NYC Measuring Teachers By Test Scores

[Rich Gibson <rgibson@pipeline.com>]

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January 21, 2008


New York Measuring Teachers by Test Scores

By 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/m/jennifer_medina/index.html?inline=nyt-per>JENNIFER 
MEDINA

New York City has embarked on an ambitious 
experiment, yet to be announced, in which some 
2,500 teachers are being measured on how much 
their students improve on annual standardized tests.

The move is so contentious that principals in 
some of the 140 schools participating have not 
told their teachers that they are being 
scrutinized based on student performance and improvement.

While officials say it is too early to determine 
how they will use the data, which is already 
being collected, they say it could eventually be 
used to help make decisions on teacher tenure or 
as a significant element in performance 
evaluations and bonuses. And they hold out the 
possibility that the ratings for individual teachers could be made public.

?If the only thing we do is make this data 
available to every person in the city ­ every 
teacher, every parent, every principal, and say 
do with it what you will ­ that will have been a 
powerful step forward,? said Chris Cerf, the 
deputy schools chancellor who is overseeing the 
project. ?If you know as a parent what?s the 
deal, I think that whole aspect will change behavior.?

The effort comes as educators nationwide are 
struggling to figure out how to find, train and 
measure good teachers. Many education experts say 
that until teacher quality improves in urban 
schools, student performance is likely to 
stagnate and the achievement gap between white 
and minority students will never be closed. Other 
school systems, including those in Dallas and 
Houston as well as in the whole state of 
Tennessee, are also using student performance and 
improvement as factors in evaluating teachers.

The 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_federation_of_teachers/index.html?inline=nyt-org>United 
Federation of Teachers, the city?s teachers? 
union, has known about the experiment for months, 
but has not been told which schools are involved, 
because the Education Department has promised those principals confidentiality.

<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/w/randi_weingarten/index.html?inline=nyt-per>Randi 
Weingarten, the union president, said she had 
grave reservations about the project, and would 
fight if the city tried to use the information 
for tenure or formal evaluations or even 
publicized it. She and the city disagree over 
whether such moves would be allowed under the contract.

?There is no way that any of this current data 
could actually, fairly, honestly or with any 
integrity be used to isolate the contributions of 
an individual teacher,? Ms. Weingarten said. ?If 
one permitted this, it would be one of the worst 
decisions of my professional life.?

New York invited principals from hundreds of 
elementary and middle schools with sufficient 
annual testing data to participate in the 
program, which will produce an elaborate stream of data on 2,500 teachers.

In 140 schools ­ a tenth of the roughly 1,400 in 
the system ­ teachers are being measured on how 
many students in their classes meet basic 
progress goals, how much student performance 
grows each year, and how that improvement 
compares with the performance of similar students with other teachers.

In another 140 schools, principals are being 
asked to make subjective evaluations of roughly 
the same number of teachers so officials can see 
if the two systems produce widely disparate 
results. New York City schools employ roughly 
77,000 teachers. In all 280 schools, the 
principals agreed to participate in the program.

Deputy Chancellor Cerf said that how students 
performed on tests would not be the only factor 
considered in any system to rate teachers. All 
decisions will include personal circumstances and 
experiences, he said, but the point will be to 
put a focus on whether or not students are improving.

?This isn?t about how hard we try,? Mr. Cerf 
said. ?This is about however you got here, are your students learning??

Ms. Weingarten said the system was not needed. 
?Any real educator can know within five minutes 
of walking into a classroom if a teacher is 
effective,? she said. ?These tests were never 
intended and have never been validated for the use of evaluating teachers.?

The experiment is in line with the city?s 
increasing use of standardized test scores to 
measure whether students are improving, and to 
judge school quality. A new bonus program for 
teachers and principals, as well as the letter 
grading system for schools unveiled last fall, 
are all linked to improvement in scores. 
Nationally, too, school systems are increasingly 
relying on these measures to judge schools.

Virtually all education experts agree that 
finding high-quality teachers is critical to 
improving student learning, particularly in 
high-poverty urban areas, where good teachers are 
usually more difficult to find. Recent research 
has found that the best teachers can help 
struggling students catch up to more advanced students within three years.

But experts are grappling with how to determine 
what makes a good teacher. Neither graduate 
programs in education schools nor previous 
academic records are reliable predictors, they 
say. The federal 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/n/no_child_left_behind_act/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>No 
Child Left Behind law requires that districts 
place a ?highly qualified? teacher in every 
classroom, which typically means one who has 
completed a certification program, but this, too, 
is not necessarily a good indicator of quality.

?It seems hard to know who is going to be 
effective in the classroom until they are 
actually in the classroom,? said Thomas J. Kane, 
a professor of education and economics at 
Harvard, who is conducting several research 
projects on teacher quality in New York City, and 
who is involved in the new effort.

Mr. Kane said there was little evidence that 
teachers with the ?right paper qualifications? 
were any more effective than those without them. 
?But most school districts spend very little time 
trying to assess how good teachers are in their 
first couple of years, when it is most important,? he said.

Nationwide, more than 95 percent of teachers 
receive tenure within their first three years of 
teaching, according to some studies. And once 
teachers receive tenure, it is extremely 
difficult to have them removed from classrooms.

In some sense, New York?s effort to judge 
teachers partly on their students? improvement is 
a logical extension of the grading system for 
schools that was unveiled last fall, although 
officials adamantly say they have no plans to 
assign letter grades to individual teachers.

?I don?t think anyone here would embrace the 
formulaic use of even the most sophisticated 
instrument ­ you get tenure if this, you don?t 
get tenure if that,? Mr. Cerf said.

He added that the new effort was just one of 
several ways in which the city was exploring how 
to evaluate and improve teacher quality. In 
recent months, city officials have begun training 
new lawyers to help principals navigate the 
considerable red tape required to remove inadequate teachers.

They have increased recruiting efforts to attract 
talented teachers to hard-to-staff schools. And 
they are allowing schools to earn merit bonus 
pools to distribute to teachers based on test scores.

?This should simply be one more way to think 
about things,? said Frank A. Cimino, the 
principal of P.S. 193 in Brooklyn, who said he 
was participating in the experiment. ?It is going 
to tell you some things you don?t know, but it 
will miss the other things that go on in a classroom.?

William Sanders, a researcher in North Carolina 
who was one of the first to begin evaluating 
teachers and schools based on student test score 
improvements, said that while such a system could 
be used to make broad judgments, it was difficult 
to use it with precision enough to find 
differences among teachers who are simply average.

?Can you distinguish the top teachers? Yes,? Mr. 
Sanders said. ?Can you distinguish the bottom 
teachers? The answer is yes, too. But it would be 
risky to make decisions using information at the 
classroom level for teachers who are just in the 
middle. You might miss a lot that way.?

The city?s pilot program uses a statistical 
analysis to measure students? previous-year test 
scores, their numbers of absences and whether 
they receive special education services or free 
lunch, as well as class size, among other factors.

Based on all those factors, that analysis then 
sets a ?predicted gain? for a teacher?s class, 
which is measured against students? actual gains 
to determine how much a teacher has contributed to students? growth.

The two-page report for each teacher examines 
information both from one year and over three 
years. The information also compares the teacher 
with all other teachers in the city, and with 
teachers who have similar classrooms and 
experience levels. The second part of the report 
measures how well a teacher does with students 
with different skill levels, showing, for 
example, whether the teacher seems to work well with struggling students.

Mr. Cerf said officials expected to decide by the 
?early summer? whether they would use the 
analysis to evaluate individual teachers for 
tenure or other decisions, and if so, how they 
would do so. Such a decision would undoubtedly 
open up a legal battle with the teacher?s union.