VAM, but can’t even do that for peer or supervisor evaluation – which might be much worse (argue the pundits). The new rhetoric argues that VAM is still the “best available” method for evaluating teacher “performance.” Let me point out that if the “best available” automobile burst into flames on every fifth start, I think I’d walk or stay home instead. I’d take pretty significant steps to avoid driving...

http://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/kids-who-don%E2%80%99t-give-a-sht/

[madrchsod]

1. i was one of those i don`t give a shit kids

took me 5 years and a freshman math teacher(i took freshman math during my 5th yr.-still did`t "pass") to graduate from high school.

teachers do not operate machines that stamp out a widget.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. K&R

[ejpoeta]

3. how do you measure influence? the desire is to measure a teacher's

performance by their students ability to take a test. i just went to 6th grade orientation for my daughter and they have devoted two 40 minute blocks a day to studying for ela tests. 80 minutes of the day! this is what this desire to measure school's and teachers based on the ability of a kid to take a test has brought us. i understand the desire to figure out which teachers are the best ones and which are not. but i have attended school when i was young, and while it was a long time ago, the teachers that stand out for me as the best ones were the ones that inspired me. that helped me get through when the rest of my life was in a shambles. these things can not be seen on test results.

i have only had two years where my performance in school was sorely lacking. 6th and 7th grade. i attribute that to a couple of things.... the school i was in was horrible! the students were awful and i was spit on and had kids picking on me all the time. my mom was sick and my homelife was.... difficult. and i had a teacher. i remember.... her idea of teaching was to give us homework to do and not explain to us how to do it. there was always a nice line of students headed to her desk to ask questions. this was only one teacher that stands out my grades over all weren't very good at that time, so i can hardly just blame it on the teacher. and my particular ability to score well on tests might be compromised by my home situation and trouble i had at school with other kids as well.

there are going to be teachers that are there for the paycheck. but i submit that most of those teachers have probably been beaten by the system. this movemnet towards blaming the teachers for kids that don't want to do the work and parents that don't want to make their kids be responsible for their attitudes or to suffer the consequences of their behavior. they go in and undermine the teacher and then wonder why their kids have no respect for authority. how can you have kids do well in school that have no respect for authority?

there are so many things that go into school and education. putting this all on teachers is like blaming a driver for poor road conditions on a road that hasn't been fixed in 20 years.

[LWolf]

4. The new rhetoric is as flawed as the VAM it's defending.

Peer or supervisor evaluation is based on what an evaluator concretely sees going on. It's based on a set of teacher behaviors and/or characteristics that are common to good teaching.

Those kinds of evaluations CAN be, and HAVE been, done poorly, it's true. But done well, they'll be more accurate than a VAM every single time.

What is the VAM defenders' motivation for supporting a statistically flawed and insupportable method instead of focusing on making sure authentic teacher evaluations are done well?