K–12 | Daily Report

Louis Freedberg/California WatchA wall is shown at a kindergarten classroom at Aspire Alexander Twilight Academy in Sacramento.

Passions ran high on the best way to evaluate teacher effectiveness at the first public discussion held in the wake of the Los Angeles Times' pathbreaking series, which included publishing the names of 6,000 elementary school teachers and ratings of their "effectiveness" in increasing students' test scores. 

If there was any agreement, it was that the "value-added" methodology employed by the Times should not be used as the sole criterion on which to evaluate a teacher. Richard Rothstein, a visiting UC Berkeley professor from the Economic Policy Institute, argued that despite the L.A. Times insistence to the contrary, it has in effect encouraged using the method as a sole criterion by providing measures of a teachers' effectiveness based on test scores alone without providing any other measures of effectiveness. 

There was also agreement that there is no agreement on what constitutes an "effective" teacher. Several of the panelists pointed out that if one doesn't know what constitutes an effective teacher, that will complicate considerably the task of trying to measure his or her effectiveness. 

As the moderator, I was only able to take incomplete notes, so this posting is based on overall impressions. I'll update it when I can review the webcast, which can be viewed online beginning today.

The symposium opened with harsh critiques of the value-added methodology by two Berkeley statisticians, Mark Wilson and Sophia Rabe-Hesketh.

Wilson said the problems start with the tests used to measure student achievement, which in turn are used to measure teacher effectiveness. "A significant issue is what is not on the tests," said Wilson, who was on a National Academy of Sciences panel that urged caution in using value-added methodology. 

Rabe-Hesketh was even more critical, noting that there is no way to measure directly how effective a teacher is with student Y compared with how effective he or she might be with student X if student X has a different family background or parental education, or attends schools with a different kind of student body, etc. To do so requires using complex statistical tools with uncertain results. 

Value-added methods, she said, should not be used for "naming and shaming." 

A contrary view came from the Hoover Institution's Eric Hanushek, who said that imperfect as the value-added methodology is, it is better than not doing anything at all – a view shared by L.A. Times investigative reporter Jason Felch, a principal author of the series. At least some of the flaws Rabe-Hesketh noted could be corrected, Hanushek said. Just listing the defects of value-added methodology, he said, gives an impression that value added methodology is "useless and it is not." 

I asked Jason Felch whether the Times intended to update its database on teachers if a teacher improved his or rating, and he said they intended to do so. He also indicated that the Times now plans to move on to rating high school teachers, which he said was more complex than rating elementary school teachers. If the Times decided not to continue with the project and was unable to update the database, they would remove it from the web. 

I also asked Felch if the Times had considered whether the series might discourage teachers from going into the profession or teaching at schools in tough neighborhoods. He said it was not journalism's role to anticipate the policy implications of their work. 

Some written questions submitted by audience members underscored the passions, and the divisions, on the issue:

From a parent in the Oakland public school system for 17 years: Mr. Felch's introduction described how teachers long for feedback so they don't have to teach in isolation and improve their practice. Why don't "reforms" talk about providing these supports before using this [to] improve teaching approach?

From a San Francisco parent: Today we are hearing a lot of discussion of why L.A. Times did a bad thing, we have a war on teachers, etc. As least we are having a conversation. Where are the solutions? Where is the discussion of what evaluations work? 

Parents cannot choose their teacher and have no information on what drives quality teaching. We need transparency and leadership from our educators!

A public school parent and teacher's wife: All urban principals I know are overwhelmed by their workload due to the lack of funding for administrators, as classroom needs take priority. Would adequate funding to meet schools' needs allow for more effective teacher evaluation? 

David Plank, executive director of Policy Analysis for California Education, indicated that California lags behind many other states in the kinds of support and training it gives to teachers who need to upgrade their skills. 

And state Sen. Carol Liu, D-Glendale, didn't hold out much hope that help would come from Sacramento, in this regard or any other. She suggested that because California did not succeed in the competition for Race to the Top funds, Sacramento may be less forceful in moving on its pledge to use student test scores to evaluate teachers. That was one of the requirements imposed by states applying for Race to the Top funds by the Obama administration. 

Anthony Cody, a long-time Oakland educator and author of the Living in Dialog blog in Teacher Magazine, accused the L.A. Times of being one of the media institutions "waging a war against teachers." Cody, who earlier this year hosted a telephone conversation between teachers and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, cited the suicide last week of Rigoberto Ruelas, a teacher at Miramonte Elementary School in Los Angeles. Family members were reported as saying he was depressed at his being rated a "less effective" teacher by the L.A. Times. "He is the first victim of the war against teachers," Cody said.