Ohio Value-added measures poverty

Congratulations Ohio corporate education reformers, you have discovered yet another way to measure poverty. Unfortunately you seem to believe this is also a good way to evaluate teachers.

Value-added was supposed to be the great equalizer -- a measure of schools that would finally judge fairly how much poor students are learning compared with their wealthier peers.

Meant to gauge whether students learn as much as expected in a given year, value-added will become a key part of rating individual teachers from rich and poor districts alike next school year.

But a Plain Dealer/StateImpact Ohio analysis raises questions about how much of an equalizer it truly is, even as the state ramps up its use.

The 2011-12 value-added results show that districts, schools and teachers with large numbers of poor students tend to have lower value-added results than those that serve more-affluent ones.

Of course there are going to be defenders of the high stakes sweepstakes

"Value-added is not influenced by socioeconomic status," said Matt Cohen, the chief research officer at the Ohio Department of Education. "That much is pretty clear."

That is the same Matt Cohen who admitted he is no expert and has no clue how Value-add is calculated

The department’s top research official, Matt Cohen, acknowledged that he can’t explain the details of exactly how Ohio’s value-added model works. He said that’s not a problem.

“It’s not important for me to be able to be the expert,” he said. “I rely on the expertise of people who have been involved in the field.” 

Perhaps if Mr Cohen became more familiar with the science and the data he would realize that:

• Value-added scores were 2½ times higher on average for districts where the median family income is above $35,000 than for districts with income below that amount.
• For low-poverty school districts, two-thirds had positive value-added scores -- scores indicating students made more than a year's worth of progress.

For high-poverty school districts, two-thirds had negative value-added scores -- scores indicating that students made less than a year's progress.

• Almost 40 percent of low-poverty schools scored "Above" the state's value-added target, compared with 20 percent of high-poverty schools.

At the same time, 25 percent of high-poverty schools scored "Below" state value-added targets while low-poverty schools were half as likely to score "Below."

• Students in high-poverty schools are more likely to have teachers rated "Least Effective" -- the lowest state rating -- than "Most Effective" -- the highest of five ratings. The three ratings in the middle are treated by the state as essentially average performance.

Is there really any doubt what is truly being measured here? Ohio's secret Value-added formula is good at measuring poverty, not teacher effectiveness.

We predict districts and administrators and those connected to the development of Value-added measures are going to be deluged with lawsuits once high stakes decisions are attached to the misguided application of these diagnostic scores.

No laughing matter

Hearings on the education MBR, in the Ohio House and Senate, took place yesterday. The hope for some relief from the draconian budget cuts enacted last year faded, according to a report from Gongwer

Much of the MBR debate centered on a failed Democratic amendment to provide $400 million for schools and additional funds for local governments, as the minority party continued the argument that the bill does nothing to address communities hit hard by the Kasich Administration's decision to slash local government funds to help balance the state's coffers.

Rep. Ron Amstutz (R-Wooster), chair of the House Finance & Appropriations Committee and the sponsor of the bill "by request," kicked off the debate by stating that the measure is in keeping with the restrained spending in the biennium budget passed last spring (HB 153).

"Clearly, we are steady as she goes, which is a good thing," he said. "Because we are on track, we are able to deal with a bill here today that doesn't make further difficult decisions."

It's a strange world we live in where thousands of teachers, support professionals, cops and firefighters are losing their jobs, weakening communities is considered "a good thing", but the Governor's reaction was even more shocking, Mr. Kasich bursts out laughing when asked about the push for more spending and what he thinks is an appropriate level for the Budget Stabilization Fund. He also suggested that any attempt to add significant appropriations to the measure would be vetoed.

It's no laughing matter. The rhetoric is about improving educational achievement, the means appears to be by slashing budgets. Headlines from just this week include

• Mason Schools to cut 39.5 staff positions next school year
• YEA chief to teachers: Expect layoffs
• 32 teachers to be laid off as retirements and departures snowball
• Akron schools must make deeper cuts to avoid deficit
• The real Cleveland crisis

We're in a funding crisis. The legislature needs to step up and fulfill its constitutional responsibilities.

In other news, the proposed A-F grading system came in for a lot of questions

Mr. Cohen said feedback to ODE on the proposal so far has focused on four topics:

• The value-added component should carry more weight than others in the final grade.
• The scale of grades for the student progress component is unfair given a grade of "C" is assigned for districts that have "met" value-added expectations for two consecutive years.
• The threshold for "A" grades should be lowered and traditional rounding rules should be applied.
• Pluses and minuses should be applied to the grades.

Sen. Sawyer said that because many districts will go to the ballot seeking a levy this fall, the new scores, which are expected to be lower than previous ones, could be difficult for the districts to deal with as they ask voters to support their work to improve student performance.

Mr. Cohen said the current scores, which show a large portion of districts as "excellent" or better, will lose their meaning for the public. The simulation of what schools' grades would look like under the new scoring was merely that, and it is unclear how the public will react to the actual grades.

Sen. Joe Schiavoni (D-Canfield) asked if there is a score for things such as extracurricular activities offered and the like, which some people would attribute to whether a school system is a good one.

Mr. Cohen said ODE has considered looking at other measures, such as remediation rates; but the report card largely reflects assessment-based metrics.

Sen. Lehner asked if a report card could be developed for charter school authorizers in the same way school districts have report cards based on the performance of students in all the district's school buildings. Mr. Cohen said that would be possible.

If we had to guess, we expect that the technicals of the grade will see some minor modifications, and the implementation date will be pushed back a year to coincide with the introduction of common core.