10 reasons why VAM is harmful to students

[...]No one is asking how value-added assessments may affect the very students that this evaluation system is intended to help. By my count, there are at least ten separate ways in which value-added assessment either does not accurately measure the needs of a student or is actually harmful to a child’s education. Until these flaws are addressed, value-added assessment will be nothing more than a toy for politicians and headline writers, not a serious tool for improving learning.

1. The premise of value-added assessment is that standardized tests are an accurate and decisive measure of student learning. In fact, standardized testing is neither definitive nor especially reliable. City and state exams are snapshots, not in-depth diagnostic tools.

2. Value-added assessments will ultimately require all students to take standardized exams, whether or not such examinations are developmentally appropriate. Kindergarteners and first graders will be subjected to the same pressures of high-stakes testing as older children.

3. Value-added assessments will dramatically increase the number of standardized tests for each student. Children will need to take exams in subjects such art, music and physical education in order to evaluate the teachers of these subjects.

4. The most successful students will get less enrichment work and more test prep. It is actually more difficult to improve the scores of gifted students since they have already done so well on standardized exams.

5. Teachers will need to avoid necessary remediation in order to attain short-term gains in test scores. Most standardized English tests require students to demonstrate high-order thinking skills, yet a growing body of academic research indicates that many children—especially those growing up in poverty—require huge boosts of vocabulary to function well in school. Teachers may be forced to forego a vocabulary-rich curriculum that would have the most long-term benefits for their children. Instead, they will have to focus on the skills that might help students gain an extra point or two on this year’s tests.

[readon2 url="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/11/1193372/-Ten-Reasons-Why-Value-Added-Assessments-are-Harmful-to-a-Child-s-Education"]Continue reading...[/readon2]

Ryan budget wrecks public education

Education issues have arrived front and center in the Presidential campaign. President Obama discussed education during his weekly address

With students starting to head back to school, President Obama used this week’s address to discuss the critical role that education plays in America’s future. Nothing is more important to a child’s education than a great teacher.

Unfortunately, tens of thousands of teachers will not be going back to school this year, partially because of budget cuts at the state and local level. That means more crowded classrooms, fewer kindergarten and preschool programs, and shorter school years and weeks. President Obama has proposed a jobs bill that would help states prevent further layoffs and rehire teachers, but Congress refuses to pass it.

Instead, the budget that almost every Republican voted for would further cut education in order to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

The debate continued in Ohio

President Barack Obama drew a sharp line with Republican Mitt Romney on education Tuesday, telling Ohio voters that "putting a college education within reach for working families doesn't seem to be a priority" for his opponent.

Obama quoted his Republican challenger's assertion that the best option for students trying to find an affordable education is to "shop around."

"That's his answer for a young person hoping to go to college — shop around, borrow money from your parents if you have to — but if they don't have it, you're on your own," Obama said in prepared remarks ahead of a planned campaign stop Tuesday afternoon.

The president was expected to point to the budget plan put forward by Romney's running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, as he tries to paint the GOP ticket as too extreme for the nation.

He plans to criticize Ryan's budget proposal for cutting $115 billion from the Education Department, removing 2 million children from Head Start programs and costing 1 million college students their Pell Grants over the next decade.

According to the Washington Post, a recent poll on the Ryan budget found that a leading concern about the Ryan budget were cuts to education, and that those cuts raised serious doubts about Romney when voters were told that he supports the Ryan agenda.

Those cuts, as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities discovered, are needed to fund massive tax cuts for the wealthiest

Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney plan to further defund education in order to provide tax cuts to people who have the least need. The choices for public education supporters have never been more stark.

Dispatch dodge disappoints

The Columbus Dispatch has cheered on the Governor's education "reform" plans every step of the way, from the draconian budget cuts, to SB5 - the Governor has had the full support of the state capital's newspaper of record. A need to improve the quality of Ohio's public education system, challenge the "status quo" has been their rally cry.

We were shocked then, to not read any editorial in this weekend's Dispatch criticizing the Governor for his appointment of an unqualified candidate to the State board of Education.

According to the Dispatch's own reporting, the Governor appointed Stanley Jackson, without ever having seen his resume. The Governor claiming Mr. Jackson's involvement in a charter school was qualification enough, only to discover that the charter school does not yet exist, and before Mr. Jackson can even spend one day on that job, he will resign from his fake school in order to avoid legal complications.

Furthermore, according to reports from NPR,

Kasich spokesperson Rob Nichols said Jackson is currently a candidate for an elected seat on the State Board of Education. Nichols said Jackson’s candidacy was what brought him to the attention of the governor’s office.

However, Jackson has not actually filed to run for state Board of Education, according to the Allen County Board of Elections. The deadline to file is Aug. 8.

StateImpact also reports that Mr. Jackson was an OSU dropout and never obtained his degree.

The State board of education has a full plate of policy to implement and guide, from common core, to teacher evaluations, and a new reading guarantee just for starters - it needs to have qualified people with a deep understanding of the issues in order to be successful, something Mr. Jackson does not posses.

Given these facts, why then has the Dispatch editorial board remained silent? Does their support of the Governor's education policies stop at the waters edge once criticism of their implementation is warranted?

Instead what the Dispatch editorial board decided to publish this weekend was another rehash of the SB5 fight, a sign that the Dispatch cares more about it's partisan politics than policies, even those it allegedly supports.

UPDATE

The ABJ manages to publish an appropriate editorial on this subject.

A litmus test tomorrow in Wisconsin

Tomorrow is a big day in the test of working people vs. extreme politicians. In Wisconsin an election will be held to allow voters a say on recalling 6 Republican State Senators who voted for an SB5 like bill. Unlike Ohio, Wisconsin doesn't have the ability repeal legislation, instead they provide the voters a chance to recall their legislators.

So worried are the GOP over this recall effort they even resorted to running "fake Democrats" in a primary election a few weeks ago. Needless to say voters saw through this scam and every fake candidate was handily beaten. But these extremist lawmakers have a right to be worried after building an all too familiar extremist record in short order

Further, with the Republican-contrived primaries over (they recruited fellow Republicans to run against Democrats in order to delay and sow considerable confusion about recall process), the public can now focus on clear-cut choices between Democratic candidates with demonstrated followings and Republican senators whose reputations have been tarnished.

The Republican baggage includes:

• their extraordinary anti-union votes,
• their support for an exceptionally punitive budget toward local public education and services, and
• their collaboration with the most dictatorial procedures and anti-democratic legislation that the Wisconsin Legislature has witnessed in more than a century.

MotherJones provides us a good synopsis of the 6 elections being held tomorrow. 2 are looking good for the Democrats, 3 are toss ups and one is looking to be a GOP hold. The Democrats would need to win 3 of the 6 to retake control of the Wisconsin State Senate and end Gov. Walkers middle class damaging agenda.

This election will also give us one of our first indicators of the kind of energy and voter turnout we can expect in Ohio around Issue 2, in the fall as voters here look to repeal similar extreme legislation.

Michele Rhee, stranger to the truth

Here's Michele Rhee. In her own words and voice

"In fact the children that are in school today will be the first generation of Americans who will be less educated than their parents were"

Ahem.

That's the longitudinal student performance trend in NAEP reading average scores for 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old students.

That's the longitudinal student performance trend in NAEP mathematics average scores for 9-, 13-, and 17-year-old students.

Those are not difficult graphs to read, and neither show any declines for current students vs their parents performance, in fact - it's the opposite. Why Rhee wants to lie about the data in order to fire teachers is a mystery only she can answer - but that is her agenda, and it is not supported by the facts.