"The New York growth models use test scores in each subject area as a predictor for that subject area (e.g., mathematics scores are used to predict mathematics scores). In addition, the other subject's scores are used because they reflect the general achievement of the students prior to the outcome year (e.g., ELA scores are used in mathematics models and vice versa)."
A look through the 157 pages shows that APPR built-in "error rates", using two competing theoretical models akin to sports betting formulas, with sliding "confidence ranges" that produce a 1-20 score purporting to encapsulate the quality of a whole year of teaching through bubble test scores. We ask for your comment on the research:
THE EXPERTS SPEAK: A preponderance of relevant authorities have declared APPR unreliable for its stated purposes. In NY, the Lower Hudson Council of School Superintendents and the Westchester Putnam School Boards Association commissioned an independent study in 2014, concluding it is a "governmental travesty" wasting untold millions across the state and called for review and redesign of APPR.
This followed a major national report questioning VAM by the American Statistical Association in April 2014. Another May 2014 report by the American Educational Research Association funded by Bill Gates informed his eventual call for a moratorium on high stakes decisions based on Common Core tests.
This report by the National Association of Secondary School Principals aggregates much research finding VAM unreliable. The NY Principals Paper on APPR was signed by over a third of NY's principals back in 2011, showing that NY's field practitioners weighed in on this long ago, leaving it more a matter of legislative denial and political stonewalling that subjects us to these metrics. We now ask your informed opinion.
POLITICAL ORIGINS: We cannot forget this latest incarnation of APPR was rushed in as the four previous versions were, unvetted, and tied to badly needed funding in a must-pass budget agreement. Should NY's evaluation systems be linked to state funding, adopted as part of tense "blackmail" budget negotiations?
PARENTS SAY NO: Skewing results further, the record number of students refusing tests mean fewer tests will be used, with predominantly higher performing students taken out of the mix, but NYSED will nonetheless compare teachers across the state. Is this acceptable?
LUMPING TEACHERS TOGETHER: As inaccurate as APPR is for math and ELA teachers, NY's "group measures" policy actually evaluates teachers using test scores in subjects they do not teach, from students they may not even know. Physical education, arts or foreign language instructors have math or ELA scores used in their evaluations, which is patently absurd. In NYC, all 70,000 plus teachers are assigned math or ELA scores regardless of subject taught. And state-approved APPR plans continue to use single-grade test results for evaluations of teachers across entire school districts, for example choosing the 9th grade Biology Regents.
While this may be agreeable to both sides, it's not actually measuring individual teacher performance, misleading the public about the efficacy of the tests. Districts who developed SLOs for approval did so at their own expense, making the policy yet another unfunded mandate that saps local control. In all of NY's 700+ different district APPR plans, no one knows what the other is doing, making legitimate comparison impossible. Unreliable and arbitrary, we ask why this data should be included in any percentage at all.
MANIPULATED: For years, NYSED has been criticized for changing cut scores after tests have been graded, but they also have been secretly withdrawing test items due to poor design or response, boosting scores by as much as 11% after-the-fact. Will you continue these practices?
COMMON CONFUSION: The implementation of Common Core has meant testing kids beyond appropriate grade level content, asking unanswerable questions and confusing students with multiple viable answers. Rigor and complexity increased sharply without additional support for students or effective training for staff. Founding Common Core contributor Dr. Louisa Moats noted how many teachers were unqualified to teach standards meant for the highest performing programs.
Pressured to test better, inner city schools are prevented from teaching students at their actual functioning levels. Thus, many students give up during the year or during testing, filling bubbles at random and leaving written responses blank. Afterwards, schools struggle with post-test apathy and deflation. Elsewhere, schools see weeks of precious instruction time displaced for exams, practice or scoring. Because the tests cannot be fully reviewed or shared, looking at raw scores after the end of the school year cannot help learners understand how to improve.
Are our school children individual little snowflakes or McDonald's hamburgers?
(Image by Amerigus) Details DMCA
STUDENT SHAMING: Labeling 70-75% of children "not proficient" discourages students struggling with esteem issues in a self-fulfilling prophesy. NCLB has driven dropout rates up by making kids despise instruction time, displacing hands-on, minds-on experiences with unrewarding tests and stressful prep, which increases the numbers who tune out or act out. Did the governor even have a constitutional right to adopt Common Core without consulting the legislature, school boards or practitioners who see the effects up close?
CHARTER BAIT AND SWITCH: In NY, charter schools were sold as a vehicle to develop and replicate solutions for the larger system. The NY Charter Act of 1998 prominently includes a mandate to "[i]ncrease learning opportunities for all students, with special emphasis on expanded learning experiences for students who are at-risk of academic failure"
But instead of focusing on at-risk students, charters today enroll LESS than public schools, often "counseling out" disruptive students. This was detailed in "Apples to Apples" a report by the pro-charter Manhattan Institute in 2003, confirmed again in 2013 and many times since.
MISSION ABANDONED: Success is easier in schools who enroll the most savvy, involved parents in the neighborhood. But this leaves higher concentrations of the neediest students in district schools. Abandoning their original purpose, charters no longer even pretend to care about "disruptive" students, often refusing to backfill vacated seats and causing unsustainable levels of teacher churn and burn out. Charters are also used as Wall Street tax havens thanks to loopholes like the New Markets Tax Credit. Should charter schools continue to exclude the most at-risk students through intake processes that include pro-active lottery applications, and mid-year dismissals?
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