| > which is related to VAM, I noticed that one of those two methods you linked to is the VAM method used in Houston, EVAAS. > Some models have been shown to be consistent across both grade levels and schools. So said the creator of EVAAS. However, the EVAAS method has not been published, the algorithm is proprietary, and the results of the Texas trial showed the limitations of EVAAS. Your citations in support of your view are either published by people trying to sell you their testing system, or were published during the hype phase of VAM, before there was evidence that they were not able to do things like identify poorly performing teachers for the purposes of firing them. > If GPAs were used for teacher evaluation a teacher Like, duh. That's why GPAs aren't used for teacher evaluation. You can't seriously think that 50 years ago there were no effective ways to evaluate teachers. > Standardized tests also act as a counterbalance in general to slow down grade inflation. And yet grades are still more effective at predicting college success than standardized tests. Huh. And we've had a full student generation of students required to do high-stakes testing, yet the decades of yammering about grade inflation is still going on, as if the two really coupled at all? Huh. And, umm, standardized tests are normed. If students or teachers across the US were getting better, norming would hide that improvement. We know this because of the Flynn effect. Unnormed IQ scores have improved by about 15 points over the decades. Shouldn't this be reflected in improved overall school grades? > Neither is trusting the teacher's unions to decide who to fire We don't trust teacher unions to decide who to fire. School districts decide. Unions can slow it down, or provide legal support to stop it. They are their to help the teachers. It's not like principals and school districts always follow the law and employment contract requirements. And never pressure teachers to give better grades to the football team, or the kid of the head of the school board. > We need a better solution than what we have now Non-union charters schools haven't proved any better. We now have, what, a full generation of students that have gone through high-stakes testing? When do we decide it's not worthwhile? In my view, all this noise about testing and teacher evaluation is meant to justify school privatization, so private companies can profit from all that public school money, and rich people can get tax-payer subsidized good private school education while poor people are left with the dregs. In my view, if you want to improve grades and future success then don't look to high-stakes testing. Look to free breakfasts and lunches for everyone, low limits on class size, more teaching aides, school nurses who can provide basic health care support, and more. But those are expensive. So instead we punish the teachers which some secretive black box say are under-performing. > using student growth measures as part teacher evaluations That statement alone is meaningless. It could mean anything from "huh, your XYZ scores are a bit low, so we'll provide additional training for you" to "your XYZ scores are a bit low, we're going to fire you." So when you say "as part teacher evaluations", you need to clarify just what you mean. VAM has been used to fire teachers - which is what its supporters often want - and in violation of their due process rights. VAM has not been used to provide more funding to lower-scoring schools to help with staffing or facility issues. Yet it could also be used for that. |
Yes, and the other method mentioned on the same page was student growth percentiles, which is much closer to what I have been advocating. You seem to have a habit of focusing on what you want, regardless of what the person you are talking to is actually saying.
> And yet grades are still more effective at predicting college success than standardized tests.
I'm not sure why you say this like it's a mic drop. The point of saying "standardized tests help anchor GPAs" is to say that, without standardized tests, GPAs would become a worse predictor of future success. So, even if GPA alone is better, standardized tests help it be that way. More importantly, GPA+standardized test is better than either alone. You keep conveniently forgetting that last part when you advocate for the removal of standardized testing.
> And, umm, standardized tests are normed.
Only some of them are. Otherwise, you couldn't make claims like the following: https://www.usnews.com/news/education-news/articles/2019-10-...
The tests in my state are not normalized but are instead standards-based: https://www.texasassessment.gov/en/staar-about.
> We don't trust teacher unions to decide who to fire. School districts decide.
Now you're just getting into semantic games. Unions help define the regulations that make it impossible to fire teachers, and they also use their money, influence, and legal might to fight against many firings.
https://www.americanexperiment.org/teachers-agree-teachers-u...
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/ineffective-public-sch...
"They argue that existing public schools are not beyond saving. They suggest that reformers “commit to taking the tenure process seriously, rather than rubber stamping every eligible teacher for approval” and explain how this has been done in some New York City schools, where teachers immediately granted tenure fell from 94 percent to 56 percent. Such reforms are welcome, but they usually run into roadblocks from unions and stubborn regulators."
> Non-union charters schools haven't proved any better.
The data in this book beg to differ: https://www.amazon.com/Charter-Schools-Enemies-Thomas-Sowell...
Some charter schools in New York produced 10x or more as many students proficient in math and reading relative to nearby public schools, including public schools that shared the same building. There was no socioeconomic or racial diference between the schools.
Not all charter schools succeed, but the point is to find the ones that do and replicate their success: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20190259
> We now have, what, a full generation of students that have gone through high-stakes testing? When do we decide it's not worthwhile?
When do we finally settle on the fact that it is in fact worthwhile?
> In my view, all this noise about testing and teacher evaluation is meant to justify school privatization, so private companies can profit from all that public school money, and rich people can get tax-payer subsidized good private school education while poor people are left with the dregs.
Your world view is corrupt. You think private organizations are greedy and evil and yet somehow public organizations are magically saintly. You think apparently standardized scores in the U.S. are getting worse over time, despite there being more welfare programs than ever before, because kids aren't getting enough food benefits. Even the left-leaning Brookings institute can do better than that: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2016/12...
"Over the last 30 to 40 years, the United States has invested heavily in education, with little to show for it. The result is a society with more inequality and less economic growth; a high price."
One of my parents grew up in the 1950s before welfare reform. He got C's and D's in school because he spent most of his time working jobs to feed himself. Very few children are starving today at the level my parent did. Most of the "poor" today are richer than the middle class of 100 years ago. The reasons for lack of achievement go far beyond alleged malnutrition and far beyond an alleged lack of funding in schools.
I suggest you read "Life at the Bottom" by Dalrymple to get a better understanding of what many students are up against. The greatest predictor of academic success is whether or not the child is growing up in a stable 2-parent home. But that doesn't fit the progressive leftist narrative that seeks to destroy both religion and family.
https://www.bbc.com/news/education-47057787
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/S10680-017-9424-6
https://www.christianpost.com/news/2-parent-families-are-bes...
Some claim that socioeconomic status is the greatest predictor. But, guess what? 2-parent households do better socioeconomically. And, studies from countries with universal daycare like Sweden are showing that generations of students suffer from psychological problems due to not having a mother in the home: http://www.imfcanada.org/archive/1107/swedish-daycare-intern...
And, of course, religious is also highly correlated with better grades: https://www.marripedia.org/effects_of_religious_practice_on_...
As one person I admire has said, errant do-gooderism is akin to straightening the deck chairs on the Titanic. If you are a bad doctor, you see symptoms, diagnose the wrong illness, prescribe the wrong medication, and make your patients sicker. This allegory aptly describes the modern progressive movement, as well as most modern education fads.
The best thing we can do to improve education in the U.S. is school vouchers. This will allow more diversity in school makeup, better support religious schooling, which religion correlates with improved education, increase competition, which almost always benefits society, and improve the lot of socioeconomically disadvantaged parents who are currently stuck with poorly-performing public schools.
> That statement alone is meaningless.
Meaningless and high-level aren't the same thing. A statement doesn't need to go into specifics to provide meaning.