Performance Pay in the Colorado Legislature

Senate Bill 191 will make its way to the House Education Committee to be debated this Thursday May 6, 2009. The deciding vote will be cast by Representative Karen Middleton of Aurora. This legislation has very seriously implications for all of us.

The arguments:

Educator and principal evaluations are a good idea.

I agree with the majority of American's who feel that teachers and principals should be evaluated annually. Although I am an ardent supporter of the preservation of freedom of thought and the highest standards of professional teacher excellence, I would be willing to concede tenure. So long as we recognize that all evaluation is subjective, even quantifiable measurement tools are developed and graded by human subjects. In any profession, the best appraisals come from experts in that particular field. Public defenders should not be assessed by their clients or jurors. Although they are recipients of a lawyer's services, they are not experts in the law.

As an educator, I have always surveyed my students and parents. When I taught for Douglas County Public Schools the questionnaires from students and parents were helpful. While we recognized the limitations of those valuations, those surveys helped inform the professional goals I developed and accomplished each year. However, my most valuable assessments came from my principal, vice principal and building resource teacher - experts in my field. Their careful valuations came from direct formal and informal assessment and were guided by education and experience.

Why quantify?

Let's face it. There is an over reliance on technology and an obsession to assign quantitative values to everything. We have forfeited wisdom for the safety of the numeric. Governor Ritter earlier this year said, "Only what can be measured, can be improved." That's a stupid comment. I know that as a parent my relationship to my daughter's is the most important element in effective parenting. When I returned from a recent business trip my little Sophie (10 years old) asked me if I would cuddle with her. I always make time for cuddling and so we climbed into her bed where I listened attentively as she caught me up on her weekend. This kind of experience cannot be measured. Even so, I'm still improving my listening skills - eliminating distractions, making eye contact, focusing my attention, asking interesting questions, and demonstrating understanding. Education is not the only professional field being reduced to the numeric. Nurses are spending so much time quantifying and accounting that they have little time to actually treat their patients. I wonder what number Governor Ritter would assign the nurse that holds her patients hand.

Proponents of SB 191 say that the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) won't be used. When I asked one of the sponsors of the bill what tools would be used in calculating a teacher's value and compensation, he replied, "A standardized test." He wasn't in the legislature in the late 90's for the debate over grading schools according to CSAP. Back then they said CSAP was a better tool but in the 10 years of high-stakes testing, CSAP was never independently evaluated for validity or reliability. Yet the legislature appropriated millions of dollars over the last decade on developing and administering that test and tracking the subsequent student data. CSAP data told us the same things we've known all along. Children of low-income families perform lower on standardized tests and their growth rate is slower than their middle class white counterparts.

We measured it. We did not improve it. In fact, the schools throughout Colorado that are being closed predominantly have the highest populations of low-income and minority children in their respective districts. I asked a legislator if it would be appropriate to assess his leadership ability through the means of a standardized test. Being a statistician, he answered, "yes." Only that wouldn't be the model driving SB191. The same paradigm behind SB191 applied to legislators would mean that their pay would be determined by how well their constituents scored on the standardized test. This concerns me greatly. I live in Centennial, Colorado. While our test scores are guaranteed to be high as indicated by income - we are one of the wealthiest House Districts in the state - our elected representative is Spencer Swalm. Enough said.

How much will it cost?

The current investment in No Child Left Behind is 26 billion each year. Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan is proposing $350 million to revise tests. The projected cost to redevelop CSAP is $80 million. Wasted opportunity will cost even more. This past decade of high-stakes and grading schools according to a single measurement tool has failed. Here in Colorado and throughout the nation drop-out rates have increased and the achievement gap has remained unchanged. Money spent on CSAP and the growing bureaucracy needed to manage all the data and reporting has meant less money for higher education. College tuition since the passage of No Child Left Behind has undergone the highest rate increase ever reported in our nation's history. College is becoming a distant dream to too many families now left in the "Race to the Bottom." I recently served on a panel with Stephen Krashen. When asked about the alternative to high-stakes testing reforms he said, "food and books." See the appendix below.

What else does the research say?

SB 191 would require an expansion of testing, at a time when children are already over-tested. There is no research evidence that supports the idea that tying the success of teacher to a standardized test score improves teacher quality. In fact, the evidence shows that high-stakes testing reforms have not correlated to improved student achievement.

Nichols, Glass, and Berliner (2006) found in general no relationship between testing "pressure" in 25 states and achievement on the NAEP math and reading tests. Research by UC Berkeley scholars Saul Geiser and Maria Veronica Saltelices shows that high school grades in college preparatory courses are a better predictor of achievement in college and four-year college graduation rates than are standardized tests (the SAT). Geiser and Saltelices found that adding SAT scores to grades did not provide much more information than grades alone, which suggests that we may not need standardized tests at all. Bowen, Chingos, and McPherson (2009) reached similar conclusions.

Education is Accountability.

When 49 Governor's first met in 1989 at the National Education Summit to bring state standards to public education what they didn't realize was that we already had academic standards. They weren't uniform but neither are our kids and neither are our communities. When they met again in 1996 at the 2nd Annual Education Summit along with 44 executives they developed the plan to drive education through commercial tests and government mandates. Assessment is a fundamental component to teaching and learning. The difference is that classroom assessments are applied in real world contexts, without artificial time constraints. Reading, writing, and mathematical problem solving previously were evaluated on an ongoing basis by professional educators, not Kelly Girls or other temp agencies that contract to score state tests. I'd like to think those Governor's and business men were simply uniformed and misguided. But that's not really true. You see, the job of business is to find market opportunities and exploit them. Our schools represent an enormous investment in our tax dollars. It is the role of text book and testing publishers to capitalize, expand their business lines, and grow their profits. And it is the role of parents and teachers to protect our children from those interests. Our job is to fortify our schools of learning and assert our role to elect and direct our local school boards. When our forefathers determined that if "we the people" through the process of representative democracy are to direct our own future, then "we the people" must be educated and empowered. When it comes to government or business defining "what", "how" and "when" our children must learn, or "how teachers are evaluated" we as citizens must cry foul. Humanity is not a perfect science and it never will be. We are living in a climate of distrust. On the subject of education policy, we have the opportunity to restore our faith in educators, parents, and students or we will lose not only our classrooms but democracy too.

"It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error."   -- United States Supreme Court in American Communications Association v. Douds

Appendix:  Predicting Reading Scores

English Language Arts, Grade 11 (Achterman, 2008 Dissertation - Table 60)

                  r2 = .57 (adjusted)

Community factor = Parent education, free/reduced lunch, ethnicity, percent English learners

School factor = Average teacher salary

Library factor = Hours, collection size, budget, staff hours, total services, total technology

Conclusion:
The Library factor was nearly as strong a predictor of reading scores as the Community factor, which suggests that a good library can help overcome (mitigate) the effect of poverty.

Achterman, D. 2008 PhD Dissertation:  http://digital.library.unt.edu/permalink/meta-dc-9800:1

Krashen, Lee, McQuillan:  PIRLS Analysis

Multiple Regression Analysis:  Reading ability of ten year olds in 40 countries

                                              r2 = .63

SES = Socio-economic status (SES) is a strong predictor of reading ability.

SSR = Percent participating in sustained silent reading programs. Nearly significant.

LIBRARY = Percent of schools with school libraries with more than 500 books. Strong predictor.

INSTRUCTION = Amount of formal instruction – beta is NEGATIVE!
(Hours per week devoted to reading instruction in each country)

Conclusion:
These predictors (on the PIRLS Analysis) give us 63% of the information needed to predict reading scores.

No Bang for our Bucks

No Child Left Behind and standardized tests
By Angela Engel
Published in The Denver Post - April 30, 2010
www.denverpost.com/search/ci_14985189

Parents may want to guard their children as Congress considers the next round of education reforms and the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind. Before we dig ourselves any deeper, let us reflect on the past decade with NCLB and statewide measure to standardize, track, and test every Colorado student. In his first order of business, Governor Ritter expanded standards and standardized assessments to pre-school through 2nd grade. Experts in Early Childhood Health and Education have signed a joint statement in opposition to similar national proposals. Their explanation: "Overuse of didactic instruction and testing cuts off children's initiative, curiosity, and imagination, limiting their later engagement in school and the workplace, not to mention responsible citizenship."

It took local districts over a decade to fully implement Colorado State Content Standards. As part of Clinton's Goals 2000, school districts spent billions re-aligning curriculum in the areas of math, science, and language arts.

In 2008, the Colorado Department of Education embarked on a two year plan to re-write those standards. As the ink lay drying, the National Governors Association, funded by the Gates Foundation, began drafting "common core," a national standards initiative. Colorado and 48 other states have already agreed to adopt these consult-written standards. Despite budget shortfalls, our local school districts will have to once again spend billions implementing new curriculum and text books that align with yet another government version of what our children should be learning.

Next on the agenda is to re-write the standardized tests. Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education, has proposed spending $350 million to develop new high-stakes assessment to match the Bill Gates national standards. Colorado's tab for redeveloping the Colorado Student Assessment Program (CSAP) is estimated at $80 million. This time it's under the claims of "better and improved," but those of us closest to education can remember those were the same lines Owens and Bush used to sell CSAP in the first place. In the end it's all still shaded bubbles.

Now that high-stakes tests have emphasized the skills that matter least, and the boredom of standardization has prompted more children to drop-out, the state has found a new way to track the data. This time it's called "longitudinal-growth model."

Unfortunately, no matter how you count it, the numbers tell us the same thing we knew from the beginning - opportunity is the greatest indicator of
achievement. In the "Race to the Top" competition, Colorado was downgraded for having a "persistent wide student achievement gap among ethnic groups and income levels."

Instead of students getting new computers, it's the data managers. Instead of new books, our teachers will get bulging binders of federal guidelines. Parents get something out of these reforms too - higher college tuition bills.

A decade of clear evidence and what is our current leadership doing about these failed reforms? They are repeating them. Senator Johnston and his "Business Coalition" are tripping over themselves to concede what's left of state's rights for the federal bribes. Those holding the purse strings in education are only buying newer standards, expanded data systems, and schools of mass production. Even worse is the Performance Pay model that business leaders are touting as teacher quality.

Governor Ritter signed an executive order tying 50% of teacher's compensation to student test scores. Teachers should be evaluated by their performance. However, we should never look at performance through a single lens and we should not rely on inadequate measurement tools to define "success."

Performance pay will promote the worst teaching practices, because a single test score becomes the sole measure of quality. It's the ineffective teacher that will likely benefit by this business model, finding shelter in a profession of lowered expectations.

Even worse, policies that enforce commonality and conformity are sure to vanquish the extraordinary and snuff out the exceptional - teachers and students alike.

Stan Karp, editor of Rethinking Schools, writes, "Teachers sinking in a swamp of data-driven drivel may drown, while test publisher's and data system companies will get richer." With testing contracts in 26 states, McGraw Hill, publishers of CSAP, reported profits in 2007 of $403 million dollars. Consider this as schools around the state close their doors.

Certainly by now we ought to recognize that our state's economic viability and social vibrancy is linked directly with the quality of our public schools and the education of our young people. So what should be done? It's actually pretty simple. Say no to state tests and yes to smaller class sizes. Say no to corporate driven federal mandates and yes to teachers, principals, and locally elected school board members.

Say no to the latest version of national standards and yes to personalized instruction for non-standard children. Say no to tracking the scores and yes to tracking educational opportunities.

Federal policy makers, the Colorado Department of Education and our legislature are not going to lead our schools into the Promised Land. School accountability takes all of us. It's called civic engagement and it looks like volunteering in our schools, joining the PTA, attending school board meetings, asking questions, and educating ourselves.

These are our kids and our schools and they don't need another version of a language arts standard, newer multiple choice tests, or more failed attempts to quantify their potential. They do need our time, our investment, and plenty of examples of good leadership.

Angela Engel lives in Centennial. She is author of "Seeds of Tomorrow; Solutions for Improving Our Children's Education." For more information, go to www.paradigmpublishers.com/Books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=215147


Featured Education Leader:  Marion Brady

Marion Brady
www.marionbrady.com
Marion Brady began his career in education in 1952, teaching in a semi-rural high school in northeastern Ohio. Since then he's taught at every level from 6th grade through the university, and served as a county-level school administrator, publisher consultant, teacher educator, textbook author, contributor to professional journals, author of professional books, writer of instructional materials, visitor to schools across America and abroad, and long-time education columnist for Knight-Ridder/Tribune.

Teacher Accountability? It’s About Time!
By Marion Brady
Published on truthout.org - April 19, 2010
www.truthout.org/teacher-accountability-its-about-time58698

Once upon a time teachers assigned grades, and that was pretty much that. Oh, occasionally a kid would argue that a particular grade was unfair, or complain so loudly that parents or an administrator would get involved, but that was relatively rare.

About a generation ago, acceptance of teacher judgment about the quality of student work began to disappear. Waving the “standards and accountability!” banner, leaders of business and industry convinced politicians that this generation’s teachers (unlike those they remembered from their own schooling) couldn’t be trusted to evaluate learner performance. Today’s teachers, they were sure, suffered from “the soft bigotry of low
expectations.”

What drives the campaign to discredit teacher judgment isn’t clear. Some are convinced there’s a long-running, behind-the-scenes attempt to undermine confidence in public schools to pave the way for privatizing them. Others think the loss of faith has been engineered by testing companies to expand the lucrative market for standardized tests and test prep materials. Still others blame it on naïve policymakers who don’t understand the vast limitations of machine-scored tests

Whether for one of these or some other reason, “accountability” is now a major issue. It’s widely believed that if America doesn’t shape up, scientists and engineers from beyond our borders will soon be eating our technological lunch. Accompanying that belief is a second one, that the best way to keep track of how America stands in relation to the competition is to give the same test to every kid on the planet and compare the scores.

We have a problem. We’ve put all our quality-monitoring eggs in the standardized testing basket, but the only thing computer-scored tests can measure with absolute precision is short-term memory. Short-term memory has its uses, but a good one doesn’t turn a kid into a good mathematician, good scientist, good engineer, or good anything else. Expertise and accomplishment require intention, interest, insight, imagination, creativity, and probably a brain wired in a particular manner, all combined in a way little understood, incapable of being directly taught, and impossible to measure with a standardized test.

We seem to be over a barrel. To maintain educational quality, we need to monitor and measure performance. But learner qualities and capabilities most deserving of being evaluated are far too complex for our crude tests to monitor.

Fortunately, the barrel is of our own making, and can be rolled aside. Philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead, in his 1916 Presidential Address to the Mathematical Association of England, pointed the way. “The second-handedness of the learned world,” he said, “is the secret of its mediocrity.” When kids are merely trying to remember something read in a textbook or heard in teacher talk, they’re in the secondhand-knowledge business. When they’re figuring out how to make sense of something complicated and important that can be seen and touched, they’re in the firsthand-knowledge business. Switching from secondhand to firsthand student work changes the game and therefore everything that follows, including the kinds of tests that are necessary.

A first-hand-knowledge assignment for a high school social studies class: “How are major decisions about your school’s day-to-day operation made, and what general conclusions and attitudes about decision-making and governing might you carry into adulthood as a consequence?”

A first-hand-knowledge assignment for a high school science class: “What’s happening to the solid waste your school generates, and if the system for dealing with it continues to function as it presently does, what will be the likely consequences for future generations?”

A first-hand-knowledge assignment for a high school humanities class: Graffiti fits dictionary definitions of literature. Reading “between the lines,” what does local graffiti have to say about the interests, concerns, and problems of its creators? Do they differ from yours? How? Why?

That’s first-hand, real-world work, and what comes out of it is first-hand knowledge. It’s unquestionably relevant. Its intellectual challenges are qualitative rather than quantitative. It forces secondhand knowledge to play its proper, supportive role. Its intellectual payoff is immediate and continuous. It connects directly to larger issues of life, liberty, and happiness. It erases the arbitrary, artificial, intellect-limiting boundaries between school subjects. And the shift of emphasis for learners from simple memory exercises to complex logic tends to shake up perceptions of who’s smart and who’s less so in surprising and healthy ways.

By any measure, firsthand work is work worth doing. But it’s work that, by its very nature, can’t be standardized, so evaluating it can’t be standardized. No way can Educational Testing Service, McGraw-Hill, Pearson, or some other remote corporate entity write a machine-scored test to determine the quality of what’s happening in the heads of kids as they wrestle with firsthand, real-world work.

How, then, can performance be monitored? In the same way performance was monitored for the decades before the campaign to discredit teachers began: by returning respect and authority to those best positioned by time and experience to make the judgment calls – returning it to classroom teachers.

Blamed by business leaders for problems over which they have no control, scape-goated by platitude-prone politicians, ignored by educationally challenged policymakers, mauled by mainstream media unwilling to look past the conventional wisdom, it’s possible that classroom teachers have lost confidence in their ability to evaluate student work. But as long as those in authority think that sorting, labeling, and assigning numbers to kids has something to do with educating, classroom teachers are the only people who know the game and the players well enough to meet their demands.

Are teacher judgments subjective? Of course. So what? For comprehensiveness, reliability and usefulness, no other approach to performance evaluation comes even close. (And it’s a helluva lot cheaper.)

It’s years of time and many billions of dollars too late to undo the damage done to the young by the standardized testing fad, but next school year would be a good time for an aroused citizenry to demand that a salvage operation be undertaken.