 |
| available via vamboozled.com |
AND eager for your help. Have a story of power, manipulation, self-interest or injustice which needs attention? Let me know and we'll let the world discover "what's that smell."
"If you're a profession of sheep, then you'll be run by wolves." -- David C. Berliner
"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: Everything else is public relations." -- George Orwell
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral." -- Paulo Freire
PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT! ;)
Friday, December 12, 2014
VAMboozled! Brings the Heat
If you're not reading the VAMboozled blog, you're missing out on valuable information regarding Value-Added Measures in American Education:
Thursday, December 11, 2014
I Do Not Like Gr$$n Eyes and VAM. Using My Voice Against Them I Am, I Am
 |
| Teaching and Teacher Education? The cat in *this* hat knows little about that. |
I do not like this
Vampy VAM.
I’m smart enough to
see the SCAM.
I do not like the
role it’ll play
In shuttering teacher’s
edu-cay-
Shunned will be
those who fight
Against VAM’s wrongs
and for what’s right.
But I do not like ol’
Arnie’s plan
And when did Obama
become “The Man?”
I do not like these corpora-crats
Controlling teaching’s
this-and-that’s.
I do not like "gov" over-reach
So to you I must beseech:
If you do not like
the Vampy VAM,
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Anthony Cody Weighs in on VAM in Teacher Education
Since we reviewed his latest book earlier in the week, have been influenced greatly by the bulk of his writing, and have been hammering home all the negative aspects of VAM in any educational setting, Edustank staff thinks it only fitting to link directly to his just-published thoughts on VAM in teacher education.
Here's his thesis: "When the history of modern education reform is written one of the most shameful chapters will be the continued embrace of various forms of “Value Added Models” for purposes of measuring the effectiveness of teachers in raising test scores."
Click *here* to read words of wisdom. Note also Cody asks as we've been asking here: That you take advantage of the comments period at Regulations.gov to let officials know we do not want nor need this new set of bad ideas.
Here's his thesis: "When the history of modern education reform is written one of the most shameful chapters will be the continued embrace of various forms of “Value Added Models” for purposes of measuring the effectiveness of teachers in raising test scores."
Click *here* to read words of wisdom. Note also Cody asks as we've been asking here: That you take advantage of the comments period at Regulations.gov to let officials know we do not want nor need this new set of bad ideas.
 |
| (Un-memed AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais snagged *here*) |
Education Reform-Critical Boxer Weighs in on Value-Added Models in Teacher Prep
At last count, twenty-five comments were posted at Regulations.gov regarding new proposals to incorporate punitive Value-Added Models of assessment to college- and university-based teacher education programs. This week the Edustank staff has weighed in against such proposals (see stories below), which we feel will work to undermine local and institutional control and have at their central reasons for existence the same motives as VAM in K12: To destroy the best of educational institutions such that competing, private-market alternatives sponsored by the same folks who push the virtues of VAM in the first place can be foisted upon a public.
Please contact your representatives to tell them to work against the approval of these regulations and leave your comment on the *Regulations.gov site* as well.
In the meantime, please allow my colleague Ed Reform Critical-Boxer to offer his opinions on VAMs:
Please contact your representatives to tell them to work against the approval of these regulations and leave your comment on the *Regulations.gov site* as well.
In the meantime, please allow my colleague Ed Reform Critical-Boxer to offer his opinions on VAMs:
Monday, December 8, 2014
Review: _The Educator and the Oligarch_ by Anthony Cody
While not as scholarly or historically-situated as Ravitch's Reign of Error or as edgy or pleasingly snarky as Schneider's Chronicle of Echoes, Anthony Cody's The Educator and the Oligarch: A Teacher Challenges the Gates Foundation (2014, Garn Press) is an important addition to the growing number of books calling into question current corporate-political actions regarding American public education.
Cody, an experienced former National Board certified science teacher and accomplished education journalist from Berkeley, CA, addresses the motives, rhetoric, and possible misguided understandings of the nation's most-powerful education reformer, Bill Gates.
With a straightforward, fluid tone which requires little intellectual stretching for those who are not completely caught up in the domain of K12 education but will strike a pitch-perfect chord with practicing teachers (making it a great gift for anyone), Cody not only calls into question the reasons for Gates' interest in "fixing" public schools but offers common sense, research-supported, best-practice-informed options to truly, fully address issues like poverty, teacher quality and retention, and student achievement.
For example, he attacks Gates' faith in Value-Added Measures of teacher effectiveness, citing research which shows poverty is a much more pervasive factor than a classroom teacher when it comes to affecting students' academic outcomes on certain types of assessments. Cody suggests focusing on the root causes of poverty (along with racial isolation) and eliminating them would be a more appropriate way for Gates to spend his time and money if he is serious about improving learning conditions.
He challenges Gates' and other reformers' penchant for focusing on college- and career-readiness as the goals of K12 systems and favors instead the goal of allowing "every child to develop his/her talent, and bring[ing] each one of the into full membership in our economic, cultural, and social community" (88). He advocates for teacher autonomy, creativity, and trust in a setting free from oppressive top-down mandates and high-stakes testing.
Though Cody never accuses Gates of profiteering from his reform efforts, he does assert Gates' pro-market influence regarding public education is deeply flawed and undermines democracy, local control, and Gates' own spoken goals of making education more equitable.
A lack of appendix makes note-taking in the margins of utmost import, though Cody does cite additional sources via numbered end notes. Despite the omission of an appendix for the erudite and those in need of quick references -- and readers will want to return to the text again and again to help inform their thinking, make their own points, and influence their constituencies -- if I were teaching a course on Contemporary Education Reform, Cody's The Educator and the Oligarch would make for splendid required reading alongside Reign of Error and Chronicle of Echoes. I recommend it for everyone teaching, interested in teaching, or concerned with American public education.
(Read more from Anthony Cody at his blog *Living in Dialogue * and review his archives for *Education Week.*)
With a straightforward, fluid tone which requires little intellectual stretching for those who are not completely caught up in the domain of K12 education but will strike a pitch-perfect chord with practicing teachers (making it a great gift for anyone), Cody not only calls into question the reasons for Gates' interest in "fixing" public schools but offers common sense, research-supported, best-practice-informed options to truly, fully address issues like poverty, teacher quality and retention, and student achievement.
For example, he attacks Gates' faith in Value-Added Measures of teacher effectiveness, citing research which shows poverty is a much more pervasive factor than a classroom teacher when it comes to affecting students' academic outcomes on certain types of assessments. Cody suggests focusing on the root causes of poverty (along with racial isolation) and eliminating them would be a more appropriate way for Gates to spend his time and money if he is serious about improving learning conditions.
He challenges Gates' and other reformers' penchant for focusing on college- and career-readiness as the goals of K12 systems and favors instead the goal of allowing "every child to develop his/her talent, and bring[ing] each one of the into full membership in our economic, cultural, and social community" (88). He advocates for teacher autonomy, creativity, and trust in a setting free from oppressive top-down mandates and high-stakes testing.
Though Cody never accuses Gates of profiteering from his reform efforts, he does assert Gates' pro-market influence regarding public education is deeply flawed and undermines democracy, local control, and Gates' own spoken goals of making education more equitable.
A lack of appendix makes note-taking in the margins of utmost import, though Cody does cite additional sources via numbered end notes. Despite the omission of an appendix for the erudite and those in need of quick references -- and readers will want to return to the text again and again to help inform their thinking, make their own points, and influence their constituencies -- if I were teaching a course on Contemporary Education Reform, Cody's The Educator and the Oligarch would make for splendid required reading alongside Reign of Error and Chronicle of Echoes. I recommend it for everyone teaching, interested in teaching, or concerned with American public education.
(Read more from Anthony Cody at his blog *Living in Dialogue * and review his archives for *Education Week.*)
Friday, December 5, 2014
How to Talk to Stakeholders About The Dangers of Value-Added Models (VAMs) When Applied to Teacher Education Programs
*Yesterday* I discussed the worrisome construct that is the Value-added Model of evaluation and accountability as it pertains to K12 public education and may soon pertain to teacher education programs across the country if the Department of Education yahoos have their way.
I'm no proponent of VAM as an aspect of a teacher's evaluation if it is weighted so heavily that the teacher can be fired for "failing" to prepare his or her students well enough to meet an arbitrary cut-off score on poorly-constructed standardized tests, which are among the least-useful metrics for detailing students' learning available but seem to be all many of the heavy-hitters in ed reform really care about when their double-speak and schadenfreude is revealed. (See the work of Anthony Cody, Valerie Strauss, Peter Greene, and Carol Burris for help peaking behind the not-so-veiled curtain of such politicians, philanthropists, and business people).
Certainly I'm no fan of applying that same flawed VAM system to teacher education programs at colleges and universities and/or, as I suspect will happen as Deans and department chairs and tenured faculty shirk punatives down the chain of the academic hierarchy, individual professors.
That's right, the Department of Education wants the power to praise or condemn, literally to even destroy, certain teacher prep programs if their professors and instructors do not yield teachers working in public schools whose K12 students do not measure up on a terrible metric (standardized tests).
VAM is a scam partly because of the poor utility of data garnered from standardized tests but also because research informs us that the teacher is not the most significant factor influencing a child's educational outcomes. Socioeconomics and parental involvement weigh heavily upon a child's chance to succeed based on most measures, including those standardized tests, and even those who promote VAM as part of a teacher's evaluation recognize that the teacher may account for, at best, 20% of the child's progress. Teachers and teacher educators are vitally important, but they can only account for so much, and their import likely is prevalent in aspects not so easily measured as Scantron sheets.
VAM applied to teacher education is like a demented version of an Aristotelian thought experiment where VAM for teacher education is the second step removed from the thing itself; VAM for K12 teachers is the first step removed; and VAM is the thing itself, except the thing itself is idealized but not at all ideal for anyone -- except those who seek to profit from its destructive fallout, like privatizers and corporate philanthropists eager to create new markets for aspiring teachers.
Currently, DOE personnel have the proposed VAM changes posted online and are accepting comments from the public to, presumably, shape the final version of the changes. While * I encourage you to post your comments *, doing so could be an empty measure in that often these comment periods are rhetorically empty gestures, a way of making us think we had input when the decisions have been made already.
To that end, it is important to contact other stakeholders, local leaders, and political power brokers to let them know you oppose these regulations. But doing so is hard, I know. Luckily, you do not have to go it alone:
Associate Professor of Education at Pennsylvania State University *Anne Elrod Whitney* has prepared VAM talking points primer which can be accessed vie Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8_sZciv9tEWTmFoVTFnVmJsdlE/edit?pli=1
Dr. Whitney has urged all of us in the education community to share the document with university officials like Deans, Presidents, and Boards of Regents; to use it to help organize responses from teacher education professors in their own programs and professional organizations; and to pull from it when contacting state and national politicians as well.
Among Whitney's main points are:
1. VAM-connected testing is bad for students, and therefor represents bad practice pedagogy if professors are forced to coerce future teachers into seeing testing as their focus.
2. VAM represents government overreach, a point perhaps especially bothersome to Republicans.
3. The methods presented as based on sound research are flawed.
As well, and so you don't have to just take our words for it, she links to scholarly articles detailing the faulty logic in emphasizing VAM scores.
Please use this excellent, clear primer to help you contact those in power who might be able to look at what the DOE sees as a "done deed' and not let them get away with being so "dirt cheap" when it comes to their obvious and continued attempts to ruin -- not transform, but ruin -- the entirety of American education.
I'm no proponent of VAM as an aspect of a teacher's evaluation if it is weighted so heavily that the teacher can be fired for "failing" to prepare his or her students well enough to meet an arbitrary cut-off score on poorly-constructed standardized tests, which are among the least-useful metrics for detailing students' learning available but seem to be all many of the heavy-hitters in ed reform really care about when their double-speak and schadenfreude is revealed. (See the work of Anthony Cody, Valerie Strauss, Peter Greene, and Carol Burris for help peaking behind the not-so-veiled curtain of such politicians, philanthropists, and business people).
Certainly I'm no fan of applying that same flawed VAM system to teacher education programs at colleges and universities and/or, as I suspect will happen as Deans and department chairs and tenured faculty shirk punatives down the chain of the academic hierarchy, individual professors.
VAM is a scam partly because of the poor utility of data garnered from standardized tests but also because research informs us that the teacher is not the most significant factor influencing a child's educational outcomes. Socioeconomics and parental involvement weigh heavily upon a child's chance to succeed based on most measures, including those standardized tests, and even those who promote VAM as part of a teacher's evaluation recognize that the teacher may account for, at best, 20% of the child's progress. Teachers and teacher educators are vitally important, but they can only account for so much, and their import likely is prevalent in aspects not so easily measured as Scantron sheets.
VAM applied to teacher education is like a demented version of an Aristotelian thought experiment where VAM for teacher education is the second step removed from the thing itself; VAM for K12 teachers is the first step removed; and VAM is the thing itself, except the thing itself is idealized but not at all ideal for anyone -- except those who seek to profit from its destructive fallout, like privatizers and corporate philanthropists eager to create new markets for aspiring teachers.
 |
| VAM?: This is not a quality education-making artiface |
Currently, DOE personnel have the proposed VAM changes posted online and are accepting comments from the public to, presumably, shape the final version of the changes. While * I encourage you to post your comments *, doing so could be an empty measure in that often these comment periods are rhetorically empty gestures, a way of making us think we had input when the decisions have been made already.
To that end, it is important to contact other stakeholders, local leaders, and political power brokers to let them know you oppose these regulations. But doing so is hard, I know. Luckily, you do not have to go it alone:
Associate Professor of Education at Pennsylvania State University *Anne Elrod Whitney* has prepared VAM talking points primer which can be accessed vie Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8_sZciv9tEWTmFoVTFnVmJsdlE/edit?pli=1
Dr. Whitney has urged all of us in the education community to share the document with university officials like Deans, Presidents, and Boards of Regents; to use it to help organize responses from teacher education professors in their own programs and professional organizations; and to pull from it when contacting state and national politicians as well.
Among Whitney's main points are:
1. VAM-connected testing is bad for students, and therefor represents bad practice pedagogy if professors are forced to coerce future teachers into seeing testing as their focus.
2. VAM represents government overreach, a point perhaps especially bothersome to Republicans.
3. The methods presented as based on sound research are flawed.
As well, and so you don't have to just take our words for it, she links to scholarly articles detailing the faulty logic in emphasizing VAM scores.
Please use this excellent, clear primer to help you contact those in power who might be able to look at what the DOE sees as a "done deed' and not let them get away with being so "dirt cheap" when it comes to their obvious and continued attempts to ruin -- not transform, but ruin -- the entirety of American education.
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