Full Disclosure

The New Teacher Project (TNTP) this week released an excellent analysis of Race to the Top, Phase One state applications, debunking some myths about why some states failed to succeed and offering lessons for states that apply in Phase Two.

My only quibble is the absence of any disclosure from TNTP acknowledging that it has a proprietary interest in the outcome of the Race. Specifically, it touts the states of Louisiana and Rhode Island on its "honor roll," but fails to note anywhere in the document that TNTP is written into both state's applications. It has a stake in those states winning in Phase Two.

As an employee of an organization (New Teacher Center) written into numerous Race to the Top state applications, I am well aware of and try to constantly attend to the need to separate sound, dispassionate policy analysis from proprietary interests. Personally and professionally, I hope that the state of Rhode Island is funded in round two as well, not only because NTC too is written into its application, but because of the applications I've read, I believe Rhode Island's to be among the strongest. But, I believe, it would be inappropriate of me on this blog or through professional communications through my employer to tout the excellence of Rhode Island without making that self-interest clear.

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RttT: The Odds

The New Teacher Project's (NTP) odds sheet on states' chances for securing Race to the Top funding is a helpful guide on where states stand. It is relatively on target given available information, and shows that states like California, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin may be ineligible for RttT grants given existing statutory restrictions on what information can inform teacher evaluations or other factors.

Beyond that, I think the 'highly competitive,' 'competitive,' and 'somewhat competitive' gradations used by the NTP report are mostly guesswork. Until the U.S. Department of Education (ED) makes clear how it is going to balance the two primary selection criteria -- Reform Conditions and Reform Plan -- much of this is unquantifiable. The nine Reform Conditions articulated in the ED's draft selection criteria are: academic standards, high-quality assessments, statewide longitudinal data system, alternate routes to teaching, interventions in low-performing schools, charter school expansion, demonstrating significant academic progress, making education funding a priority, and enlisting statewide support and commitment. States that may not be as strong in having created these conditions for education reform can only hope that the ED weighs proposed Reform Plan strategies equally to or more heavily than the Reform Conditions criteria. If ED chooses to steer the money primarily to states that have a proven track record of education policy reform and the results to back it up, then middling and poorly prepared states cannot hope that a stellar application will bail them out from having been reform laggards in recent years.

Until we know more information about the selection process, it is just too easy to pick apart a 5-scale scoring rubric such as that employed by TNTP. As an example, I might quibble with the likes of Minnesota, Missouri and New Jersey being ranked above Massachusetts. Will Massachusetts get credit for its stellar NAEP results? Or will the fact that Minnesota is more charter school friendly trump such outcome measures, despite the fact that charters in the Gopher State don't appear to achieve particularly good results? Those are the types of decisions that the ED will have to make in establishing scoring criteria and the application reviewers will have to make in scoring state applications.

Another wild card in all of this is the funding that 15 states (Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas) are receiving from the Gates Foundation to hire consultants to help them write their RttT applications. Will that support from Gates be akin to getting dealt pocket aces? As Dana Goldstein notes in her American Prospect blog post: "During a time of state budget cuts and layoffs, the Gates funds could mean the difference between a barely completed application [which could take "up to 642 hours"] and one given enough attention to win the competition."

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Everyone Gets an 'A'

The New York Times editorial page opines ("Truth in Teaching") this morning on teacher evaluation, informed by a new report from the New Teacher Project. I am happy to see the Times's expansive take on this issue, not focusing purely on firing ineffective teachers, but also talking about better training of school administrators, rewarding teaching excellence, and access to better quality professional development to improve classroom practice across the board. That said, the teacher evaluation process needs a complete overhaul to serve a real purpose for both teachers and students.

Read a selection from the editorial below:

Education reform will go nowhere until the states are forced to revamp corrupt teacher evaluation systems that rate a vast majority of teachers as “excellent,” even in schools where children learn nothing.

A startling new report from a nonpartisan New York research group known as The New Teacher Project lays out the scope of the problem. The study, titled “The Widget Effect,” is based on surveys of more than 16,000 teachers and administrators in four states: Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois and Ohio.

The first problem it identifies is that evaluation sessions are often short, infrequent and pro forma — typically two or fewer classroom observations totaling 60 minutes or less. The administrators who perform them are rarely trained to do the evaluations and are under intense pressure from colleagues not to be critical. Not surprisingly, nearly every teacher passes, and an overwhelming majority receives top ratings.

At the same time, more than 80 percent of administrators and nearly 60 percent of teachers surveyed said that they knew a tenured teacher who deserved to be dismissed for poor performance. Half of 12 districts studied had not dismissed a tenured teacher in the previous five years. The study also says that teachers who need and want to improve their skills find it very hard to get help.

Until things change, excellent teachers will not be recognized and rewarded, low-performing teachers will remain in the classroom and teachers who could become high achievers if they had more support never will.

To break out of this failing system, the report says, the states will need to create effective evaluation practices. Those must fairly rate teachers’ different levels of ability. School districts must also invest in teacher development programs and be prepared to fire bad teachers who show no ability or desire to get better.

In a related story, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports ("Ackerman vows tighter teacher standards") that just 13 of 10,700 Philadelphia teachers district-wide received an "unsatisfactory" evaluation last year. It is simply not possible in any human resources system -- assuming the existence of an honest, useful and properly weighted evaluation instrument (which clearly is not the case here) -- that only 0.12% of employees are performing unsatisfactorily. And, not that it is all the teachers' fault, but this in a school district in its sixth year of corrective action! This just further highlights the problem. Teacher evaluations are neither providing informative feedback to educators to help them improve nor are they holding truly ineffective educators accountable for either improving their performance or moving onto something else.

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