Arne Duncan Announces New-Old Policy---Tying Teacher Prep to Test Scores

The Obama Administration announced its latest plan today that would tie federal funding of teacher preparation programs to test scores. Duncan and the Obama Administration are seeking to place the federal government in the middle of teacher preparation. I suspect this measure will only make it more difficult to convince young people to become teachers and educators, and it will likely have some perverse affects on teacher preparation in this country just as the use of testing for high stakes decisions has had on schools and classrooms.

On closer examination, this proposal contradicts research, logic, and common sense.

• There is no evidence that using high stakes tests as a means to improve teacher preparation programs will work. There is plenty of evidence that using tests (as has been done under NCLB and Race to the Top) to make high stakes decisions has had quite a few unintended consequences in schools and classrooms. These consequences have included things like the over-emphasis on test-prep, teaching to the test, narrowing the curriculum to test content, cutting of arts programs, use of programmed instruction, and cheating, among many others.  One can only imagine what those effects will be on teacher preparation programs when tests are used to determine continued federal funding. For example, teacher candidates will now perhaps be well-versed in things like test-prep and teaching to the test, as opposed to engaging students in authentic instruction. Perhaps teaching candidates can also learn how to narrow the curriculum so that it focuses only on what is tested . The effects of using high stakes testing to make high stakes decisions is well-documented in the research, and adding testing stakes to teacher preparation will most likely affect those programs in adverse ways just as it has in schools and classrooms.
• Surprisingly, the Obama administration's idea of tying test scores to teacher preparation programs comes even after the American Statistical Association recently stated that value-added formulas should be used with caution, because teachers only account for less than 15 percent  (or even less in some studies) of the variability in test scores. In other words, most of what happens in the classroom is beyond a teacher's control. Perhaps the Obama administration is still looking to find "Superteachers" as John Kuhn has called them who are capable of performing miracles. Unfortunately, I am afraid there are so few, if any, especially in an environment, which his policies have created, that is so hostile to teachers and the education profession in general. The important tenet of accountability is that you hold individuals accountable for that which is in their direct control. This policy violates that tenet in many ways.
• Many state tests aren't of high enough quality to be even considered for using in this high stakes manner, and the use of commercial tests like ACT and SAT makes little sense because they haven't been designed for this purpose. Add the fact that, once again, there are entirely too many teachers not subject to test scores. That's the same issue with his Race to the Top and NCLB waiver policy. State tests were mostly designed to tell what students know, not tell how well teachers are teaching. Once again, Arne Duncan and the Obama administration are pushing for using tests in still another way for which they weren't designed.
• This new policy of using test scores to evaluate teacher prep programs should also have some interesting implications in practice. I could easily see this policy exacerbating the problem of getting good teachers in high needs schools. In addition, I could also see this policy affecting which school's graduates choose to teach in as well. It's common sense. Are you going to select teaching in a school where test scores are abysmally low, and your job is to somehow miraculously to raise them? As a teacher prep program, are you going to encourage your graduates to teach in schools with historically low test scores? Perverse education policy often brings about perverse practice.

 As this Politico article points out, Duncan is expecting a great deal of opposition to this latest plan, (See Barack Obama Cracks Down on Poor Teacher Training.) How could he expect things to be different? Educators and parents grow tired of all the testing and emphasis on testing. What will be more interesting to see is whether he and  the rest of the Obama Administration will be willing to listen to educators on this matter. Sadly, the history of this administration and Arne Duncan probably provides that answer even as I ask the question.

NC to Test Every Subject K-12 and Tie Teacher & Principal Evaluations to Test Scores

In a meeting this past Monday I attended, representatives from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction provided educators with a presentation describing how our state is adding a sixth standard to our teacher evaluation and an eighth standard to our principal evaluation directly tying those evaluations to test scores. What I discovered at that meeting was that the standards proposed are worded innocuously and can hardly be questioned. For example the teacher standard reads:

"Teachers contribute to the academic success of students. The work of the teacher results in acceptable, measurable progress for students based on established performance expectations using appropriate data to demonstrate growth."

I would think just about all teachers hope that what they're doing is contributing to the academic success of their students. The big difference in opinions among educators, however, is perhaps what this "academic success" is and whether growth measured by a test score is accurate. The principal standard is also written in this hard-argue-against language:

"ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT LEADERSHIP: School executives will contribute to the academic success of students. The work of the school executive will result in acceptable, measurable progress for students based on established performance expectations using appropriate data to demonstrate growth."

Both of these standards make sense on the surface. There's no educator alive who would argue that teachers and principals are not responsible for the achievement of their students. In my years as an educator, there's not a day that passes where concern about whether our students are learning what we're asking them to do isn't on my mind. The problem is not with these standards, but it is with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction's interpretation of what "student achievement" is. Under their plan, student achievement = growth on standardized test scores. While that is a nice, neat simplification of what achievement is, it ignores all learning that can't be tested with standardized testing. By interpreting student achievement as test score growth, the state is simply making testing in North Carolina even higher-stakes than before. With this test-emphasis, we will be well on our way to becoming test-prep factories that don't churn out educated students, but excellent test-takers. North Carolina is going to subject students to tests early and often, not to measure student progress, but to measure how well the teacher is doing. This betrays an underlying, but mistaken belief that tests can be used to tell you how teachers and principals are doing. North Carolina has defined "effective teaching" and "effective school administration" as simply growth demonstrated (by whatever model they can create) by test score performance.

Ultimately, the meeting I attended was billed as an opportunity for educators like myself to provide "feedback" to North Carolina Department of Public Instruction personnel on this proposed teacher evaluation change. However, in practice, it seemed more of a here's-what-we're-going-to-do-to-you session, but we want to give the "appearance that we're listening to educators." (That's a tactic perfected by Arne Duncan.) During the session, when educators expressed concerns about what the state is planning to do, they were often cut off by DPI personnel who interrupted to defend the state's plans rather than sincerely allowing educators to voice their concerns and listening. They felt the need to stifle honest opinion by cutting off people while they were speaking. Instead of being an opportunity to express concerns, it was an opportunity for the state of North Carolina to try to summarily dismiss those concerns.

To this educator, there are two equally frightening things about this whole test-centered approach to teacher and principal evaluations that I and other educators at this meeting tried to bring up, but the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction representatives quickly let us know that we were wrong.

• First of all, North Carolina is planning to evaluate teachers and administrators  by using test scores this spring even though they have not decided what growth model they are going to use, nor do they know exactly how this evaluation is going to take place. What's worse, they will not know at least until February of this year when the State Board has an opportunity to hear the first reading. In typical bureaucratic fashion, they are rolling out a program and implementing it even before it is finalized and clearly defined. Historically, I can recall two other examples of North Carolina Department of Public Instruction initiatives that were rolled out before they were defined well. These were when the state during the 1990's rolled out the ABC Accountability Model, and in the early 2000s, when the state rolled out the NC WISE student data system used throughout the state. Both of these were rolled out without any deep thought on its practical application in the districts. They were both rolled out bugs and all, and classroom teachers and educators had to suffer while the state got its act together. Now, it appears our State Department of Public Instruction is doing it yet again, except this time there are much higher stakes tied to it. North Carolina will be evaluating educators' careers based on something that isn't even clearly defined, and won't be until three-fourths of the year is completed.
• Secondly, North Carolina is also planning to create tests for every single subject taught, administer these tests, and use the results, not to see how students are doing, but to see if teachers and principals are able to raise test scores. Recently, Charlotte-Mecklinburg proposed this "test-everything-that-moves" approach, and it blew up in the administration's face so bad, they had to take money from Bill Gates and the Broad foundation to hire public relations personnel to try to sell it. If something smells so bad that you have to repackage it to sell, then perhaps there's something fundamentally wrong with it. In spite of the fact that educators at this meeting expressed concern over how much more time we will spend testing under this proposal, and how problematic it will be to implement, the Department of Public Instruction personnel at this meeting dismissed these concerns outright repeatedly, and told us how wrong we were. 

As an administrator and educator, I understand the need for accountability. I understand the need for testing to see how our students are doing. I even cynically understand why our state is doing this. They are not doing it because it's what's best for our kids, because how could testing students' every move be beneficial? No, the state of North Carolina is doing this so that they can keep their Race to the Top money, plain and simple. As a 22 year veteran educator, I've seen education measures come and go. Most of those have been benign and simply were discontinued, and no one noticed their passing. However, this time I'm afraid it's going to be quite different. The state of North Carolina is using a program that is not fully defined yet, and a strategy that "tests-everything-with-a-pulse" that is going to destroy public education in this state. It is going to turn our schools into the test-prep factories that Diane Ravitch has spoken about so eloquently so many times.

Note: Here's the link to the presentation used if you would like to see it for yourself.