How Should We Evaluate/Assess/Rate Teacher Performance? (Maybe Peer Review)

We live in a world of assessment; let’s take a look at sports. Every major league baseball team has a group of data wonks who collect bits and pieces of data and create algorithms to assess and predict future performance. Once upon a time we could quote batting averages, home runs, earned run averages, now we’re overwhelmed by Wins Over Replacement (WAR), launch angle, etc… We live in the world of Sabermetrics (“A Guide to Sabermetrics Research”).  Every sport has its own set of data used to assess player performance and to predict outcomes.

If we work out we keep track of minutes on the treadmill, number of pull-ups and dips, deep knee bends,  we can measure our performance. We can keep track on our I-Phone or I-Watch. If we play golf: has our handicap dropped? Or, tennis: are we beating players we used to lose to?

Dancers and musicians practice with a coach, guided practice, and improve at their art.

Which raises the nurture/nature question?  Do some athletes and artists have encoded DNA that makes them a better athlete or musician, or, does 10,000 hours of practice produce excellence? Grit and determination or natural ability?

David Epstein, The Sport’s Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance explores,

The debate is as old as physical competition. Are stars like Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, and Serena Williams genetic freaks put on Earth to dominate their respective sports? Or are they simply normal people who overcame their biological limits through sheer force of will and obsessive training?

The truth is far messier than a simple dichotomy between nature and nurture. In the decade since the sequencing of the human genome, researchers have slowly begun to uncover how the relationship between biological endowments and a competitor’s training environment affects athleticism. Sports scientists have gradually entered the era of modern genetic research.

In his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell lays out the much quoted “10,000 hours rule,”  simply put: gaining mastery requires 10,000 hours of “deliberate” practice.

The principle holds that 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” are needed to become world-class in any field.

But a new Princeton study tears that theory down. In a meta-analysis of 88 studies on deliberate practice, the researchers found that practice accounted for just a 12% difference in performance in various domains.

In education, a 4% difference
In professions, just a 1% difference

In it, [the authors] argue that deliberate practice is only a predictor of success in fields that have super stable structures. For example, in tennis, chess, and classical music, the rules never change, so you can study up to become the best.

But in less stable fields, like entrepreneurship  [and teaching]… rules can go out the window… mastery is more than a matter of practice.

Teaching is a far more complex task: on one side the teacher, with whatever skills s/he possesses, on the other side twenty or thirty students with a wide range of life experiences: are they hungry, or bullied, or depressed, and, in the middle the content you’re expected to transmit to the students, content, or, standards, or a curriculum or a program, none of which you played a role in selecting. Almost ten years ago the Obama-Duncan administration decided  dense algorithms can be used to compare teachers to teachers who are teaching “similar” students, the tool is called Value-Added Measurement, referred to as VAM, it was rolled out as “we can use results on standardized test scores to rate and compare teachers.” John King, at that time the NYS Commissioner adopted the use of VAM combined with supervisory observations, to assess teacher performance.

The pushback was vigorous, Chancellor Merryl Tisch convened a summit, experts from around the country to discuss the efficacy of using the VAM tool. The experts were crystal clear, VAM was never intended to assess the performance of an individual teacher. The Board of Regents agreed upon a four year moratorium on the use of standardized test scores to assess teacher performance. Last week both house of the state legislature passed a bill returning the question of teacher assessment to school districts, with considerable pushback from parents who felt district would simply substitute another off-the-shelf test.

See my blog here

We should completely de-link teacher assessment from test results.

The Netherlands are among the highest achieving school systems in the OECD, 8,000 unionized public schools functioning like charter schools. the schools have extremely wide discretion in how they run. Read a detailed description here.

European school systems use an inspectorate system (See links in the blog here), the school supervisory authority sends teams of experts into schools to assess the functioning of the school.

Back in the 90’s and early 2000’s New York State sent Schools Under Registration Review (SURR) teams into schools for a deep dive into the functioning of the school and produced highly specific (“Findings and Recommendations”) reports. I was the teacher union representative on many teams.

New York City conducts periodic Quality Review visits to schools, a type of inspectorate system.

Experienced educators conduct a two-day school visit. They observe classrooms, speak with parents, students, teachers, and school leaders. They use the Quality Review Rubric to help them examine the information they gather during the school visit.

After the school visit, a Quality Review Report is published on the school’s DOE webpage. The Quality Review Report rates the school on 10 indicators of the Quality Review Rubric. The report also describes areas of strength and areas of focus and has written feedback on six of the indicators. Information from this report is also used in the School Quality Snapshot.

The QR teams can be improved, they should be joint Department/Union teams and the union should play a role in constructing the Quality Review Rubric.

As far as the assessment of individual teachers we shouldn’t fear peer review, respected colleagues providing feedback.

Let me say, I’m not hopeful. At a recent live streamed town hall, (by invitation only), the mayor, the chancellor and the chancellor’s crew met with parent and community leaders from the Bronx. To a question about the large number of schools in a district the chancellor posited an additional deputy superintendent, and added, the press would attack him for bloating the administration, and, the oress would be correct. Level upon level of supervision “monitors” data: educational decisions should be made in schools not in distant offices. A parent worried, she was in her son’s 6th grade class and saw student work replete with frequent spelling errors, the deputy chancellor suggested a Google Spelling app, the parent sighed, “He’ll only want to play video games on the computer.” Maybe a sign the school has serious instructional issues?

Empowering schools and holding them accountable for their decisions make much more sense than measuring and punishing, and, BTW, resources matter they matter a great deal, and, any school assessment should factor in “poverty risk load.” (See discussion here ).

Figthing over whether a teacher is “developing” or “effective” is insane, maybe we should be working to create collaborative school communities in which school leaders, parents and teachers work together to craft better outcomes.

The New, Feisty Board of Regents Explores Principal Preparation: Why Don’t We Have Better Principals?

[Election Update: Yuh Line Niou won the six-way primary in Shelly Silver’s former district as well as all other Ed in the Apple endorsed candidates with the exception of Robert Jackson; however, the Bloomberg/Charter candidate, Micah Lasher lost to a candidate supported by the Independent Democratic Coalition – the breakaway gang of five that caucuses with the Republicans]

The new Board of Regents is a feisty group!!

The Board is a policy board; they hire the CEO, the commissioner, and set overall policy for the state. The line between what is policy and what are operations is a blurred line: a prime example.

In December the Regents voted to accept the 21 recommendations of the Cuomo Task Force on the Common Core.

Recommendation 15: Undertake a formal review to determine whether to transition to untimed tests for existing and new State standardized test aligned to the standards.

A month later the Department announced a shift to untimed tests;  the “formal review” apparently did not involve the Board.

Initially the Commissioner was ecstatic over the unparalleled one year jump in test scores, until the Chancellor, Betty Rosa tuned down the exuberance.  Without knowing which students took extended time the state has set a new baseline, there can be no valid comparisons – you cannot compare apples to oranges. The Regents members were clearly unhappy – why weren’t they involved in the “formal review?”

Under the leadership of Chancellor Tisch and John King, with a few exceptions, the Board was quiescent.

The current members are activists, in order to create policy they clearly intend to take a deep dive into the issue. A prime example: the four exams required for teacher certification. The co-chairs of the Higher Education Committee have held forums all over the state, hundreds of college staff, and degree seekers, have attended and testified. The Board is leading the steps to reconfigure the teacher preparation process that was imposed by Tisch/King.

No longer does the Chancellor and the Commissioner run the show. Chancellor Rosa epitomizes collaborating with her Regent partners.

The September 12th Regents Meeting began with a detailed exploration of a new grant from the Wallace Foundation:  the Principal Preparation Project. In prior years the project would have landed with the Regents Research Fellows with a nary a word of discussion with the Regents members. The world has changed.

After a Power Point presentation the new Board peppered the Deputy Commissioner with questions;

Regent Johnson mused over the purpose of the project.  We must acknowledge the impact of poverty, issues of race and changing demographics. Why weren’t Civil Rights organizations on the team? Regent Mead was concerned over the three years of teaching as a minimum requirement – New York City has a seven year requirement. Regent Norwood was wondering why social/emotional issues appeared absent from the project as well as working in diverse environments, and, the retention of leaders in low performing schools were absent. Regent Brown was concerned with the absence of diversity concerns in the project, should issues of race, i. e., “white privilege” and “cultural competency,” be included in project curriculum?

The discussion went on and on….

In order to become a principal in New York State the applicant must complete an “approved” program; however, the selection is by the elected lay school board, or, in New York City, by the Chancellor; all the state does is create an applicant pool.

A little history:

The first wave of reform swept the nation after the Civil War and culminated in the passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883 – establishing a federal civil service system. The reform movement moved to the states, and, after the creation of New York City (“The Great Consolidation”), the merging of the five boroughs, the legislature moved to reform a political hiring system, by creating a Board of Examiners.

Read a history of principal selection here: https://mets2006.wordpress.com/2008/08/07/the-quest-for-the-leadership-gene-how-do-we-findselect-the-best-school-leaders/

From rigorous examinations to a handful of credits and selection by elected Community School Boards to the Leadership Academy, we haven’t found any magic bullets.

Half-jokingly, I mused that maybe there was a leadership gene. Maybe I’m right!

… a quarter of the observed variation in leadership behaviour between individuals can be explained by genes passed down from their parents. – See more at: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0113/15012013-leadership-genetics#sthash.Nmnip8lR.dpuf

If you ask teachers about supervisor competence you will find a wide variability, some praise school leaders, many more are critical.  An NYU Study a few years ago, using student scores on state exams as a measurement: insignificant differences between Leadership Academy and non-Leadership Academy principals.

I have a few questions:

* What percentages of applicants are accepted into leadership programs? Is the quality of the applicant’s teaching part of the applicant selection process, and, if so, how do you measure the quality? (I fear programs accept the vast percentage of applicants)

* Are online or blended learning courses acceptable? Are these courses of the same quality as face-to-face courses?

* How often does the supervising teacher visit the candidate? Four times a year? Weekly? What is the quality of the internship? How is it measured?

* What percentage of candidates find jobs within five years? How successful are the candidates as supervisors and how do we measure success?

The finest leadership I have seen is the leadership provided by coaches, whether athletic, music or dance.

The ultimate question: is this project worthwhile?  Since the state does not hire or supervise principals can changing the requirements actually change who gets hired?  Do we have to change the “hirers” before we can change the “hirees”?

Looking ahead: every state must comply with the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and design a state plan -more about the process in my next post.

Why Did New York State Test Scores Jump? Better Instruction? Untimed Tests? All the Kids Got Smarter, or, Shenanigans?

If you want to bury a news story you issue the press release on a Friday afternoon, if you want as much mileage as possible you issue the release on a Tuesday morning, followed by a press conference, in person and online, followed by laudatory speeches across the state and try to maximize the time the story garners headlines and clicks.

The State Education Department released the 2016 grades 3-8 ELA and Math scores on Friday afternoon with an odd presser. The test scores up, way up; why is the SED ashamed?

You can take a deep dive into the New York City Scores here: http://schools.nyc.gov/Accountability/data/TestResults/ELAandMathTestResults

The SED analysis of the state scores with many disaggregated charts here and here.

The Commissioner was careful not to publicly laud the increase in the scores,

But rather than celebrate the largest bump since New York adopted new tests tied to the Common Core Learning Standards, education officials reported the increases with caution. They suggested that changes in how the tests were given – not actual improvement by schools and students – may have accounted for the gains.

State Education Commissioner MaryEllen Elia also warned against making comparisons with previous years, which is typically done to evaluate schools and teachers.

“It’s not an apples to apples comparison and should be viewed in that context,” Elia said during a news conference when the results were released Friday.

For the data wonks who want to parse the results check out the files here and here.

The SED states, “…  changes in how the tests were given – not actual improvement by schools and students – may have accounted for the gains;” however, a deeper analysis is necessary.

If the increases are due to fewer questions and untimed tests, we should know, if both teachers and kids have been exposed to the more effective Common Core instruction and better professional development, we should know, or, if the SED, as some suspect, manipulated the process, we should know. All of the kids in New York State getting smarter just doesn’t seem creditable.

Under Commissioner Mills test scores increased year after year, when Chancellor Tisch and new Commissioner Steiner took over they asked a Harvard professor, Daniel Koretz to take a look – sure enough – the SED had been using many of the same questions year after year. Whether incompetence, or, more likely a method of increasing scores, we’ll never know. Scandals in Atlanta and accusations elsewhere have cast doubt on the entire testing regimen. Jumps in test scores are treated with skepticism.

For years Howard T. Everson chaired the Regents Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and was sharply critical of test score inflation.

But given all the flaws of the test, said Prof. Howard T. Everson of the City University of New York’s Center for Advanced Study in Education, it is hard to tell what those rising scores really meant.

“Teachers began to know what was going to be on the tests,” said Professor Everson, who was a member of a state testing advisory panel and who warned the state in 2008 that it might have a problem with score inflation. “Then you have to wonder, and folks like me wonder, is that real learning or not?”

Each year after the release of the state tests scores the TAC issued a lengthy analysis of the quality of the test. Recently the TAC process has changed, as I understand the current process the TAC report goes to the test creator, Pearson, (now replaced by Questar) who vets the report, over the last few years the report was released a year after the test and was so heavily “massaged” it was meaningless.

The SED/Regents should, in the footsteps of Tisch and Steiner, immediately ask Everson or Koretz or a colleague with equally impeccable credentials to examine the current state test results.

If, in fact, the Commissioner doesn’t know why scores jumped we have to ask: why not?  If untimed tests resulted in higher test scores shouldn’t Regents Exams be untimed?  If the increased exposure to better Common Core instruction resulted in higher scores why are the Algebra 1 and Geometry scores not increasing?

Shrugging and simply saying we’re happy with increased scores but we’re clueless as to why is simply not acceptable. Data should influence policy at all levels, and, we have to be confident that the testing regimen is creditable.

The New York State Legislature Adjourns with a “Whimper,”as Educational Policy-Making Moves to the Board of Regents

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper

T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men (1925)

The last stanza of Eliot’s poem is an apt description of the end of the 2016 legislative session. The final days, called “the Big Ugly,” is a scramble, an endgame, the Republicans and the Democrats vying for an advantage as the state moves toward the November election. All the seats in the legislature, the 150 in the Assembly and the 63 in the Senate will be on the ballot. While the Assembly is firmly in the Democratic column the Senate is far more complex, and byzantine. The Democrats hold a single seat edge in the Senate (32-31); however five Democrats (Jeff Klein, Diane Savino, Tony Avella, David Valesky, and David Carlucci), the Independent Democrat Conference (IDF), under the leadership of Klein (Bronx) caucuses with the Republicans, giving the Republicans control of the Senate.

Hanging in the balance were mayoral control, campaign finance reform, removal of pensions for convicted legislators, online fantasy sports betting and scores of other bills.

You may ask: why is all this conflict and wheeling and dealing necessary? Why can’t legislators have civil conversations and decide the issues?

James Madison, in Federalist # 51 wrote,

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary

The Constitutional Convention (1787) was not covered in CSPAN; the Constitutional Convention was a secret meeting. The only notes we have are Madison’s personal notes, not made public until after the death of all the delegates, The fifty-three delegates argued, came and went, delivered lengthy speeches, met in private, and made deals.

Slavery was one of the most significant stumbling blocks, the anti-slavery Northerners versus the slave-holding South, The compromise: slavery is not mentioned in the constitution, the question of slavery was left to the states, and, as part of a compromise; slaves were counted as 3/5th of a ”free person,” and referred to in the clause as “all other Persons.”

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

Deal-making, as reprehensible as it may seem, is at the essence of making government work.

Whether to extend mayoral control in New York City had nothing to do with education. Weakening the mayor might give the Republicans a chance in the 2017 mayoral election. In spite of pleas from Merryl Tisch and others in the upper echelons of power Senate leader John Flanagan offered “unacceptable” plan after plan until in the closing hours an agreement was reached, the NY Times describes the plan as a one year extension plus,,

It would effectively create a parallel system of charter schools within the city, allowing “high-performing charter schools in good standing” to switch to join the State University of New York umbrella or the Board of Regents of the State Education Department.

Probably a meaningless change, currently charters schools authorized by both New York City and Buffalo make reauthorization proposals after five years, the authorizer, SUNY or the Board of Regents can reject the recommendation. The proposal allows the charter school, if it’s  “high performing and in good standing” to move directly to SUNY or the Regents for reauthorization.

The session is most interesting for what it did not do – the houses steered clear of legislation directing the State Education Department to take any actions. A host of education bills simply died. Neither the governor nor the party leaders had any desire to once again get involved in the morass of teacher accountability or testing, any of the issues that birthed the opt outs and/or angered teachers and their unions.

The budget was generous and the political leaders appear to be leaving the educational decisions to the educational leaders.

In December the Cuomo-appointed Task Force released their report with 21-recommendations: a blueprint for the Commissioner and the Board of Regents. The core of the report was a 4-year moratorium on the use of student test scores as part of a metric to assess teacher performance.

In the six months since the release of the report the Commissioner has made tests untimed, a recommendation in the report, established a number of large field-based committees to review elements of the Common Core, and, the Regents created a number of alternative pathways to graduation.

Quietly, very quietly, the Commissioner announced a change in the observation section of the teacher evaluation regulation. The outside observer would be scrapped – what might be a good idea in theory was both overly complex and a financial burden on school districts. There was no high drama – no headlines, simply an announcement undoubtedly based on quiet discussions.

The decisions before the Board of Regents are complex, politically explosive and without explicit answers.

Can you create a teacher evaluation plan that is acceptable to principals and teachers and not trashed by external critics?

Can better tests win back opt out parents?  And, what do you mean by “better tests?”

Will alternatives to testing, perhaps, portfolios or other performance assessments, be acceptable to the feds, and acceptable to the principals and teachers?  Are performance assessments practicable in actual classroom settings?

Will additional alternative pathways to high school graduation make students more or less prepared for college?

The Regents appear to have a window – three or four years – to make decisions based on their expertise as well as respond to external pressures and scrutiny, and, hovering aloft: “disruptive” solutions such as unlimited charter schools or vouchers.

Windows open, and windows close.

Mayoral Control, Appointed or Elected Boards of Education: Are Urban School Districts Governable?

About 4 AM next Friday morning one of houses of the state legislature will adjourn closing out the session; with cries of they have to return over the summer to complete this issue or that issue. Extremely unlikely.

The bills will come across the legislators desks at a rapid pace, with most voted before they are read. A few are high profile: closing loopholes in the campaign finance law, legalizing fantasy sports gambling, a constitutional amendment to deprive convicted legislators of their pensions, and, mayoral control of New York City schools, the vast majority of the bills are far, far under the radar.

The Assembly bill extends mayoral control for three years; the Senate bill extends mayoral control for one year and creates an Inspector, appointed by the governor with the consent of the Senate with sweeping powers. If no action is taken the system reverts to a seven-member board appointed by the borough presidents and the mayor.

The governor supports a three year extension and the power elites support continuing mayoral control. Merryl Tisch in an op ed in the NY Daily News supports extending mayoral control.

Tisch posits,

Mayoral control has not worked perfectly under either Mayor Michael Bloomberg or Mayor de Blasio, but it has worked far better than what we had before. New York City has seen consistent, significant increases in graduation rates, greater accountability across the system and the introduction of robust school choice — giving students from every neighborhood greater opportunity for a quality education. Critically, unlike the system that preceded mayoral control, we now know who is in charge. The voters ultimately can hold the CEO of the city accountable for how well our children learn.

Famously, when someone criticized a Bloomberg educational policy he responded, “Don’t vote for me next time.”

Although the mayoral control debate will end in a few days it has been characterized by an absence of debate.

Has “robust school choice” given “students from every neighborhood greater opportunity for quality education” or further segregated the school system by race, class and income?

The Bloomberg administration created scores of “screened” schools, schools that only accepts kids with high test scores, creating “have” and “have not” schools. Were these schools created to “provide school choice” or to win over middle class parents and garner potential voters?

Numbers of school suspensions have dropped dramatically: are our kids better behaved, do our teachers have been peace-making skills or did the chancellor simply tighten the faucet on approving suspensions?

Under a mayoral control system every announcement, every initiative is accompanied by a carefully crafted press release. I’m sure that the “mayor’s person” is sitting at the table vetting the political impact of every decision.

The previous seven-member appointed board has been vilified as being too political, I have to smile. The borough president appointee fought for projects for their borough while the mayor fights for projects for the entire city, or, his/her voting base.

Under the current mayoral control system the Community Educational Councils (CEC) are toothless and superintendents carry the Tweed policy torch. While under the prior elected school board system the poorest districts had the least effective boards there were highly effective boards that responded to local communities.

District 2 in Manhattan under the leadership of an innovative superintendent had an extensive and effective professional development program that impacted classroom instruction. District 22 in Brooklyn bused over 1,000 Afro-American kids for integration purposes, no court order, it was simply the right thing to do; they also implemented school-based budgeting with empowered school and district leadership teams. A superintendent in the poorest district in Brooklyn, appointed by the chancellor unified a fractious district and improved student outcomes.

Does the current mayoral-guided system build sustainability or will the next and the next school district leader impose their view of education policy?

Unfortunately educational policy appears to be the flavor of the week.

Transparency and open debate must guide all change processes. Participation reduces resistance.

Teachers and parents increasingly came to despise Bloomberg/Klein mayoral control hubris – if you don’t like the policy, don’t vote for me.  So far the de Blasio/Farina interregnum has had a kinder and gentler face. While Bloomberg/Klein treated teachers like replaceable widgets deBlasio/Farina have constantly praised the workforce.

The larger issue is creating a process that has highly competent leadership at the top and local leaders with the ability and support to make the right decisions at the school level.

Next week a decision will be made; probably to continue mayoral control, maybe with a blue ribbon commission to review the current iteration.

Parents, teachers and school leaders voice must be part of any school governance process.

From “Good Old Boys” to “Sisterhood,” A New Leadership Begins in Albany

The monthly meeting of the Board of Regents typically have lengthy agendas, some items are pro-forma, other subject to extended discussion. Each month a division of State Ed recommends the extension of charters, depending on the data either a full five year term or fewer years if there are problems to be remedied.. The staffers only recommended a three year extension for a few charter schools in Buffalo. Bob Bennett, at that time a Regents member for over twenty years and the former chancellor objected. He failed to acknowledge that his daughter taught in a charter school. He claimed he “knew the school” and it deserved the full five year extension. The “good old boys” huddled, changed the recommendation to five years, cast aside a few objections, and passed the full extension.

Merryl Tisch had a close relationship with the Shelly Silver, the disgraced former Speaker and the “good old boys” Regents members supported the Tisch/King initiatives. There was nothing evil or corrupt; Board members who had served together for over twenty years were collegial, very collegial.

The world of the Regents has changed, and changed dramatically. Over the past year seven new Regents members have been appointed by the new Speaker of the Assembly – six women, five of them educators, an active public school parent and a nurse.

The Regents moved from the “good old boys” club to the “sisterhood.”

On Monday Betty Rosa will assume the leadership of the Board of Regents.

Chancellor Rosa is not a naïf.

She was the superintendent in District 8, which covers Hunts Point and Soundview, one of the poorest sections in the nation. District 8 is in the Bronx and politics in the Bronx parallels politics in Afghanistan – warring families rule Bronx politics and Betty navigated the politics; excellent training for her current job.

The Chancellor of the Board of Regents cannot eliminate annual grade 3-8 testing. No matter how adamant the opt outs, the law requires annual testing. The Commissioner has already started the process to review sections of the Common Core – it will take a  year or more. Can you tweak the high school graduation requirements to jack up the graduation rate at the same time community college graduations rates are appalling?

The Chancellor has to choose a path, has to stake out her ground. She has to narrowly focus, a laser-like focus on a few areas, perhaps English language learners. The current regulations, passed only a year ago after many years of hassling behind the scenes are bureaucratic and unworkable.

Can the new Chancellor and the full Board work to further refine and implement the recommendations of the Working Group for Improving Outcomes for Young Men and Boys of Color?

The attacks will come from all sides.

The opt outs want aggressive actions to prohibit high stakes testing.

Well-funded anti-union super-PACs will continue to attack unions and tenure.

The district to district funding inequities are the “elephant in the room,” can you equalize school funding with a Robin Hood impact? Taking from the richer and giving to the poorer districts?

Hovering in the wings is the Speaker of the Assembly who selected the new Board members and the Governor, How much rope do the Regents have?  Can the new Chancellor and the Board, older and newer members, take actions that will be praised by the New York Times, parents and the unions?

The days are getting longer, daffodils bloomed, the tulips are up, warmer days; in a few weeks I’ll plant my herb garden, all of good with the world (if I avoid cable news); now our leaders in Albany have to hack through the weeds and thorns and create a path to a better world for our kids.

Chancellor Betty Rosa: A New Leadership Amidst Swirling Conflicts

A historic day in Albany – Betty Rosa was elected as Chancellor of the Board of Regents.

Dr. Rosa’s election was greeted with scathing editorials in the New York Post (“New Regents chancellor will be the latest sore for public schools“) and the New York Daily News (“Chancellor Rosa opts out“)  and  Carol Burris, in the Washington Post, chides her predecessor and predicts that Rosa will make dramatic positive changes in the direction of the board and actually lists ten changes she expects.

Betty is stepping off the diving board into a pool of both snapping alligators and adoring fans.

Dr. Rosa faces a range of hotly debated issues – issues that are beyond the powers of the chancellor: annual grades 3-8 tests are required by law, all English language learners with more than year in the country must be tested and almost all students with disabilities must be tested. The feds are currently writing regulations to clarify the new Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) (Read process here) and while the new law does give states far more authority the feds have by no means disappeared (See a fed “Dear Colleague” clarification letter here). The feds will be inviting a handful of states to explore alternative assessments, and Dr. Rosa would love to be one of the states.

Over the last few months Regent Judith Johnson, on the board only since last April and a former superintendent has asked the same question of her colleagues and the commissioner: what is your theory of change? Or, to put more succinctly, why are we taking a specific action?  Have we explored the unintended consequences?

So far, nods of agreement, and little discussion.

Twenty-five years ago, after lengthy discussions the board voted to move to a single regents diploma and eliminate the 9th grade level  Regents Competency Exams and limit the local diploma to a  “safety net” for students with disabilities. The phase-in took years with many bumps in the road. A majority of students in New York State were graduating with a local diploma that did not prepare them for college or work. The board weathered outcries from school districts and parents, adjusted and lengthened the phase-in.

The board now seems to be chipping away at the regents diploma.

A dozen years ago the board changed the English Regents from a two-day, 3-hour a day exam to a one-day, 3-hour exam – passing rates increased by 20%. Were the students 20% “smarter” or was the 2-day exam a flawed exam?

The exam with the lowest passing rate – in the 60% range – the Global Studies Regents. A few years ago the regents reduced the scope of the exam from two years of work (9th and 10th grades) to the 10th grade only – to go into effect with the June, 2018 exam. (Take a crack at the January, 2016 Global Studies Regents exam here).

The commissioner and board never explored important questions: why were kids doing so poorly on the exam?  Is it the scope of the work?  The reading/writing skills required on the exam?  The basic structure of the exam?

On Monday, after lengthy and at time contentious discussion the K-12 committee passed two resolutions: first to consider the CDOS credential in lieu of one regents examination and second to increase the appeal procedure that generates re-scoring of a regents exam from grades of 62-64 to grades of 60-64.

A CDOS (Career Development and Occupational Studies) credential is a career plan intended for students with disabilities,

The student must have successfully completed at least 216 hours of CTE coursework and/or work-based learning experiences (of which at least 54 hours must be in work-based learning experiences)

To expect that a school can use the CDOS credential as a replacement for the Global Studies Regents is overreaching.

The re-scoring resolution is based on an assumption: the original grading was inaccurate and the new grading, the re-scoring will result in a higher grade. From a statistical approach one would expect that of the inaccurate grades half would grant the students too many points and half too few. Why don’t we “rescore” all grades between 60 and 70?  We can increase and reduce scores if our goal is to have the most accurate scoring, or, is our goal only to increase scores?

Again, what is our “theory of change”?  Or, are the regents only interesting in increasing graduation rates?

What are the unintended consequences of the board actions?

Only 40% of our high school graduates are college and career ready (grades of 80 or above on the English Regents and 75 or above on the Algebra 1 Regents), meaning, the 60% who are not “college ready” must take non-credit remediation courses in college; even more disturbing: only 14% of Black students, 18% of Hispanic students, 6% of ELLs and 5% of students with disabilities graduate high school college ready. Staggering percentages of these students do not complete community college within six years and they leave with significant debt and without a college degree or certificate. (See “Completion Versus Readiness” power point here).

We can identify students in elementary school grades who are likely to either not graduate high school or barely graduate – are we targeting these specific students?

To once again quote Regent Johnson: what is our theory of change

Betty Rosa, aside from her service as a superintendent that included some of the poorest zip codes in the nation is a Harvard PhD and a deep thinker.  While the editorial boards have pilloried her and written her off before her term begins they are in for a surprise.  The core issues are not opt out versus opt ins, the issue is not untimed tests or the number of questions, the deeper question begins with a theory of change, how can the board, led by Betty, move to a system that graduates kids with the skills to enter the middle class?

With a board, half of whom have lived and breathed education for their entire professional lives and other board members who add other perspectives there is every chance that the regents can move beyond the dueling and petty bickering so admired by “if it bleeds it leads” journalism.

The board  has to choose a path, not determined by politics but determined by evidence.

I’m optimistic.

Adieu Chancellor Tisch: Some Thoughts

 

Resolution 1078

NOLAN

LEG. RESO. – Honoring Dr. Merryl M. Tisch for her many years of distinguished service to the New York State Board of Regents

Thursday, March 17, 2016

The magisterial New York State Assembly Chamber “designed in a Moorish Gothic” is a truly impressive room; a high vaulted ceiling with stained glass windows allowing the light to be cast across the room. From September through June the 150 members gather to debate and pass bills and resolutions. On Thursday a resolution flashed across the screen honoring Dr. Merryl Tisch, the Chancellor of the Board of Regents and Monday, March 21st will be her last meeting; her term expires at the end of March.

Member after member rose to extol the tenure of the Chancellor, a tenure that has been characterized by both sweeping changes in the role of the board and controversy.

Tisch has served on the board for twenty years and was elected by her colleagues as chancellor in 2009.

Commissioner Mills left under a cloud and the Tisch board selected David Steiner as commissioner. Traditionally commissioners had been selected from among the senior superintendents in the state. Steiner was Dean of the School of Education at Hunter College. Almost unnoticed the board selected as deputy commissioner a young scholar with no experience in public schools, John King.  The leaders of education in the State of New York with no experience running a school district.

Tisch and Steiner jumped headfirst into the swirling pool of education reform trumpeted by the White House. An application for the Race to the Top dollars and the crafting of a teacher evaluation plan were launched.

At an ABNY breakfast attended by the educational glitterati keynote speaker Randi Weingarten urged John King, who replaced Steiner after his precipitous resignation, to delay the implementation of the teacher evaluation plan – a moratorium.

Tisch and King rejected the suggestion – the move to the full implementation of the Common Core, testing and test result-based teacher evaluation moved forward.

The Common Core and the teacher evaluation plans were increasingly resisted by active parents and the teacher union.

A  NY Times appraisal of Tisch’s tenure begins, “She tried to do too much, too fast.”

The article goes on,

If she could take one thing back, Dr. Tisch said, it would be having rolled out the standards and the teacher evaluation system at the same time, “because I think the debate over how to evaluate a teacher contaminated the more important work.”

Dr. Tisch said she believed that the anger about the standards was stoked by the state teachers’ union, which fought the evaluation system, and noted that most of those who opted out came from wealthier suburban districts.

Last year the legislature dumped longtime allies of the chancellor and selected four new members who were clearly critical of the teacher evaluation system. The troubles of Assembly Speaker Shelton Silver, a friend of Tisch since childhood changed the chemistry in the legislature as the new speaker wanted to ameliorate the conflicts with parents and teachers.

In retrospect there is no evidence that the Common Core is an “answer” to struggling schools populated by students of color. The academic community has increasingly chided testing associated with the standards.

The Washington Post writes,

More than 100 education researchers in California have joined in a call for an end to high-stakes testing, saying that there is no “compelling” evidence to support the idea that the Common Core State Standards will improve the quality of education for children or close the achievement gap, and that Common Core assessments lack “validity, reliability and fairness.”

The dense teacher evaluation algorithms have been sharply criticized by most experts in the world of statistics.

Yes, rolling out both the Common Core, Common Core testing and teacher evaluation at the same time doomed the initiatives from the start, a larger question is whether jumping on board the White House driven reforms would ever achieve the anticipated goals. At the time it might have made sense to be the “first in the nation” to adopt the Obama education plan, in retrospect, a mistake.

In my view Tisch fell victim to the same wave that has vaulted Donald Trump to the top of the presidential primaries. The anger, the disgust with all politics, the “snarkiness,” has rolled over the reforms coming from the Board of Regents. The anger of the opt-outs, the anger of the mass of voters is intertwined.

Other actions of the chancellor have gone underreported.

Tisch made every attempt to thwart the plundering of schools by an Orthodox School Board in East Ramapo. She forced reluctant school boards to register undocumented minors and provide an appropriate education, in spite of substantial local opposition.  The chancellor has visited scores of schools, frequently accompanied by a Regents member who was a former superintendent.  She has acknowledged the glowing jewels in the system, i. e. the Internationals Network of schools that serve new immigrants with wonderful results. After years of delays the regulations impacting English language learners were promulgated.

Regents meetings are usually one speaker after another, one power point after another with comments only from the members of the board. Merryl frequently interrupts a speaker with an incisive question. Whether the commissioner, a state ed staffer or a guest Tisch “cuts to the core;” she asked the crucial question, a question that commonly resulted in the speaker stumbling.  (I loved it!!)

Critics of Tisch are legion, and clearly she made decisions that in retrospect required more thought and more buy-in. Chancellors are selected by their colleagues; however, the governor and the legislature have enormous power; for the last two years major education policy was set by the governor.  The major current policy initiatives are the twenty “recommendations” of the Cuomo Task Force. The board may be the constitutional body to devise education policy – in the “real world” the governor is the major player.

As March draws to a close the legislature and the governor will agree upon a budget. Over the last decade budgets have eroded funding to the State Education Department, a subtle way of expressing disagreement with the policies of the board.  The legislature doesn’t need angry voters and the governor wants to both take credit for successes and avoid negative electoral consequences.

Merry Tisch fell victim to a generalized dissatisfaction that is sweeping the nation.

I read an Internet cry, “We want a president who will make America great again,” which received a response, “Do you mean when basketball stars were white?”  Race, gender, class and generational conflict have spilled over – Merryl Tisch fell victim to the anger.

The next leader of the Regents faces a daunting task.

Untimed Tests. Fewer Questions: Will the Opt Out Families Be Assuaged? Suggestion: A Comprehensive Plan, Not Piecemeal Fixes

Within the last few days superintendents across New York State received a missive from Commissioner Elia announcing the federally required grades 3-8 English and math tests would have fewer questions and the testing would be untimed.

The announcement was a surprise, and, sharply criticized by the New York Post,

Fewer questions makes for a less-meaningful test — especially since the state inevitably “disqualifies” several questions every year after students have taken the exams.

Far worse, she’s ordered that the tests no longer be timed.

This is lunacy. Nowhere in the world do standardized exams come without time limits (though New York makes an exception for kids with certain disabilities).

You can make a case for giving all kids a bit more time — but killing limits makes no sense. It may help more children “pass,” but it won’t help any get a better education.

Tests are about gauging a student’s knowledge and skills — including the skill of time-management. Without time limits, they’re a far less accurate measure.

While the Post is virulently anti-teacher union and curmudgeonly; they’re not all wrong.

The release of the report of the Cuomo Task Force in December contained twenty recommendations, one of which related to the timing of tests. including

Undertake a formal review to determine whether to transition to untimed tests for existing and new State standardized tests aligned to the standards.

At the December meeting the Board of Regents voted (with Regent Tisch casting the only dissenting vote) to accept the report.

Instead of a “formal review,” as recommended by the Task Force the Commissioner announced that the spring tests would be untimed. Students with disabilities, if their Individual Education Plan (IEP) directs, already have extended time. English language learners with more than one year in the country must take the same tests as all other students and time limits may adversely impact their performance. The decision to lift the timed nature of the test for all students was surprising.

The reduction in the number of questions is an issue for the test makers, the psychometricians who design the tests. How many questions are required to produce a valid, reliable and stable exam?  Commissioner Elia, in defending the importance of the tests, argues that the tests indicate progress or lack thereof for students, individually, by grade, school and school district. With the information, the test results, teachers can adjust instruction to emphasize areas of poorer performance as well as highlight instructional practices that resulted in better performance.  Hopefully we embed assessment into our daily practice, usually referenced  as formative assessment, aka,  “…diagnostic testing, a range of formal and informal assessment procedures conducted by teachers during the learning process in order to modify teaching and learning activities to improve student attainment.”  The state tests are summative assessments, tests that “measure” output, the teaching/learning process over a school year. For the school community  the only use of the tests is to “grade” individual principals, teachers and schools; using the summative assessment to fire (or reward) principals and teachers and to close schools.

The Cuomo Task Force, correctly, called for halting the practice until a new system can be crafted for the 2019-2020 school year.

This has been an odd year characterized by the Governor’s metamorphosis: from the angry, retributive April leader who punished teachers, principals and schools to the collaborative December leader who calls for a thoughtful approach to rethinking and restarting the revision process with the stakeholders: the education community. The twenty Task Force recommendations (see below) incorporate the wide range of criticisms that have swept across the state since the ill-considered John King attempt to impose change. Change is a process, change can be uncomfortable, change requires a space to discuss and debate, a space to acclimate ourselves to changes in direction.

The Task Force has provided us with that space – a number of years to find our path.

The Commissioner is anxious to start the process, and let’s be honest, anxious to reduce the number of opt out families.

If the reason to move precipitously to untimed tests is an attempt to assuage the opt out parents the commissioner is mistaken.

While it may be an unintended consequence (or, maybe not!!) summative testing as measured by year-end test scores drives classroom practice – if you don’t  “prepare” kids for the tests teachers and principals risk a low score and the dire consequences – test prep rules.  We continue to search for the happy median, rich, engaging classrooms in which students make progress both on measurable scales as well as the probably unmeasurable social and emotional scales.

One approach is to move from end of year summative assessment, the current system, to a performance task assessment conducted throughout the school year. In a thoughtful essay the new testing company, Quester, discusses the pros and cons (Read essay here)

A performance assessment is a test in which a student performs some number of tasks to show his or her knowledge, skills, and abilities in a particular area, such as conducting a science experiment. That is, a student must show how to solve a problem using what he or she knows about the assessment prompt. The best performance assessments are authentic, which is when the task is realistic and is considered something that would be done in the real world,

A performance task assessment system would require substantial changes in day-to-day classroom practices – I encourage the commissioner to explore, a pilot program in a few districts.

A far more radical change is a move to competency-based groupings, personalized learning, and incorporating technology into the core instructional process – highly controversial (Read a Quester essay here)

 … meet a number of 21st century teaching needs such as individualized and personalized instruction, personalized learning, competency-based grouping and progression, seamless blending of instruction and assessment, and timely impact of assessment results to affect instruction.

Do we believe we can create summative assessments, year-end tests that will be both accepted by parents and teachers as well as fit the needs of the State Ed, school districts, schools and teachers?

Are performance task assessments better indicators of student progress and more useful to teachers and parents?  Or, so complex and burdensome that the effort will not be fruitful?

Are we finally reaching a point when technology can be seamlessly blended with traditional classroom instruction?  Or, are we once again casting aside the social and emotional needs of children?

Let’s begin the discussion before we all hold hands and jump into the pool.

———————————————————–

Cuomo Task Force Recommendations

Recommendation 1: Adopt high quality New York education standards with input from local districts, educators, and parents through an open and transparent process.

Recommendation 2: Modify early grade standards so they are age-appropriate.

Recommendation 3: Ensure that standards accommodate flexibility that allows educators to meet the needs of unique student populations, including Students with Disabilities and English Language Learners.

Recommendation 4: Ensure standards do not lead to the narrowing of curriculum or diminish the love of reading and joy of learning.

Recommendation 5: Establish a transparent and open process by which New York standards are periodically reviewed by educators and content area experts.

Develop Better Curriculum Guidance and Resources

Recommendation 6: Ensure educators and local school districts have the flexibility to develop and tailor curriculum to the new standards.

Recommendation 7: Release updated and improved sample curriculum resources.

Recommendation 8: Launch a digital platform that enables teachers, including pre-service teachers, and teacher educators, to share resources with other teachers across the state.

Recommendation 9: Create ongoing professional development opportunities for teachers, teacher educators, and administrators on the revised State standards.

Significantly Reduce Testing Time and Preparation and Ensure Tests Fit Curriculum and Standards

Recommendation 10: Involve educators, parents, and other education stakeholders in the creation and periodic review of all State standards-aligned exams and other State assessments.

Recommendation 11: Gather student feedback on the quality of the new tests.

Recommendation 12: Provide ongoing transparency to parents, educators, and local districts on the quality and content of all tests, including, but not limited to publishing the test questions.

Recommendation 13: Reduce the number of days and shorten the duration for standards-aligned State standardized tests.

Recommendation 14: Provide teachers with the flexibility and support to use authentic formative assessments to measure student learning.

Recommendation 15: Undertake a formal review to determine whether to transition to untimed tests for existing and new State standardized tests aligned to the standards.

Recommendation 16: Provide flexibility for assessments of Students with Disabilities

. Recommendation 17: Protect and enforce testing accommodations for Students with Disabilities.

Recommendation 18: Explore alternative options to assess the most severely disabled students.

Recommendation 19: Prevent students from being mandated into Academic Intervention Services based on a single test.

Recommendation 20: Eliminate double testing for English Language Learners

Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa: Has the President and the NYS Board of Regents Accepted Responsibility for Years of Failed Education Decisions? Has Fear of Parent Electoral Anger Motivated the Electeds? Or, Just Hoping We Go Away If Tempted With Sweet Words?

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, colloquial translation, “My Bad.”

In the summer of 2008 I sat in the audience at the AFT Convention just after the nomination of Barack Obama and watched a 12-minute Obama campaign video – it was odd, it failed to address core educational issues.

Two years later I sat with a room full of principals and watched David Coleman perform his lengthy rollout of the Common Core – a detailed analysis of the Martin Luther King “A Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” interesting, and, once again, odd. At the end of the performance, Coleman answered a few questions from a group of teachers – one asked, “How does this differ from what we’re already doing …?”Coleman snapped, “…compared to other nations (PISA Scores) we’re not doing well at all.” Not exactly the way to gain buy-in from teachers

The President was at a Town Hill meeting and a teacher in the audience asked why he was supporting high stakes testing and punitive teacher evaluation – Obama challenged the teacher – you admit there are teachers in your school who shouldn’t be teaching, was bullying a teacher building teacher support?

The Association for Better New York (ABY) sponsors a breakfast every spring, a high profile speaker, an audience filled with the movers and shakers in New York City/State. Randi Weingarten was the speaker, with NYS Commissioner John King in the audience; Randi called for a moratorium on Common Core testing – to no avail – King and most of the members of the Board of Regents endorsed immediate Common Core testing, no moratorium, and cut scores that resulted in two-thirds of test takers scoring “below proficient.”

For seven years the President was wedded to the Duncan mantra: choice, which means charter schools, the full implementation of the Common Core, high stakes testing tied to teacher evaluation based on pupil growth scores (Value Added Measures, aka VAM). In spite of teacher and parent angst, in spite of millions of hits on the Diane Ravitch blog, the Duncan playbook was the Obama playbook, until it wasn’t.

The New York Times reports,

Faced with mounting and bipartisan opposition to increased and often high-stakes testing in the nation’s public schools, the Obama administration declared Saturday that the push had gone too far, acknowledged its own role in the proliferation of tests, and urged schools to step back and make exams less onerous and more purposeful.

Specifically, the administration called for a cap on assessment so that no child would spend more than 2 percent of classroom instruction time taking tests. It called on Congress to “reduce over-testing” as it reauthorizes the federal legislation governing the nation’s public elementary and secondary schools.

“I still have no question that we need to check at least once a year to make sure our kids are on track or identify areas where they need support,” said Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, … “But I can’t tell you how many conversations I’m in with educators who are understandably stressed and concerned about an overemphasis on testing in some places and how much time testing and test prep are taking from instruction.”

“It’s important that we’re all honest with ourselves,” he continued. “At the federal, state and local level, we have all supported policies that have contributed to the problem in implementation. We can and will work with states, districts and educators to help solve it.”

Why has it taken seven years for the President to realize they were on the wrong side of history? Why did the announcement come a few weeks after Duncan’s resignation?

Unfortunately the decision-makers today are lawyers and economists, not historians.

George Santayana, the early 20th century philosopher wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Harold Howe, a former United States Secretary of Education muses, ” … sometimes the unforeseen effects, of concepts for change like ‘restructuring’ schools, ‘systemic’ approaches to changes in schools, and the pros and cons of ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ prescriptions for what to teach and how to teach it. My own sense of this new vocabulary about school reform is that to some extent it has assumed the same role as the prayer book of the Episcopal Church — by repeating the words you are supposed to be improving yourself and the world around you.”

Almost twenty years ago David Tyack and Larry Cuban wrote “Tinkering toward Utopia: A Century of Public School Reform,” (Read a superb summary/review here). The authors peruse the seemingly endless school reform initiatives over the last century and conclude that, regardless of the quality of the reform the initiative must have the support of teachers and parents; change, or reform, only, grows from the inside. In other words, reforms driven from the top down, unless accepted in classrooms will wither; new ideas may be planted from above, they must be fertilized and cared for in the classrooms and in the homes.

A few days ago the leader of the Board of Regents acknowledged the intense criticism of the newest iteration of the teacher evaluation law in New York State.

Newsday reports,

One of New York’s top school policymakers called Monday for potentially revamping a controversial law that allows student scores on Common Core tests to count for as much as half of teachers’ and principals’ job evaluations.

Merryl Tisch, chancellor of the state Board of Regents, told about 500 school board members attending a state convention in Manhattan that the toughened law, pushed through the legislature in April by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, is “full of problems.”

The chancellor said lawmakers should “reopen” a section of the law that increases to about 50 percent the maximum weight that local school districts can assign to so-called “growth” scores in judging teachers’ classroom performance. Such scores are based on student performance on English language arts and math assessments, and are generated by a complex formula that many analysts consider statistically unstable.

The New York State Commissioner of Education has begun a review of the Common Core and the Curriculum Modules, the widely criticized units that drive instruction across the state. If you want to comment on the modules click here: https://www.engageny.org/content/curriculum-feedback-form

If you want to comment on the Common Core click here to go to the State Ed Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NYStateEd?fref=ts

Does this mean that sanity is beginning to return to the school system in New York State; or, to schools across the nation, or, is all this pomp and circumstance a trompe d’oeille, a facade to lull us into complacency?

This is considerable cynicism.

We’ll see over the weeks and months ahead. In New York State the Governor and State legislature are leaning on the Board of Regents and the Commissioner – make parents happy, or, at least happier. Stem the Opt Out tide; erode the 200,000 parents who are potentially ready to vote for change at the polls.

I believe the tidal wave of parent anger will be difficult to assuage: Obama, Duncan, Cuomo and the wave of so-called reformers may have created a hydra ( … It possessed many heads … and, each time one was lost, it was replaced by two more. It had poisonous breath and blood so virulent that even its scent was deadly) and those heads keep growing and spewing electoral poison.