U.S. schools chief endorses release of teacher data

[proud2BlibKansan]

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says parents have a right to know how effective teachers are at raising student test scores. "What is there to hide?" he says.


U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Monday that parents have a right to know if their children's teachers are effective, endorsing the public release of information about how well individual teachers fare at raising their students' test scores.

"What's there to hide?" Duncan said in an interview one day after The Times published an analysis of teacher effectiveness in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second largest school system. "In education, we've been scared to talk about success."

Duncan's comments mark the first time the Obama administration has expressed support for a public airing of information about teacher performance — a move that is sure to fan the already fierce debate over how to better evaluate teachers.

Spurred by the administration, school districts around the country have moved to adopt "value added" measures, a statistical approach that relies on standardized test scores to measure student learning. Critics, including many teachers unions and some policy experts, say the method is based on flawed tests that don't measure the more intangible benefits of good teaching and lead to a narrow curriculum. In Los Angeles, the teachers union has called public disclosure of the results "dangerous" and "irresponsible."

more . . . http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0817-teachers-react-20100817,0,4846188.story

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Wait for all the defenders of this crap

in three, two, one...

Perhaps some day Americans will realize what was done to public education. I just don't count on it.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. I challenge ANYONE defending this crap to make their own employee evaluation public

And if they aren't willing to do that, they are a hypocrite.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Fully agree, not only that, it is a crime

privacy laws and all that. I hope the Union fights them on those grounds.

[Joe Fields]

20. And teachers are completely faultless? Don't make me laugh.

[nadinbrzezinski]

21. So tell me Joe

you want your review published for all to see in your local paper? Forget all the legal issues... DO YOU?

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[roguevalley]

35. Actually, we aren't but we never pretended to be

but now that we are the whipping boy of all society's ills, we find ourselves being *just* a little bit testy at all the sob's out there

[Hannah Bell]

36. straw.

[JDPriestly]

42. Our banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, to say nothing of AIG, nearly failed

Without using Google, name one person at AIG who performed poorly? You might be able to name someone at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, but very few of them. Yet the poor performance in the financial institutions nearly took our country into bankruptcy -- and may yet take us there.

No teacher anywhere is doing as poorly or damaging our country as much as, let's say the management of Walmart or AIG or BP. Not one. Why should the names of teachers be featured in this way in a newspaper. California has strict privacy laws. When teachers' names and the test scores of their classes are listed in a major newspaper like the LA Times, I wonder whether the privacy rights of the teachers are not violated. I think it could be argued either way.

It's one thing for a school to list teachers' and classes' test scores and send a copy of the list home to students and their parents, quite another to publish that information in a major newspaper. I think it is scandalous that the LA Times has taken it upon itself to treat teachers in this way.

And, by the way, I consider the LA Times to be a failed newspaper. They came nowhere near close to publishing fair information about what was going on in the build-up to the Iraq War. They were positively derelict in their reporting and have often been derelict in performing their function as a news source.

So, the LA Times should first clean up its own act before criticizing teachers.

[Hannah Bell]

47. +1000.

[NYC_SKP]

2. Well, here's a link and excerpt from that controversial LA Times article:

~~snip~~

...For example, despite the outcry from such reformers as the Obama administration and the Education Trust, it does not appear that low-income and minority students are stuck with teachers who let achievement slump. It's also time to drop the myth that better teaching necessarily goes with more years of experience or extra education. Highly effective teachers, the ones who consistently and dramatically raise their students' scores, are fairly evenly distributed among schools and across different levels of experience and education.

The data also undermine the insistence of United Teachers Los Angeles leaders that test scores cannot be used as a valid measure in teachers' performance evaluations. When one teacher's students improve dramatically while those of another teacher down the hallway fall back, and those results are consistent over years, schools are irresponsibly failing their students by placing them with ineffective teachers, and continuing to pay those teachers as though they contributed equally.

Standardized test scores don't tell us everything about learning, and we have never supported the push of President Obama's Race to the Top grant program to make them count for half or more of a teacher's evaluation. But they can provide valuable insights. Students cannot attain high scores without knowing the material; conversely, students with dismal scores clearly haven't learned the basics. Not only that, the reporters found that high-achieving teachers had certain things in common: They maintained high standards and classroom discipline; they commanded their students' attention.

Union leaders would rather ignore those realities and call for a boycott of The Times for its ongoing examination of teachers who get the job done right and those who don't. UTLA's position is understandable; it exists to protect teachers, including the bad ones. Fortunately for parents and the public, a newspaper exists to give them information that would otherwise be withheld.

more at the link: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-teachers-20100817,0,3356224.story

:patriot:

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. Reporters found that high-achieving teachers maintained classroom discipline

How did they do that? Did they actually sit in the classroom and watch how the kids behaved?

[NYC_SKP]

9. They probably used data from student narratives (records), numbers of reported incidents, etc.

Not very reliable, I'm sure. A low number of incidents can mean a number of different things unrelated to student growth or teacher competence.

But you have to admit that some forms of assessment, applied well, are informative.

[proud2BlibKansan]

12. Informative, yes. Used to allow the public to criticize the teacher? No.

Just wait until the first teacher is shot as she is leaving school.

These are scary times. People are fucking nuts.

[Joe Fields]

19. I, for one agree with the article. n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

25. Still waiting on that evaluation, Joe.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

30. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Whisp]

40. wow thats really funny in this unemployment environment.

who the fuck are you to laugh at someone who may not have a job?

and yes, if I got paid with public money I might be ok with having my performance publicized in the same way teachers will.
but you can't ask that from people in private business.

[Hannah Bell]

48. like private businesses don't get public money. bank bailout, gm bailout, for starters.

[Whisp]

49. the question was put to individuals here

asking whether they'd like their job performances published. It wasn't about AIG or GM.

And it was answered more than once. public vs. private.

[Hannah Bell]

51. and as i said, private companies get public money, so the argument that teachers are public

employees, thus their "rankings" (devised by a researcher funded by Bill Gates) can be published, but similar information about private employees can't be -- is bogus.

[Whisp]

None of the private companies I have worked for ever got 'public' money.

and small business employs more than the big corporations.There might have been tax incentives for more employees, etc., in that way yes. But still doesn't compare.

the bailouts (some of which have been paid back with interest) can't be compared to a public servants salary. I'm not sure how you can stretch it that way.

[Hannah Bell]

54. small businesses employ more, but big corps take the lion's share of profits.

the bailouts haven't been paid back with interest. you're misinformed.

and tax breaks (some of which are saleable assets, btw) are indeed comparable. as well as the many other government subsidies business gets -- we can start with farm subsidies & work our way up the business hierarchy to manufacturing & finance.

[Whisp]

55. yes, some has been paid back.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/business/economy/31taxpayer.html (THIS IS A YEAR OLD ARTICLE)

By ZACHERY KOUWE
Published: August 30, 2009
Nearly a year after the federal rescue of the nation’s biggest banks, taxpayers have begun seeing profits from the hundreds of billions of dollars in aid that many critics thought might never be seen again.

The profits, collected from eight of the biggest banks that have fully repaid their obligations to the government, come to about $4 billion, or the equivalent of about 15 percent annually, according to calculations compiled for The New York Times.

==

Government subsidies given to business does not make their employees public servants.

I agree that there are too many tax breaks and subsidies and all that mess, but that is a whole other cart of fruit.

[Hannah Bell]

56. $190 billion still owed on the TARP portion alone as of june 2010.

and that doesn't even get into the federal reserve part.

bailout = over 4 trillion dollars.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703509404575300502253092016.html


government subsidies of business do indeed fund private jobs, i don't care what name you attach to it.

government subsidies in the form of medicare/medicaid in fact fund the majority of medical/pharma jobs. take away the subsidies and watch the medical-pharma-industrial complex deflate.

[Hannah Bell]

38. lol.

[JDPriestly]

44. How did you personally do in school, Joe Fields?

I did not teach in public schools (except to do my student teaching), but I got a degree in education many years ago. I will never forget that we learned that when students evaluate teachers by grading them, they tend to give the teacher the grade they themselves are earning.

Those who do well in school tend to think that teachers are doing a great job. Those who do not tend to think their teachers are lousy.

So, I think that many of the people who criticize teachers simply weren't or aren't very diligent students.

[Whisp]

45. I think it's fair to say it's a matter of both diligent students And teachers.

[Hannah Bell]

37. garbage. the factor which most consistently correlates with test scores = INCOME.

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. Let's hope this commenter doesn't write for a living

mendobud640 at 4:43 PM August 17, 2010
Mr Duncan has the rights idea, there is nothing to hide and our children have everything to gain, this debate is long overdue, we have become a nation of cashiers, shelve stockers and clercks because bad teachers have never been held accountable, we are hiring foreing workers to take our jobs because our educational system is broken, it is time to promote and reward the good teachers, no matter the cost.

[laughingliberal]

17. Jeebus!

So now teachers are being blamed for wrecking our manufacturing base and making us a nation of cashiers, shelf stockers and clerks. Stupid people will believe anything that doesn't hold the disastrous RW worker and middle class destroying policies of the past 30 years accountable and allows the ruling class to keep driving us down.

[Hannah Bell]

39. +100

[Whisp]

41. That person may be learning English

as a second language. What right do you have to judge people's intelligence so easily. I hope you don't ridicule your students in this way

Or snark at them because they may not have a job.

[SunsetDreams]

63. no kidding

[madfloridian]

5. Thanks for this. Recommended.

I asked to have my post locked about the ugliness got so bad.

Maybe yours can survive.

:hi:

Also Rhee in DC is going to do this also.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Hugs

[Whisp]

43. I read that thread

and must have missed the ugly part. There was just some disagreement with your assessment of things. Nothing went 'ugly' unless you consider being challenged on some of your opinions as ugly.

[msongs]

10. What is there to hide...?" unless u are admiral mullen and general petraeus and Obama lol nt

[ibegurpard]

11. It's No Child Left Behind...

...with union-busting and privatization thrown into the mix.
Why am I supposed to like this again?

[proud2BlibKansan]

15. Because the Democrats are proposing it.

That's why you are supposed to like it.

[dkf]

13. If I were a private school I would sure like to know who to poach.

Have to admit I would be very interested to see these scores. I would want the very best for my kiddies.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. The very best are usually smart enough not to work in a private school

where the pay is lower, there is no tenure, crappy medical insurance and no union.

I'm the daughter of a private school administrator. He made me promise I would never work in a private school and never become a principal.

[dkf]

16. Except you get to teach future Barack Obamas, Steve Cases and Pierre

Omidyars. I'm still amazed that our Punahou School did such a good job in little ole Hawaii.

[proud2BlibKansan]

22. When parents pay tuition, kids do their work and behave

It's not rocket science.

[dkf]

32. Obama went to Punahou on a scholarship.

No tuition there.

[proud2BlibKansan]

33. I went to private school on scholarship

You get the tuition but the extras you still have to pay. And it's still more expensive than a free public school education. We had to buy our own books and we ate family style so we couldn't bring our lunch. We had to buy theirs. Then there were activity fees, etc.

There was also constant pressure from my parents to do well so I wouldn't lose my scholarship.

[Hannah Bell]

46. uh, no, his grandparents paid & he had a *partial* scholarship.

Obama attended Punahou School on a partial scholarship and through tuition paid by Madelyn and Stanley Dunham, according to retired Advertiser reporter Jerry Burris, who, along with journalist Stu Glauberman, wrote the recent book, "The Dream Begins: How Hawaii Shaped Barack Obama."

http://www.truth-out.org/102508D.

Madelyn Dunham's job as a vice-president at the Bank of Hawaii helped pay the steep tuition,<33> with some assistance from a scholarship.<34>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Dunham

in 1971, when obama started at punahou school, he lived with his grandparents; grandma was already a VP of Bank of Hawaii at that point. She had attended the University of Washington & UC Berkeley - college being still a bit exceptional for a woman of her generation. Her father had managed oil leases for Standard Oil.

Obama's stepfather was a "government relations consultant" for Mobil Oil in Indonesia: "Soetoro usually was too busy working, first for the Indonesian army and later for a Western oil company."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/yourmoney/ny-obama-making-2,0,6697655.story

In Indonesia, Soetoro worked as a government relations consultant with the American petroleum company Mobil.<31><32>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Dunham


Obama attended an Indonesian school that educated elites: "The school, founded in 1934 as a Dutch school, once catered only to Dutch children and a few elite Indonesians. In 1962 the Dutch handed the school over to the Indonesian government. At the time, the predominantly Muslim public school was considered one of the best in Jakarta."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/yourmoney/ny-obama-making-2,0,6697655.story


And the East-West Center, which Ann Dunham was associated with in her academic career, and where she met both her spouses, is funded by the Dept. of State.

[Starry Messenger]

18. I want public airing of his performance.

Why don't they just brand us all?

[Bluebear]

24. If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear!

:eyes:

[Dark]

26. It's public information.

If you're a public employee, a lot of things about you can be released to the public. A lot more than a private sector employee. That's just part of the job.

[proud2BlibKansan]

27. Please post your most recent work evaluation

[Dark]

28. Actually, I'm unemployed right now.

And again. It's PUBLIC information. Anyone in that state can go and look it up.

You work in the private sector, you don't have to worry about that. But you don't have as much job security. And, up until the Repubs gutted the economy, the private sector paid better.

It's part of working for the government. A police officer arresting someone has his name on every incident report he files (or she).

[proud2BlibKansan]

31. Your most recent evaluation

Unless you have never worked, you have one.

Post it please. Let's make YOUR evaluation public information.

You're also going to have to explain how a police officer's name on an incident report reflects his or her competence on the job. That information is no different from a teacher's name on a class roster - also public information. But does it help us make a judgement about the teacher's ability to teach?

[Hannah Bell]

52. No, it's not public information. Test score results by school/grade are public information.

But these "ratings" were concocted by the LA Times & a RAND researcher paid by Bill Gates. They aren't just the test scores.

[Hannah Bell]

50. no, it's not. the ratings were concocted on the *basis* of public information (test scores) by a

researcher from RAND, paid by a Bill Gates-supported "non-profit".

[FLyellowdog]

34. So what happens when the public begins to compare/contrast

one teacher against another based on published evaluations? If a parent's child is placed into the class of a teacher who has a lower performance evaluation than someone else and the child does not do well, would the parent be able to sue the district for knowingly placing the child in an environment that had a greater chance of failure than that of the higher performing teachers class? Are we to expect that all teachers will become clones of the highest performing instructors? Our doctors and lawyers (who are paid really big bucks to perform their jobs) are no more clones of one another than teachers could be. Everyone is different and while all can be expected to meet certain required criteria, they will not ever all be the same or perform the same. It's just not possible. I still maintain that until it is determined and we can all agree on "what" makes an outstanding teacher, we aren't doing anything to enhance the educational experience.

Should such an airing of personnel records take place, I believe the unions will by necessity have to get stronger in order to prevent frivolous and retaliatory responses from being included in the published evaluations. If those who evaluate the teachers cannot be trusted or aren't competent enough to make informed decisions about their faculty members then maybe THEY should be removed.

An administrator who knew that his/her evaluations of teachers were going to be public knowledge might think twice about what was included in the evaluations for fear of facing claims of libel. It could happen. I just don't see how this would in any way improve the schools.

This is about the only thing that has really disappointed me in Obama's presidency. And I am...really disappointed. Sorry for the rant.

[Hannah Bell]

53. The war of all against all, scapegoats, violence, burnt sacrifice.

[FLyellowdog]

65. Exactly.nt

[rucky]

57. This guy's got some chip on his shoulder. n/t

[Orlandodem]

58. Obama has officially lost my vote in 2012. Let the Republicans ruin education.

If my party is going to hang me out to dry then I can't support it.

[Lance_Boyle]

59. Doesn't the public have a right to know what it's paying for?

I would think sunshine laws would already demand this disclosure. The public has a right to know how its public employees are performing.

[MadHound]

60. Care to post your latest employee evauluation?

You can post it in this thread, how does that work for you?

[Lance_Boyle]

61. I am not a public employee.

If I was a public employee, I would expect that information to be available to anyone who wished to see it under my state's existing sunshine laws.

[MadHound]

64. Ah, so public employees now have no right to privacy in their profession

Sorry, but that is simply fucked up. Frankly there is already too much interference in public education by both politicians and the public. Creating more interference will not help the situation.

[Lance_Boyle]

66. How is this interference?

Do you believe that public employees should be completely unaccountable to their employers for their performance?

Sorry, pal. Teachers are not some sainted class exempted from any external scrutiny into their job performance. Well, maybe at Catholic schools they are, but not in public schools.

[SoxFan]

62. Screw the parents! How dare they ask for accountability!

The NEA is more important than the kids, after all.