Monday, February 27, 2012
Dear Colleagues,
Here are some interesting and important points I feel compelled to share with my colleagues at the Whittier City School District regarding the chapter “How We Teach” from the book Focus information we were asked to read at Longfellow School last Friday’s meeting as part of the Professional Learning Communities training. I found some of Mike Shmoker comments and citations misleading, exaggerated, or insufficiently supported.
In the last ten years there's been a lot of research done about what makes a difference for student achievement, and it's now clear that the single most important determinant of what students learn is what their teachers know. Teacher qualifications, teacher's knowledge and skills, make more difference for student learning than any other single factor.
Shmoker does not cite the primary source --Linda Darling Hammond; instead he uses Goldberg’s paraphrase. Goldberg substitutes the specific and correct word “learning” for the vague and wrong word “success.” This substitution changes the meaning of the sentence notably, misleading the readers by making them believe that a teacher can determine something immeasurable and transcendent like school or life success –as in achievement of intention, or attaining, rather than stating, like LDH does, that teachers’ knowledge and skills affect the simpler and measurable outcome of student learning –as in acquiring knowledge.
Linda Darling Hammond is a most respected academic who asserts that both teachers and education infrastructure should be considered when planning to improve public education. In this piece, LDH refers specifically to the issue of teacher training and preparation before entering a classroom. In her book “The Flat World and Education,” LDH she warns,
Although it is common to hear at professional conferences that “we know how to create effective schools and classrooms,” the “we who know” about what has proven effective does not include the broad swaths of education in the trenches. This conversation encompasses a small subset of practitioners who have gained access to strong training and other elites –pundits, consultants, and researchers –who talk mostly to one another. (p. 196)
In the currently prevailing paradigm in the United States, accountability has been defined primarily as the administration of tests and the attachments of sanctions to low test scores. . . Although the child and the school are accountable to the state for test performance, the state is not accountable to the child or school for providing adequate educational resources. (p. 301)
. . . The path to our mutual well-being is built on educational opportunity. Central to our collective future is the recognition that our capacity to survive and thrive ultimately depends on ensuring to all our people what should be an unquestioned entitlement – a rich and inalienable right to learn. (p. 328)
Conclusions: One, Linda Darling Hammond’s statement is not properly used in this restricted context, which renders the author’s statement unsound. Two, the claim that teacher are the most important factor in student achievement is demonstrably false --Research has shown that the variation in student achievement is predominantly the product of personal and family background characteristics.
This quote in Chapter 7 titled “Making the Financial Case for Teacher Pay” from the book “How to Create a World Class Teacher Compensation,“ by Allan Odden and Wallace. As the title indicates, the authors agree with the free market theories that reformers’ are imposing on public education. Odden and Wallace’s work advocates for merit pay systems. Unlike independent researchers who present findings objectively, Odden and Walace , who are both experts in management, attempt to build a case for districts to switch to merit pay systems. Understandably, the authors make ideological claims and select research to persuade, rather than inform. This quote is questionable. A look at the names of the researchers’ list from this paragraph show Dr. William Sanders, who created a Value Assessment System in Tennesee in the early nineties, is in every single one!
Research shows that the most powerful impact on student academic achievement is the nature and quality of classroom instruction, i.e., the teacher. Bill Sanders form Tennesee is one of the leading analysts whose research shows the powerful impact individual teachers have on student academic achievement. Students who experience highly effective teachers tend to learn two years of knowledge with just one year of instruction, whereas students who experience highly ineffective teachers lose in their relative achievement ranking over the course of one year. . . . Sanders, 1998; Sanders & Horn 1994; Sanders and Rivers 1996; Wright, Horn & Sanders 1997) . . . the effect of the teachers’ instructional practice far outweighs other factors, such as years of experience, degree/credit attainment, student characteristics, and classroom characteristics. (p. 109)
Conclusion: Shmoker does not support his claim with solid research. Considering the conflict of interest between academic credentials of Sanders and his business, any reasonable person would at least ask for more independent evidence. As respectable as Sanders is, Shmoker’s citations are exclusively using Sanders’ work. Incidentally, Sanders is a senior fellow at the SAS , a company that provides analytic software.
Here, Shmoker repeats the debunked claim that teachers are the most important factor, although he narrows it to how many children learn. Calvin, a senior at the Education Sector –a think tank that claims it does independent analysis and innovative ideas, but that is not surprisingly advocating for the “improvement of design and management teachers work force. . . ” . Education Sector is funded by the same billionaires who support all the reforms that have been applied unsuccessfully for the past ten years. The call for parents to know more and the focus on teachers is a standard call for the reformers; Mr. Colvin’s primer for journalist Leadership and Learning give the guidelines to see public schools from the same business like management style reforms.
Conclusion: Knowing about schools is important. However, Shmoker’s notion of knowledge is not inclusive of all stakeholders and context, only teachers. The application of this idea in our current context continue making teachers and principals the only ones heavily scrutinized, judge, and penalized. Shmoker advocates for even more accountability, more demands, more scrutiny, more evaluations, and more punitive measures, regardless of how inadequate the educators’ support may be.
Shmoker now makes the false claim that three years of effective teacher can improve students’ progress significantly despite any other factor. The claim about “three years of effective teaching can completely change the academic . . .” was stated by none other than Sanders himself in 1996. In 2001 Haggai Kupermints, Lorrie Shepard, and Robert Linn from the University of Colorado at Boulder, reviewed the claim in their report “Teacher Effects as a Measure of Teacher Effectiveness: Construct Validity Considerations in TVAAS (Tennessee Value Added Assessment System)” and found it invalid. The authors explain:
A widely-cited conclusion from the Sanders & Rivers study (1996) states: Based upon these results, students benefiting from regular yearly assignment to more effective teachers (even if by chance) have an extreme advantage in terms of attaining higher levels of achievement. (p. 7). Sanders & Rivers have reached their conclusion after examining the consequences for student performance of teacher assignments over a three year period, showing dramatic difference in performance for students who have been consistently assigned during that period to effective or ineffective teachers. But these results can only be taken to be insightful if we ignore the fact that teacher effectiveness is defined in terms of their students’ performance gains.
In order to clarify the effectiveness of each factor in the process the researchers reported their findings:
A study which carried out a three-way error component analysis, through decomposing the variance in pupil performance into school, class and teacher effects, is that by Goldhaber, Brewer and Anderson (1999). One of the valuable features of the U.S. National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) data on which this study is based is that it includes detailed teacher- and class-level data linked to individual pupils, including each teacher’s gender, ethnicity, experience, degree level and certification, as well as class size and composition. Their value-added analysis was based upon the 10th grade mathematics scores of a random sample of pupils drawn from 490 different schools, involving 1340 classes and 1089 different teachers, using pupil-level prior attainment scores in mathematics at Grade 8, as well as other pupil-, class-, teacher-, and school-level variables discussed in Section 8 below. They concluded that “The vast majority of variance is explained by individual and family background characteristics (about 60%) Overall, school, teacher and class variables, both observable and unobserved, account for approximately 21% of the variation in student achievement. Of this 21%, only about 1 percentage point ... is explained by observable educational variables, and the remaining 20 percentage points ... is made up of unobservable school, teacher and class effects” (of about 8, 8 and 4 per cent respectively).
In addition, Gerald Bracey explains in “What’s the Value in Growth Measures ,“
Aside from William Sanders and his Tennessee Value Added Assessment System (TVAAS), those working in VAA (Henry Braun, Howard Wainer, Dan McCaffrey, Dale Ballou, J. R. Lockwood, Haggai Kupermintz, for example) acknowledge that it cannot permit causal inferences about individual teachers. At best, it is a first step toward identifying teachers who might need additional professional development or low performing schools in need of technical assistance. The model also presumes that the teacher "effect" persists-like a diamond, it lasts undiminished forever. This has not been independently demonstrated.
It is not coincidence that this and other false claims are made about teachers’ efficiency. This claim can only be examined with a Value Added Assessment System, which would force districts to hire a company that provides such services, like Sander’ SAS or any other similar company. Also, Odden and Wallace would support the VAA because it would be the used to implement merit pay. In addition, Calvin and Johnson would love parents and public in general to see more detailed information about teachers. It is no coincidence because our Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan demands VAA systems as a condition to help “low performing” schools with SIG money, despite being unreliable and unstable by the National Education Writers Association .
Finally, Linda Darling Hammond rejects the use of VAA. As Linda Darling Hammond explains, researchers have found that the very same teacher looks more “effective” when she is teaching more advantaged students -- and less effective when she teaches more students who are low-income, new English learners, or who have special education needs.
Conclusion: The claim has been demonstrated false. Any person who states differently is uninformed, ideologically biased, or purposely dismissing concrete evidence.
Here Shmoker cites not a single respectable research paper, but an article in the Atlantic magazine “What Does A Great Teacher Look Like?” In a feeble attempt to enhance his case for reducing the success of a contextual teaching-learning phenomenon into a limited set of observable teaching behaviors, Shmoker focuses only on what teachers do. He audaciously quotes Ripley writing “this is the most stunning finding to out of education research in the past decade.” As it has happened with too many statements made by reformers and their sympathizers, this commentary is a hyperbole. As Andy Kroll explains, Ripley does not reveal anything new about good teachers – good teachers set big goals; try to improve; engage with their students and parents; plan well; and persevere in the face of budgetary cuts, pesky bureaucrats, or student issues outside of the classroom like poverty.”
What Shmoker does is to use Ripley’s article to oversell TFA’s teachers. First of all, this organization receives unconditional funding from several anti-public education billionaires. In 2011, TFA received 100 million dollars. Secondly, as Diane Ravitch explains, “The problem with TFA is that it grossly overstates its role in American education. This year, TFA sent 8,000 young people into high-needs schools; they agree to stay for two years; some stay longer, but most will be gone within three years.” In addition, Valerie Strauss explains that about a third of Teach for America’s operating costs are paid by the public through federal, state and local funds. For example, in 2008, the program was funded this way: 33 percent from public funds, 26 percent from foundations, 20 percent from individuals, 15 percent from corporations, and 6 percent from special events. In this respect, Shmoker does not add any valid research to validate his point.
Conclusion: The anecdotal account of a few teachers of America does not amount to evidence. Shmoker should have been followed it by providing enough academic evidence for the claim that “even in the worst schools, the most simple, ordinary teaching strategies overcome all other factors by significant margins.” As with the other four statements, Shmoker does not provide solid academic evidence.
Moreover, TFA is an organization that has operated for twenty years. TFA does not only receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the same billionaires that fund propositions and support anti-public school teachers; they received a substantial amount of public education money –public schools’ money.
Schools are places where academic truth must be considered in highest value. This is important for teachers, students, and the community as a whole. Indeed, that is one of the most important reasons why schools and teachers are respected in the community. For this reason, districts have an ethical, pragmatic, and professional duty to increase the knowledge and improve the skills of principals and teachers.
Districts have taken care of this concern about professional improvement for decades. They have been done effectively in different ways: going back to college to earn masters or even doctoral degrees, ongoing in-services, and collaboration among peers, among others. However, in the last years professional improvement has taken a different style. In the name of an ideology, teachers are not treated as professionals with criterion to evaluate and judge information. In this particular case, these five examples of false claims should be brought up to the attention of all stakeholders and addressed properly. When teachers are misinformed and mislead every person in the community loses. In the name of academic honesty and for the benefit of all involved in public education, we all should assume the elementary responsibility to respect facts and evidence.
Who wins, who loses, who cares?
In solidarity,
Sergio Flores