It’s kind of a gloomy time in Oregon right now. The weather is cold, rainy, and windy. Families are facing economic hardships while social services continue to be reduced. The racial achievement gap is a daunting and complicated problem. Schools are asked to achieve more with fewer resources. Hiring freezes are happening in state and local agencies.
We, as educators, social workers, and others who work on behalf of children and families, are very good at pointing out the problems. This isn’t surprising, as it is often our job to do this – to advocate, so that those in power are encouraged to make better decisions for our community. As programs and services are cut, and then cut again, and our jobs are on the line (or altogether eliminated), it’s hard to feel optimistic.
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Category: education achievement gap | No Comments »
Tags: hope, leadership, racial achievement gap
T.J. Chandler is the founder of EdZapp, Oregon’s statewide online employment application, and is now the Regional Director of Operations for Netchemia, LLC working with K-12 teacher and administrator evaluations. T.J. was formerly the Director of Business Applications for the New York City Board of Education, and has worked with over one hundred school districts across the country on operational and human capital issues. T.J. holds degrees from Willamette University and Princeton University.
As some celebrate the 10th anniversary of NCLB and others curse it, I ask, “What have we learned from it?” In particular, I am intrigued by certain parallels between evaluating “student achievement” and “teacher performance.”
Some Parallels
Like the discussions 10-15 years ago about students “falling behind” and “dropping out,” policy-makers realize that there is a problem with teacher effectiveness and attrition. The tough part for both problems, of course, is specifying–in meaningful and legally-defensible terms–which individuals are having trouble, and even more importantly how to help them improve.
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Category: curriculum, Early Learning, education achievement gap, education reform, student achievement, Student Success, Teacher Effectiveness, teacher performance evaluations, teaching strategies | 1 Comment »
Tags: Danielson Framework for Teaching, EdZapp, Head Start, INTASC, NCLB, New Teacher Project, T.J. Chandler, teacher evaluations, value-added model, VAM, Widget Effect
On Wednesday, January 11, Chalkboard Project successfully held its first virtual brown bag as a part of a series of webinars that will focus on relevant news about education issues in Oregon. It was titled, “Educator Evaluation: How it drives student achievement,” and it featured talks from local, state and national policy experts and educators.
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Category: Chalkboard Project, CLASS Project, community involvement, student achievement, teacher performance evaluations | 2 Comments »
Tags: Chalkboard Project, educator evaluation, evaluation teaching, student achievement, webinar
When it first came out in 2001, I, like most teachers, saw NCLB as a direct threat to public education. The day after the Obama presidential election, there was a movement afoot among teachers in my building to print out ESEA/ NCLB and have a burying ceremony in the school garden. Our ceremony never came to fruition, and neither did the immediate revision of the act that has all but buried educators.
The Negatives
The problem with NCLB was its reliance on one test to judge the quality of schools. The judgments were harsh and extreme; they ranged from mandatory tutoring, to closing schools. There were no funds provided to mitigate poor programs. If politicians really had student success in mind, there would have been more money to help struggling performers, or, the measure would have targeted individual student progress over time. The punitive nature of NCLB focused on what we in teaching try to stay away from: motivation through threats.
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Category: education reform, funding, student achievement, Teacher Effectiveness, teacher performance evaluations, teaching strategies | 1 Comment »
Tags: achievement gaps, Blueprint for Reform, ESEA, evaluation teaching, NCLB, No Child Left Behind, Quality of Schools, Ruth Wallin
Nearly 60 years ago, the court ruling Brown v. Board of Education recognized that “education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. It is the very foundation of good citizenship.” The ruling also made the claim that desegregation would benefit all students and that providing students with inclusive educational opportunities from an early age is crucial to achieving the nation’s educational and civic goals. Years later, however, we continue to struggle with this issue. Some people still ask the question: what kinds of benefits stem from a diverse classroom?
As a product of a racially diverse public school system outside of Chicago, I believe that my classroom experience provided me with incalculable educational and civic benefits. However, I find measuring and identifying those benefits extremely difficult. While growing up, it never occurred to me that I was actively breaking down racial stereotypes or becoming a more culturally sensitive person. Instead, I found that being around students and teachers who were different than me was just the norm. In a way, I believe that that is the overall intended outcome: being comfortable and motivated to participate in a heterogeneous and multifaceted society. Right?
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Category: education reform, minorities in education | 4 Comments »
Tags: Arne Duncan, brown vs. board of ed, k-12 schools, racial diversity, racial isolation, Secretary of Ed, student achievement
A few years ago I was getting a haircut in the Hollywood District when my barber asked me what I did for a living. “I teach 12th graders,” I replied. He then said, “Whoa, do they give you combat pay for that?”
I chuckled at his comment, assuming he was joking. He wasn’t. He went on to talk about how it must be difficult to work with high school students, and how I probably was on the fast track to sainthood for spending my days with them. I didn’t dispute him because it was a sentiment that I had heard before. I could see it any time I sat on the MAX on my way home from Gresham, and watched adults wince whenever a gaggle of teens entered the car. This always struck me as strange, because I loved teaching high school students, and even on my worst day in the classroom, I felt I was doing critical work for our nation’s future (and having a lot of fun in the process).
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Category: student achievement, Student Success | 4 Comments »
Tags: combat pay, high school education, secondary education
The goal of determining how much a teacher or school contributes to student academic achievement growth is a complicated and difficult aspiration. Under ideal conditions, reasonable estimates can be theoretically determined. But, the real world is far from ideal and the risk of classification errors is high.
A classification error occurs when a student, teacher or school is incorrectly assigned to a performance category. For instance, a school may be labeled as exceeding expectations for achievement growth, when, in reality, it only meets expectations – or vice versa.
Since many decisions ranging from public disclosures to employee compensation are at stake, we need to pursue the best VAM available and fully explain the level of uncertainty that goes with each rating. And if the uncertainty is too great, decisions should be deferred.
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Category: student achievement, Student Success | 1 Comment »
Tags: cognitive ability, Ron Smith, value-added model, VAM
In my work under the new Oregon Education Investment Board (OEIB) over the past three months, I have been exposed to a lot of data, a lot of statistics. Some have surprised me, and some not at all. Some have given me hope, and some have discouraged me. But one statistic has shocked me:
Of the 45,000 children born in Oregon each year, an estimated 40 percent carry significant risk factors, ranging from family poverty and instability to parents engaged in substance abuse or criminal behavior.
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Category: parent involvement | 1 Comment »
Tags: Beyond Lebanon High School, early transition program, Friends of Children, meaningful relationships, OEIB, The Gladstone Center for Children
In 2005, I taught 2nd grade in East Oakland, California. I had enthusiastically accepted a teaching position at a school with a predominately African American and Latino community, where most families were living under the poverty line. As a young, white, middle class, female, I had little knowledge of the experiences of the families at the school, but I wanted to learn.
There was coursework in my credential program designed to teach me how to work with families. I learned that family members who were involved behaved a certain way – they would come into the classroom and help me staple papers, attend field trips with the class, and bring food to class parties. I was also told to expect that most parents wouldn’t return my phone calls or come to school-wide events. At the time, I didn’t realize that this style of family engagement wasn’t inclusive of all families.
I still think back to one student named Rachel. Rachel’s mother was raising seven children as a single, working parent. I had met her on the first day of school and was so excited to get to know her and her daughter. Throughout the school year, I did everything “right.” I called her to let her know how Rachel was doing in school, I sent personalized invitations home to school family events, and I made sure to offer plenty of time slots for parent-teacher conferences so she could attend. She never came. I was really disappointed and felt that Rachel’s mother just didn’t care about her education.
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Category: community involvement, minorities in education | 4 Comments »
Tags: Eliz Roser, family engagement, family involvement
The recent release of National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) provides results that should give all Oregonians cause for great concern. Most NAEP measures for Oregon students are disheartening. Oregon is now one of five states where the overall achievement gap widened between 2003 and 2011. Additionally, low-income students in Oregon rank among the lowest performing in the nation and have lost ground since 2003. This information invites questions that should be in the forefront of Oregon’s attempt to restructure educational delivery. What will it take to declare a statewide breakdown? What is Oregon’s commitment to close the achievement gap?
NAEP Report Overview
Also known as the Nation’s Report Card, NAEP is the only tool we have to assess which states appear to be making progress in academic achievement. While we recognize the limits of NAEP, simultaneously the results should not be ignored. One advantage of this national assessment is the opportunity to assess progress over time. Another dimension of interest is the opportunity to disaggregate results and examine how different student subgroups fare compared to others across the country.
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Category: education achievement gap, minorities in education, student achievement | 3 Comments »
Tags: Abby Block, accountability, achievement gap, Dan Jamison, NAEP, Oregon achievement gap
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