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By Kyle, May 8, 2011 10:10 am

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Rehab stories, LAPD lawsuits, and recently deceased channel surfers, are today deemed more newsworthy that the update that the L.A. Times education investigative journalists are providing to their teacher rankings database.

It’s been nearly 9 months since the L.A. Times ignited a media firestorm by publishing a searchable database ranking Los Angeles elementary teachers based on test score data, using a now familiar tool called the value-added method.

While the authors did not win the Pulitzer for their work, they did succeed in changing the national (and certainly local) landscape of the discussion of how to evaluate teachers. In the months since the original publication, there have been boycotts, contradictory data-studies, and district efforts to adopt value-added methods.

Perhaps what’s most interesting about this is that no one really seems to be coming to the defense of the newspaper anymore. In a surprising move of solidarity, both the district and the union fought the release of today’s update. The fact that the story is only viewable if you “scroll down” a bit in your browser speaks loudly that the authors “moment in the sun” may have passed.

One still hopeful aspect of all this is that the authors now are seemingly willing to dilute their own results by admitting, and even including, data that shows that different variables lead to different results, a nod to the reality that this purportedly objective measure may not be as objective as we’d like. Finally, we can get to a much more nuanced discussion than the yelling and screaming that took place late last summer.

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Randy Newman – Living Without You

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By Kyle, September 1, 2010 7:13 pm

The Arcade Fire – Ready To Start

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In the spirit of finally wrapping things up in this series without having yet taken a definitive stand on much of anything, I offer Five Propositions on the L.A. Times value-added analysis for anyone who may care.

1. The very notion of a value-added score needs to be clarified for all personnel within LAUSD. Just this week, in speaking with two colleagues, I quickly determined the three of us had three differing conclusions of exactly how a value-added score is calculated. If teachers don’t understand how their score is calculated (explained by someone from LAUSD), then any potential for using that data effectively is now gone. Ignorance is not an appropriate response.

2. The validity of a value-added score needs to be definitively addressed by the district. There are enough concerns about the method behind it that warrant further investigation. I’ve yet to delve into the actual statistical modeling, but a close colleague of mine who did raised some incredibly valid concerns about the mathematical modeling involved.

3. “Value-added” (or any usage of student test scores) needs to be used primarily for internal purposes of supporting teachers. We should be using data to help us learn to teach better, being able to identify specific teacher qualities or actions that lead to student success. LAUSD should immediately release value added scores to teachers (which is happening), and train school leaders to facilitate conversations about how to use those scores to improve instruction (which isn’t happening).

4. Value-added data should not have been made public within the Times database. The Times should be rebuked for what can be seen as journalistic irresponsibility. As I mentioned in the previous post, publishing the database added nothing to their substantial series of reports on teacher quality.

5. Despite the Times’ irresponsibility, the UTLA boycott is stupid. Boycotting the Times makes even less sense than publishing the database. A UTLA boycott will never stop the Times from publishing whatever they want, whenever they want. In fact, the union needs to lead the conversation about teacher effectiveness rather than simply be reactionary against whatever is presented.

So given these propositions, what should happen next?

For the next three years, 2010-2011 through 2012-2013, LAUSD needs to (a) tweak the value-added method to be (or find a new test-score method that can be) more statistically reliable, (b) disseminate that information privately to schools and teachers, (c) provide administrators and school leaders with tools to help translate low scores into better teaching. And that’s it.

If then, after the next three years, value-added has been tweaked and developed enough to accurately help teachers improve their practice, steps do need to be taken to address teachers who fail to improve. Obviously, and as most have suggested, a value-added score should only be used as a partial measure for making continuing employment decisions. It has been suggested that at least 30% of a teacher’s effectiveness be based on value added, which then raises the question, 30% of what and what is the % for “passing”? There has been far too much rhetoric thrown around by all involved without actually coming up with definitive steps to use data to actually help kids learn more, and teachers teach better. A three-year delay before we use value-added in making personnel decisions allows a nuanced plan to be developed with all parties (including parents, which I’ve thus far failed to mention) be involved to actually ensure that the teaching corps in Los Angeles is one that is getting better all the time.

Previous Posts in my response to “Grading Teachers”.

Part 1: In the Beginning

Part 2: The L.A. Times: Reporting or Creating the News?

Part 3: United We What?

Part 4: A Line in the Sand

Part 5: On Blast

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By Kyle, August 29, 2010 12:38 pm

The Arcade Fire – Empty Room

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It’s out.

The L.A. Times’ investigation on teachers has finally published a searchable database for elementary teachers and schools using the “value-added” approach. This means that starting today, anyone can literally perform a search on any LAUSD elementary school teacher and see how their students perform in their classroom.

A word of advice to any elementary school principals out there: hire a good secretary today, because tomorrow expect a barrage of telephone calls from parents who want to ensure that their young rapscallions (to use a favorite noun of a colleague of mine) wind up in Teacher X’s classroom, and not Teacher Y’s. Wonderful.

Thus far in this blog series, I’ve tried been fairly equitable in any opinions rendered related to this issue. However, I draw the line right here. The Times should not have published the database. Why? Because even if the Times does have the motive to change educational policy with it’s reporting (which I think is accurate), it has already accomplished exactly that in the last two weeks. Our union is already willing to renegotiate teacher evaluations, and our superintendent has said that he wants “value-added” to be a part of it. Regardless of whether I think value-added is good or bad (or incomplete), publishing this database accomplished nothing additionally for the L.A. Times readership. In fact, if one of the goals of the Times (or the district, or even the union for that matter) is to improve the quality of education for the children of Los Angeles, publishing this database does nothing to that end. The argument that good teachers need to be rewarded (and bad teachers need to be supported) is likely a valid one, but there are plenty of other methodologies to accomplish that end, rather than merely posterizing individuals by name in a national daily periodical. (Part 6, my final post in this blog series will deal with exactly how this could be accomplished, and what should have been done). All that the publication of the database does is create friction, especially as it will now fall upon principals to deal with any irate parents who may now just have the ammunition they need to push their way around a school.

In fact, in this whole L.A. Times series, today’s piece is hardly worth the read at all; its only (potentially) useful piece of information being that “good teachers exist”.

What is really interesting, and fairly eye-opening is the set of teachers’ comments regarding their own “value-added” scores. And while I don’t recommend making any sort of judgments about teachers based on their scores, it is very interesting to see the variety of responses elicited from those whose job performance is now on blast. The responses range from dejection, to acceptance, to utter outrage, to constructive criticism, to questioning validity, and more. Just to give you a sample, here are four teachers’ scores accompanied by their comments. The four encompass the range of both high and low “scores” as well as “positive” or “negative” reaction to the Times’ study. It’s worth seeing this range of commentary.

This debate is only going to get more fiery as the school year is about to start.

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By Kyle, August 25, 2010 8:00 pm

The Arcade Fire – Neighborhoods #1 (Tunnels)

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More recent developments regarding the L.A. Times report on “Grading Teachers”.

First, our union agreed to sit down to renegotiations with the district regarding teacher evaluations. KCRW’s Warren Olney interviews UTLA President AJ Duffy, parent activist Bill Ring, and article author Jason Song here. Not one day later, LAUSD is officially going to seek the implementation of a “value-added” component to teacher evaluations here in the district.

Not only does this story itself demonstrate the volatility of its subject matter, but also the power of the media (specifically the L.A. Times) in driving policy in response. Arne Duncan (Obama’s Secretary of Ed) himself is now on record as having a plan to call all states to publicize their teacher performance data in the public record.

Needless to say, this issue is clearly snowballing out of control.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the commentary has been one of extremes in this case (after all, it’s extremism that makes headlines). What’s yet to be developed is a more moderate position, one that is currently in dialectical development (a phrase that should elicit smiles from my theologian friends out there). As one LAUSD teacher I know put it quite simply today, the premise of the article is something we’ve been arguing for years, namely that “teachers matter.” It’s only from that common baseline that the district (and the country) will be able to develop policies that encourage student, teacher, and administrator growth. I think we can all agree on that.

Next up? Notes from the field: how do L.A. teachers feel about value-added?

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By Kyle, August 22, 2010 9:25 am

The Arcade Fire – Suburban War

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“Argument”: 1. A collected series of statements to establish a definite proposition. 2. Not merely contradiction.

The Times has gone on to publish two significant stories since the last update of this blog series, one an interesting commentarial piece on evaluating entire schools using the value-added method (VAM) as opposed to the traditional API score. Whereas last week’s report spotlighting individual teachers’ results seemed to initially infuriate nearly everyone in the teaching profession, I suspect that the aforementioned article will actually serve as some validation to certain schools who provide excellent education for their students, yet are still deemed via current labeling as “failures”.

The second major story, which is a huge surprise to me, is that our union has agreed to open up renegotiations with the district regarding teacher evaluations. This stands in stark contrast to the hard-line position that our Union president took a week ago when he called for a “massive boycott” of the L.A. Times (though just how exactly one boycotts a business that literally gives away all its content for free online, I’m not sure about).

Now personally, I understand why unions exists, and also why teachers need good ones, particularly in a district with little administrative accountability (not to say that all administrators are ineffective; ours, in particular, are actually great), and few systems in place to ensure teachers are actually supported, rather than singled out.

However, I don’t much like our union. I’m not sure what a boycott of the L.A. Times is supposed to accomplish; I think the problem is that even the Union doesn’t know what it wants to accomplish. We tirelessly preach and pontificate about how the school system is broken because there is so little student accountability and so little administrative accountability. Yet one mention of anything that relates to teacher accountability, and our union immediately takes up a contrarian position. Period. No discussion. No debate. No nothing.

Yet despite promising to work to ensure that struggling teachers are supported, our union is simultaneously preventing this from happening by fighting so hard to hide those teachers who could actually use the support. This is where my faith in our union fails. We say we want to improve, but are unwilling to identify specifically how we are to improve as educators. I haven’t read the paper on the value added model (although if you’d like to plough through the heavy statistics here and summarize for me, I’d be grateful), but the basically, the union decided it would be against it, and then went out to find research to support that claim.

My hope for UTLA, as they finally sit down with the district is that their focus will not be to automatically write-off any new method to evaluate teachers, but rather to ensure that in contract negotiations, the primacy of using data to help educators improve their practice is the main thing. Specifically, the union needs to ensure that LAUSD puts systems in place that guarantee struggling teachers receive support and also guarantee that struggling teachers who do not receive support from administrators cannot be fired (and those admins who are not supporting would need to be dealt with accordingly). If we don’t know what’s broke, we can’t fix it. All that the union needs to do, is ensure that the district “fixes it”, and doesn’t merely “throw it away”. Simply denying there’s nothing broken will not help kids.

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By Kyle, August 19, 2010 1:35 pm

The Arcade Fire – Black Mirror

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I always thought that the purpose of a newspaper was the report what events were happening in the world each day. Pure naïveté (for an exciting look at this, be sure to check out HBO’s The Wire: Season Five).

Our small town paper out here, The Los Angeles Times, exemplifies such a case. Most recently, the Times’ series on teacher effectiveness has opened a floodgate of criticism and discussion on all sides. In this case, the Times is clearly driving the education agenda, rather than merely reporting on it.

While still procrastinating on displaying my personal feelings towards this decision to publish teacher testing data, it’s important for me to note, at this early juncture, my first frustration with these events. Honestly, it’s a bit angering to note the fact that it is the local newspaper, and not the district itself, that is driving the education agenda in this town. LAUSD has consistently shown itself to be a re-active organization, rather than a pro-active one. Regardless of what one thinks about the validity, reliability, or effectiveness of value-added models, the fact is that rather than waiting around for two reporters to publish data like this, the district should have been actively acting internally to decide how to disseminate this data, be it to teachers, or even to principals. Rather than waiting for a newspaper to push this out into the open, LAUSD should have been studying teacher data, and developing internal support policies so that when the Times did decide to publish, the district could say “Yep, we’ve been all over this for years”. Unfortunately, this is not the case. In fact, this latest fiasco is just the latest in a pattern of “Times Reports, LAUSD Reacts” events that have occurred in the past few years. I submit the following examples for those who might remember:

May 2009: Times reports about LAUSD’s inability to fire allegedly criminal teachers. July 2009: LAUSD reacts by firing one of the allegedly criminal teachers.

November 2008: Times reports that charter schools are the wave of the future. August 2009: LAUSD reacts by approving the giveaway of schools to charter organization.

November 2008: Times reports that Superintendent David Brewer isn’t very effective. December 2008: LAUSD reacts by buying out the rest of his contract.

Remember all that? If this school system is to truly serve the education needs of the community, then we are the ones that need to be the ones starting these conversations, not the newspaper. Just what that conversation is, however, will be left to a future post in this series.

In my next post, we’ll address the next big player in this discussion, the Union.

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By Kyle, August 16, 2010 10:32 pm

The Arcade Fire – Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)

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“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking”. – Joan Didion

Wow, where to even begin. Many of your are already aware of the bombshell that was dropped Sunday, when the Los Angeles Times went ahead and published the first part of a series in which they are actually evaluating individual teacher data and publishing the results online.

If you’ve not read the story yet, stop reading right this right now and check out the actual story published here.

Reaction to both the story’s existence and its contents has been swift from all parties involved, including district personnel (who thought it necessary to auto-dial my cell phone twice with affirming words of love), union reps, edu-bloggers, politicians, not to mention my colleagues and friends who find themselves in the thick of this.

And so, I’m going to try to start (and hopefully finish) something I’ve never attempted before: writing a series of blog posts all revolving around a single, and continuing topic, namely this report. My motivation is twofold. First, there’s no feasible way to actually address all of the issues wrapped up in this debate that is now on the forefront of everyone in LAUSD’s mind. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I’m still in the process of trying to wrap my head around all of this, and as such, realize that the issues involved are hardly black and white. Writing, much like Didion, helps me to formulate my thoughts, my opinions, and more importantly, what I’m actually going to do in response.

Simply thinking about broad categories, I’m suspecting a 6-part post ought to cover most of the bases (including the ones that my sorry Mets can’t seem to find), although if 6 isn’t enough, I’ll simply extend it to include more. Mwahahaha…

A basic outline:

Part I: Introduction

Part II: Reporting Creating the News

Part III: Napoleon With a Megaphone

Part IV: Chiming In

Part V: The Front Lines

Part VI: A New Hope

Feel free to chime in with any two-cents along the way.

…as a final side note, I just purchased Arcade Fire’s new album, “The Suburbs”. Amazing. In honor, all the songs linked will be from The Arcade Fire.