Fired DC Teachers: Which Schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the school I work at the few staff members who received "highly effective" are friends with the principal and assistant principal. One of these individuals is so awful that in my professional opinion, she should be fired. It really is sad

Too bad the WTU had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the era of accountability. If your representation had spent the last 30 years trying to come up with a fair and equitable way of identifying and removing such teachers, rather than fighting with every breath to keep them in front of students, we might have a better system.

edu-speak:

era of accountability

fair and equitable

in front of students

Hah hah! Okay, crazy lady. Demonizing "accountability", treating professionals "fairly", and bringing up the people who are actually supposed to be served by the educational system (remember them?) should work to sell your side of the argument. Good luck with that!

You with your fancy edu-speak, talking about "fairness with accountability". Heck, the very word "education" is just edu-blather!!!"

Totally unhinged.

[Anonymous]

I understand many people do not like IMPACT for a variety of reasons, but I don't understand what you would offer as an effective alternative. Here are the options as I see them ...

(1) No evaluation process at all; just trust teachers to do their jobs. This seems non-viable to me. I assume no one is suggesting this.

(2) A subjective evaluation process where school principals assess teachers. This was the PPEP approach, as I understand it. Many people hated it because they feared that personal disagreements with principals would prevent a fair PPEP evalaution. Alternatively, some favored teachers might get undeservedly positive reviews based on friendships with principals. As a result of this potential for bias, a grievance procedure was important. The grievance process was so long and involved that its was very difficult to remove even clearly ineffective teachers.

(3) A subjective evaluation process where some neutral reviewers assess teachers. This is what I understand the ME (Master Educator) process to involve. It reduces the danger of individual bias contaminating results. The main criticism I can see is that the MEs might not have enough exposure to teachers (which is sort of the opposite problems of having principals review teachers).

(4) An objective evaluation based on test scores. This approach removes the danger of subjective bias. However, it incentivizes teachers to "teach to the test." Also, it means that a good teacher might be penalized for having unmotivated students who are unwilling or unable to score well on the tests.

(5) A combination approach that balances subjective and objective factors. To me, this seems to be what IMPACT is trying to do.

Is there some other option I am missing? If these are the only options, it seems to me that IMPACT strikes a reasonable balance between subjective and objective evaluation. Maybe there is a better way to conduct the subjective or objective evaluations that I am not hearing. But what's the better alternative? It's not an answer to say simply that "the current system sucks," unless you can offer a more effective replacement system.

[Anonymous]

Is the issue really the Master Educators or is it the Value Added score? In my mind you need both qualitative and quantiative in the evaluation. What other quantitative measurements would you use?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the school I work at the few staff members who received "highly effective" are friends with the principal and assistant principal. One of these individuals is so awful that in my professional opinion, she should be fired. It really is sad

Too bad the WTU had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the era of accountability. If your representation had spent the last 30 years trying to come up with a fair and equitable way of identifying and removing such teachers, rather than fighting with every breath to keep them in front of students, we might have a better system.

Oh yeah, it's the WTU's fault that the principal plays favorites. That's logical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the issue really the Master Educators or is it the Value Added score? In my mind you need both qualitative and quantiative in the evaluation. What other quantitative measurements would you use?

I've read complaints about both sides: subjective (Master Educator evaluations) and objective (Value Added scores). I cannot yet figure out whether these complaints have much merit.

As an aside, I did some research on the Value-Added calculation, and I found some summaries that appear useful (although I have only skimmed them so far).
http://www.studentsfirst.org/blog/entry/what-is-value-added-measurement-and-how-can-we-use-it/#
http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2010/1117_evaluating_teachers.aspx
http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/publications/PDFs/education/valueadded_techrprt.pdf

[jsteele]

A few years ago, maybe even more than a few at this point, there was a lot of talk about empowering individuals. The idea being that if people felt that they had the ability to make a difference, they did better work. This type of thinking even worked its way down to assembly lines where studies showed that simply providing a button that allowed a worker to stop the line in order to correct a poorly-made product resulted in workers taking more pride in and doing a better job. What IMPACT is doing is removing every iota of empowerment from teachers. It is providing a rigid set of guidelines that prohibits risk-taking or individualism. I'm sure that every parent here feels that his or her child is an unique individual. Do you really want that unique child to be treated as one more widget on the production line? Dealt with by a formula that allows little to no deviation? If not, then why would you want teachers who are only allowed to follow such a formula?

There will probably never be a perfect evaluation system. There will always be someone who skates through rather than being justifiably fired. There will always be someone whose strengths are not accurately judged and will be wrongly dismissed. Perhaps IMPACT can be reformed to do the least possible of both. But, I am very pessimistic about it because it appears it's primary proponents are people who seem to have very little respect or trust for teachers. Everything important should be able to fit on a spreadsheet. I just don't buy it. I'd rather see teachers empowered rather than restricted in this manner.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:A few years ago, maybe even more than a few at this point, there was a lot of talk about empowering individuals. The idea being that if people felt that they had the ability to make a difference, they did better work. This type of thinking even worked its way down to assembly lines where studies showed that simply providing a button that allowed a worker to stop the line in order to correct a poorly-made product resulted in workers taking more pride in and doing a better job. What IMPACT is doing is removing every iota of empowerment from teachers. It is providing a rigid set of guidelines that prohibits risk-taking or individualism. I'm sure that every parent here feels that his or her child is an unique individual. Do you really want that unique child to be treated as one more widget on the production line? Dealt with by a formula that allows little to no deviation? If not, then why would you want teachers who are only allowed to follow such a formula?

There will probably never be a perfect evaluation system. There will always be someone who skates through rather than being justifiably fired. There will always be someone whose strengths are not accurately judged and will be wrongly dismissed. Perhaps IMPACT can be reformed to do the least possible of both. But, I am very pessimistic about it because it appears it's primary proponents are people who seem to have very little respect or trust for teachers. Everything important should be able to fit on a spreadsheet. I just don't buy it. I'd rather see teachers empowered rather than restricted in this manner.

Worthy goal. But how, exactly? What sort of evaluation system would empowers teachers while also applying transparent criteria? How are the things that don't fit on the spreadsheet factored into evaluations in a fair and consistent way?

[Anonymous]

Jeff Steele: Thanks for being such a worthy moderator -- you are 100% on my wavelength.
Sincerely,
Maureen Diner
Former DCPS Parent

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

(5) A combination approach that balances subjective and objective factors. To me, this seems to be what IMPACT is trying to do.

Is there some other option I am missing? If these are the only options, it seems to me that IMPACT strikes a reasonable balance between subjective and objective evaluation. Maybe there is a better way to conduct the subjective or objective evaluations that I am not hearing. But what's the better alternative? It's not an answer to say simply that "the current system sucks," unless you can offer a more effective replacement system.

Your points are well-taken pp, but the problem I have is not that there are multiple types of measures (a good thing) but that this approach wasn't pilot tested first. Why should I have trusted the Rhee administration to get it right on the first try? I saw the difficulty she had in getting the budget right. So why would I have any confidence that the evaluation system was implemented correctly? And now that we see that there was likely lots of cheating at multiple schools, my concern appears to have been correct.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:... What IMPACT is doing is removing every iota of empowerment from teachers. It is providing a rigid set of guidelines that prohibits risk-taking or individualism. I'm sure that every parent here feels that his or her child is an unique individual. Do you really want that unique child to be treated as one more widget on the production line? Dealt with by a formula that allows little to no deviation? If not, then why would you want teachers who are only allowed to follow such a formula? ... Everything important should be able to fit on a spreadsheet. I just don't buy it. I'd rather see teachers empowered rather than restricted in this manner.

You probably understand a lot more about IMPACT than I do, but my understanding is slightly different. I thought it's goal (at least one goal) is to ensure some minimal level of competence from teachers. In other words, they should be able to conduct a lesson that meets certain criteria evaluated by the Master Educators a few times a year. And their students should be able to show some minimal level of improvement over certain baseline scores. And they should meet certain standards of professionalism, such as positive interactions with school admins.

So long as those criteria are met, a teacher is deemed "minimally effective," and she can exhibit all the risk-taking and individualism she wants in running her classroom. She can teach however she thinks is best. Indeed, if she can teach particularly effectively in some unconventional way, so that her students advance far beyond the baseline in the tests, she will be rewarded with higher ratings.

I don't see how IMPACT forces teachers to teach by rote formula. It just sets a minimal standard of accountability. It's sort of like requiring a jazz musician to be able to read music and play a simple set of scales before admitting her to music school. Yes, she's got to be able to meet those minimal criteria, but once she's done that, no one's going to tell her how to play her jazz. Sure, I guess it's possible those criteria could cause the school to reject some prodigy who cannot read music, but that's a pretty rare bird.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
You probably understand a lot more about IMPACT than I do, but my understanding is slightly different. I thought it's goal (at least one goal) is to ensure some minimal level of competence from teachers. In other words, they should be able to conduct a lesson that meets certain criteria evaluated by the Master Educators a few times a year. And their students should be able to show some minimal level of improvement over certain baseline scores. And they should meet certain standards of professionalism, such as positive interactions with school admins.

That's what IMPACT is supposed to do. If you read the IMPACT guidebooks, there are not many sentences with which you can disagree. As an academic exercise the guidebooks are not bad. But, I think there is a disconnect between how IMPACT was envisioned and how it is applied. From what I've heard -- obviously I have experienced it myself -- it becomes a check list. Did the teacher state a goal of a lesson? Is that goal measurable? Does the goal align with DCPS standards? Do the students understand the goal? All of these things are good, but perhaps don't need to all be applied to every lesson. Doing so naturally results in a formulaic approach. I am sure there are teachers here who can give real world examples of what I'm trying to say.

[Anonymous]

So long as those criteria are met, a teacher is deemed "minimally effective," and she can exhibit all the risk-taking and individualism she wants in running her classroom. She can teach however she thinks is best. Indeed, if she can teach particularly effectively in some unconventional way, so that her students advance far beyond the baseline in the tests, she will be rewarded with higher ratings.

I don't see how IMPACT forces teachers to teach by rote formula.



Because a Master Educator comes by surprise and has a CHECK LIST of about 60 different things (rote formula criteria) you have to demonstrate in a given lesson. Taking risks is not in the cards for teachers who worry about their evaluation scores. Taking a RISK means doing something that is NOT on the check list. Can you show 60 different things in 30 minutes and look like you are creative, individual and spontaneous?

And besides "minimally effective" is not the goal because you're out after 2 years.

Trust me, I am a parent (and DCPS teacher) and you don't want this for your kids. I certainly wouldn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At the school I work at the few staff members who received "highly effective" are friends with the principal and assistant principal. One of these individuals is so awful that in my professional opinion, she should be fired. It really is sad

Too bad the WTU had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the era of accountability. If your representation had spent the last 30 years trying to come up with a fair and equitable way of identifying and removing such teachers, rather than fighting with every breath to keep them in front of students, we might have a better system.

edu-speak:

era of accountability

fair and equitable

in front of students

Hah hah! Okay, crazy lady. Demonizing "accountability", treating professionals "fairly", and bringing up the people who are actually supposed to be served by the educational system (remember them?) should work to sell your side of the argument. Good luck with that!

You with your fancy edu-speak, talking about "fairness with accountability". Heck, the very word "education" is just edu-blather!!!"

Totally unhinged.

edu-speak:

totally unhinged

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I understand many people do not like IMPACT for a variety of reasons, but I don't understand what you would offer as an effective alternative. Here are the options as I see them ...

(1) No evaluation process at all; just trust teachers to do their jobs. This seems non-viable to me. I assume no one is suggesting this.

(2) A subjective evaluation process where school principals assess teachers. This was the PPEP approach, as I understand it. Many people hated it because they feared that personal disagreements with principals would prevent a fair PPEP evalaution. Alternatively, some favored teachers might get undeservedly positive reviews based on friendships with principals. As a result of this potential for bias, a grievance procedure was important. The grievance process was so long and involved that its was very difficult to remove even clearly ineffective teachers.

(3) A subjective evaluation process where some neutral reviewers assess teachers. This is what I understand the ME (Master Educator) process to involve. It reduces the danger of individual bias contaminating results. The main criticism I can see is that the MEs might not have enough exposure to teachers (which is sort of the opposite problems of having principals review teachers).

(4) An objective evaluation based on test scores. This approach removes the danger of subjective bias. However, it incentivizes teachers to "teach to the test." Also, it means that a good teacher might be penalized for having unmotivated students who are unwilling or unable to score well on the tests.

(5) A combination approach that balances subjective and objective factors. To me, this seems to be what IMPACT is trying to do.

Is there some other option I am missing? If these are the only options, it seems to me that IMPACT strikes a reasonable balance between subjective and objective evaluation. Maybe there is a better way to conduct the subjective or objective evaluations that I am not hearing. But what's the better alternative? It's not an answer to say simply that "the current system sucks," unless you can offer a more effective replacement system.

PPEP was much better than IMPACT.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PPEP was much better than IMPACT.

How? Why? PPEP was trashed by teachers, parents, school admin people, and others. Please explain why you think it was better.