No Thanks, NY Times, But You Are Welcome to Explain Yourself Here

My colleague, Jose Vilson, has written an important piece entitled, Why The NY Times Is Asking Me To Validate Myself. The NY Times, which is publishing the value added data reports on individual teachers (my commentary is here), has created a means for teachers to explain any special circumstances that affected their value added score.  

They write:

"With SchoolBook’s partners at WNYC, The Times has developed a sophisticated tool to display the ratings in their proper context, a hallmark of our journalism.

But we want to take that a step further, by inviting any teacher who was rated to provide her or his response or explanation. We are seeking those responses now, so they can be published at the same time as the data reports.

If there were special circumstances that compromise the credibility of the numbers in particular cases, we want to know."

Like Jose, I'm really not buying this as a sophistocated tool or an example of good journalism. The NY Times has published pretty extensively about the shortcomings and flaws with the value added measures. Not only would I not know how to explain my score, since I have no involvement with the system or algorithm that created it, the notion that any teacher should feel compelled to explain potentially unseen factors in their students' test scores to the entire world is really shocking and gives me great concern.  

In fact, I urge other teachers not to take up this invitation.  It smells like a trap.  You know when a misbehaving student tries to argue with you in front of the class when you attempt to redirect their behavior?  To divert your attention from the actual desired outcome?  Over time, you learn not to fall for this one, right?

The NY Times' invitation to explain aspects of our work that may or may not have anything to do with a public ranking, which is completely innappropriate and narrow in the first place, seems like a diversion from the real problem here--the undermining of teachers as professionals--and desired outcome--the professionalization of teaching.  Explaining my rating only validates the process of publicly ranking teachers based on standardized test data.  (The analogy only holds for the diversion tactic and the need not to fall for it, not the actual issue. In other words, when students misbehave, I'm not suggesting that they are undermining the teaching profession!) 

Bottom line: I do want to be recognized for the skills I develop as a teacher over time and the impact I have on students. I want to do this based on a meaningful and reliable measure of my impact as a teacher through a process vetted by members of my profession within a professional structure, not the daily paper.  I want this information to be thoughtfully employed in productive ways that will help me and others in the profession continue to grow. 

So, no thanks, NY Times. I will not be explaining anything about my score.  I write every month about my work in teaching.  I invite you, instead, to explain what you hope to accomplish by publicly ranking your city's teachers.  You may use the comments section below. 

 

Comments

[Clix]

The link to Vilson's blog doesn't seem to work for me.

[Ariel Sacks]

Thanks, Clix. It is now fixed.

[Jim Dunning]

Ariel, very thoughtful and throught-provoking post. You say, "I do want to be recognized for the skills I develop as a teacher over time and the impact I have on students. I want to do this based on a meaningful and reliable measure of my impact as a teacher through a process vetted by members of my profession within a professional structure, not the daily paper."

My concern as an educator is that our customers want the same thing, but they're having a difficult time finding that vetted process. Your experience may be different than mine and others, but I see very little real professional development and professional assessment in our profession. For example, most PD occurs just before the school year begins, providing no time to reflect on it and use it in planning. And, more siginificantly, no one assesses our success in utilizing and implementing the training.

Don't you see the attraction of standardized testing as an attempt by our customers of identifying at least one way of maintaining and measuring learning quality?

[Ivan C]

I agree with Jim. Flawed as it is, we teachers should be willing to advocate for a reasonable approach to teacher assessment. How that metric is developed is another question, but it would behoove us to help offer some ideas and affect the debate, bc it's not going anywhere. Rather, we teachers need to take greater ownership in the debate and recognize that teacher assessment plays some role in a larger vision of education reform/improvement that most of us share. Like many others, I happen to think that a truer vision involves a break away from reliance on standardized testing; perhaps a move toward investigating what students are *doing* with their knowledge would be in order. The icky part is that a move like this forces us to step back and really reconceptualize how schools work. But given where "ed reform" is currently headed, I see this move as indispensable.

[Jim Dunning]

Ivan, let me add to something you say: "...it would behoove us to help offer some ideas and affect the debate, bc it's not going anywhere -- and it's not going away!"

As much as I deplore using standardized tests as the measure of an educator's performance and efficacy, what worries me more is the lack of meaningful response from our "profession" to the issue. We -- usually in the form of the NEA, but ubiquitously at the individual level -- make an awful lot of noise about how unfair, narrow, and ineffective methods such as value-added testing are in assessing teacher quality, but offer no alternatives. If focusing on the growing standardized testing movement is not the answer, then what is? Or are (since, in reality, there should be more than one methodology employed)?

What's especially perplexing is the common plaint that teaching is such a complex, individualist activity that it understandably defies assessment. Does anyone see the irony in this argument coming from teachers who purport to do this type of evaluation and coaching everyday -- with students?

Randi Weingarten, in response to Michelle Rhee's approach to improving teaching quality, says that instead of dumping poor and ineffective teachers we should be identifying them and training them to be better. So reasonable and so logical -- until we consider that Ms. Weingarten is well aware of the check-box nature of teacher training and we must therefore suspect an element of disingenuousness in her answer. Thus I find myself favoring the Rhee solution over such defensive, delaying tactics.

After eight years in public education I'm in dialogues with parents, other educators, and, yes, even students, where I'm espousing what Ivan might ascribe as a "reconceptualizing" of how schools work. I've worked in compensation management and staff development for three decades and have an appreciation for how complex performance is and how interdependent all of the related factors and elements are, right down to how our silo physical and schedule structures mold and define and limit our capabilities, attitudes, and visions.

Last year, our principal circulated the link to Kenneth Robinson's Changing Education Paradigms animation ( http://youtu.be/zDZFcDGpL4U ), most likely with a straight face. I'm sure his intent was to inspire, but how can anyone with an ounce of intelligence not see that the video damns the very foundations of the typical setup of every school in America, including his? This feel-good-but-dispense-with-any-focus-on-results approach to education needs to go.

Maybe we -- as a profession and as individuals -- need to now be willing to start acknowledging and grappling with the "icky" parts of fixing education and learning, of which teacher evaluation is just a part.