How much is a good teacher worth?

I was forwarded this article from the Huffington Post on the value of a good teacher.   I've been doing alot of thinking about this lately.   What is the value?    And does it do us any good to think of teachers in these market based terms?

How much is a good teacher worth? Some would say they're priceless, but recent findings in the National Bureau of Economic Research's The Economic Value of Higher Teacher Quality, is a bit more exact. The report, written by Eric A. Hanushek, suggests that quality teachers with 20 students are worth $400,000 more in the future earnings of their students than an average teacher, annually.

Should teachers think of their value in this way?   Should the public?  It's nice to think I might impart a little value on my students' lives.   However, I've never really considered it to be a pecuniary one.

Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist has spent some time considering these questions in one of his books, Predictably Irrational.   In chapter four on social norms, he considers the problem when social norms and market norms cross paths.   It's  a fascinating read that has me thinking about what I do at work and why I do it.   A summary of the chapter is below:

 
I know that there has been a lot of work put in to change the way society thinks of teachers.  Mostly it's been a market based approach.   Teachers after all, have long been undervalued in the market.   So to attack this inequity it makes sense to demand more compensation.   I appreciate that this path has lead to more pay for teachers.   I wouldn't be one if that were not the case.  However, I think there may also be some negative consequences of this framing.   Teachers are not quite revered in American society.   Was this different 30 years ago?   100 years ago?   I don't know.    Would the public think differently about teachers if they weren't constantly asked to think about teachers' salaries?   What about teachers?  I do not think we want teachers thinking about their hourly or minutely contributions in terms of it's market value.   This leads teachers to come late and leave early.  But I think these are important questions to consider when thinking about evaluation systems that will create a better work place environment.

Testing and Evaluation

An interesting and balanced article in the New York Times today about  the practice of using student test data to rank teacher quality.   It's a practice that I believe has potential in the field of education, but also serious limitations.   My biggest concern, is that it is now used simply as a proxy for honest and robust evaluation, most likley because it is easy to use.  I can hear it now, "I don't want to let you go, but I can't ignore the data."  True feedback about effective teaching will not come on a printout derived from an algorithm.  Make no mistake, I believe teachers should be accountable, and that there needs to be serious coversations about the role of seniority and tenure within the field of education.   We need to understand what makes a quality teacher, and how quality teachers are different from less effective teachers. Testing may be a part of how we come to that understanding.   But it should not be a replacement.  To a large extent, I feel the current emphasis on testing is the result of resistance by teacher unions to offer up more cost effective and robust solutions that are available.   Create that system, and the need for testing and the negative externalities associated with testing diminish if not disappear.

Here's a bit from the Times' article:

“I feel as though I don’t exist,” she said last Monday, looking up from playing a vocabulary game with her students.

Down the hall, Deirdre Corcoran, a fifth-grade teacher, received a ranking for a year when she was out on child-care leave. In three other classrooms at this highly ranked school, fourth-grade teachers were ranked among the worst in the city at teaching math, even though their students’ average score on the state math exam was close to four, the highest score.

“If I thought they gave accurate information, I would take them more seriously,” the principal of P.S. 321, Elizabeth Phillips, said about the rankings. “But some of my best teachers have the absolute worst scores,” she said, adding that she had based her assessment of those teachers on “classroom observations, talking to the children and the number of parents begging me to put their kids in their classes.”

More thoughtful conversation about VAM over at Stories from School.   A conversation that makes me that much more confident that if teacher-leaders made decisions about school reform, we'd be much better off than we are now.

Some common sense

The reform movement has focused so far on  student testing as a way to evaluate the quality of teaching.  Through the use of value-added methodology, teachers can be evaluated based on the "additional learning" they contribute to a students overall progress.   It controls for out of school factors such as family income and race in order to try and isolate the teacher effect on student learning.   While still imperfect, the process is able to "rank" teachers' effectiveness, albeit with a rather broad range of uncertainty.

This testing based approach has so far been received with a rather wide degree of skepeticism from many teachers and their unions who represent them.   And increased reliance on testing is indeed laced with problems.   States often don't have the quality of resources to make high quality tests.    Testing takes time- often at the expense of instruction.    And high-stakes testing also has the effect of narrowing the focus of instruction.

However, as I read this article from the value-added proponent LA Times, it struck me that if teachers and their unions were able to come up with their own system for determing teacher quality- this testing fetish would likely go just as fast as it came.   The fact of the matter, is that the public, as well as many teachers, are ready to consider the quality of teaching that is going on inside of school buildings.   Too many parents have had bad experiences with ineffective teachers.   Too many teachers know that not every teacher works as hard as the next.   And too many administrators know what teachers and parents know but are unable, or unwilling, to do anything about it.   Testing takes these stakeholders out of the equation.   Testing provides an "objective" approach for evaluatiing teachers.

If teachers want to avoid the testing wave, they must embrace their own systems of reform.   We must embrace evaluation systems that offer more than a dichotomous satisfactory/unsatisfactory rating system.   We must encourage and strive for excellence in the classroom- and reward those who are not only the highest quality, but who take on extra responsibilities.    We can no longer simply ignore teacher quality, unless that is, we want our quality to be determined by student performance on a test.   We do so at our own peril.

Quality teaching matters- much more so than new programs or initiatives.   So the question is, do we want to recognize this quality or have someone else, or something else, do this for us?  From the LA Times:

Since 2003, Markham has had dozens of the district's least effective instructors, as measured by the analysis of their students' progress on standardized tests. Seventy percent of the school's English and math teachers have ranked well below the Los Angeles Unified School District's average in effectiveness. Fewer than 10 Markham teachers have been in the district's top 20%, and most left the school within three years.

There are thousands of Markhams across the country, schools whose low test scores have triggered wave after wave of reform efforts over decades, mostly in vain.

"It's not a lack of new initiatives, it's too many initiatives, and no sense of what's working," said Robert Manwaring, a senior policy analyst at the Washington, D.C., think tank Education Sector who has studied turnaround efforts at Markham and other schools. "They don't use data to inform those decisions — they use a gut feeling or get marching orders from higher up."

 The LA Times, rightly or wrongly, can make claims about teacher quality in a way that teachers can't.   It is time for this to change.  It is time for teachers to decide what quality teaching is.   And when we do, not only will teachers be better off, but the public and the students we serve will be better off.   The choice is ours.

Where the Teacher Unions will go

Here's a little bit from Professor Gary Anderson of New York University that I found at the Huffington Post.   Where might the future of education and unions lie?   According to Anderson, with Peer Asssitance and Review (PAR):

So teachers unions must continue to defend teachers' wages, benefits, and pensions, but they will be vulnerable to attack if they allow themselves to be defined as roadblocks to innovation and protectors of bad teachers. Perhaps more ominous, many working class Americans who failed to protect their private sector unions are now turning on teachers, whom they view as overpaid and with fat pensions.

One approach that has begun to change the image of teachers unions is Peer-Assisted Review or PAR. It involves peer evaluation of teachers that addresses teacher induction and development as well as due process issues. The peer evaluator and teacher meet with a board made up of district administrators and union officials who ultimately decide on the outcome of the peer-evaluation. This system not only allows for a more collegial form of evaluation and support, but also involves both the district and the union in decisions about teacher quality. This system has also been shown to be more effective at identifying incompetent teachers and either making them better or moving them out of the system. More in depth information on PAR can be found in Jennifer Goldstein's book, Peer Review and Teacher Leadership: Linking Professionalism and Accountability, and on the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers.

PAR may be the future, but the steps taken so far in Montgomery County fall woefully short of an effective system.   The foundation is in place, but we have not taken the next steps to strengthen it.   The best way to stregthen it would be for Montgomery County co cut administrators out of the evaluative process altogether.   They are unable to offer supports that teachers need.   They are unable "to show" teachers how to teach.      They are unable to use the PAR process as it was intended, because they find it too tedius to place teachers in the system.   The system needs to be implemented by teachers from beginning to end.  It needs to be  more complete and continuous.  Trust me when I say this: if teachers were in charge, the evaluation process would be far more effective than it is now.

Jerry Weast on Evaluation

Superintendent of Schools Jerry Weast on evaluations in Montgomery County (with thanks for the Parent's Coalition for bringing it to my attention):

Attitude reflects leadership

National Board Certified teacher, David Cohen, recently left the following comment on my blog.   David is part of a group of accomplished teachers who write a policy blog out in California.   We have been having a conversation about, well, conversation.    We both agree that teacher evaluation systems around the U.S. need some revamping.   The question that we have been exploring, I suppose, is how we communicate and accomplish that goal.  Here is my response to his original comments:

A part of our disagreement, I believe, is that like many of us, I write a local blog in the context of a more national discussion on reform.   Montgomery County, where I teach, has traditionally been considered a rather progressive union (loaded phrase). Our professional growth system is based on the 5 National Board Standards plus a 6th (professionalism). We have a peer evaluation system in place for novice and tenured teachers who receive an unsatisfactory evaluation. However, what this means in theory and practice are often two different things.  In theory, principals refer teachers to the peer evaluation system when the need arises.  In practice, few tenured teachers are given an opportunity to take advantage of the system.   It is viewed as a punishment- and a way of removing teachers- not helping them develop.  Meanwhile, we still continue to utilize a seniority system that does not effectively encourage or reward professional growth.  I feel the pulls of mediocredom every day.  

Now, I can go into my union and suggest subtle changes to the system but unless we can come to agreement that there is a problematic culture in place we're not going to be able to attack the serious issues that are preventing us from moving forward. I've said this before to you, but when there is more incentive to coach football after school than to develop mastery lessons- there exists a problematic culture. That's not to say that after school activities are not an important part of being a teacher- I used to coach myself- and personal relationship building is a crucial part of teaching- however, when coaching is valued more than a quality lesson- something is amiss. How do we encourage teachers to meet regularly, to observe each other, and to think about taking their teaching to an uncomfortable place? It's funny, but the one thing that the Tennessee study on performance pay concluded- of all things- was that teachers in the study were more likely to collaborate:

The only other significant differences were in collaborative activities, with treatment teachers replying that they collaborated more on virtually every measured dimension. 

They wanted to see what was so "good" about teacher x.... even though they didn't really believe that the tests their students took accurately measured how effective a teacher they were.   Now, we can argue over whether "merit pay" is the way to go, but I think there is a more important point here.   When we value quality teaching, we are more likely to take efforts to become quality.  If we have "master" teachers who are paid more, or who are even just recognized as a master without the extra pay- people will be more inclined to look at that teacher and figure out how to become one. You don't learn how to become a teacher when an interloper comes into your class and tells you how you could do it better. You become a better teacher when you reflect about your practice. I think there is no better way to do that than to watch high quality instruction. Unfortunately, I don't know of many places where instructional leaders are in a classroom, let alone in a classroom with an open door policy.

Now- perhaps this doesn't excuse the way I beat the drum on issues of seniority. I've been accused of attacking veteran teachers.   I've been accused of being pompous.  And I see how some may interpret my ideas in this way.   But when you go to a union and ask for change you best not go with a purple feather duster in your hand (mine at home is purple).

That said- I'm often offended by the way my union defends our current professional growth system as a "model system"  to be destroyed by RTTP reforms. The implication is that there is no way to improve our system- which I passionately resent.    We defend, defend, and defend.   If we reflected half as much as we defended we'd be much better off.   Many of the wonderful teachers in my and other buildings agree that seniority is a problem.   However they are not apt to engage in a fight to change.   Do these teachers have a voice?   Or does it take the Rhees and Kleins and Duncans of the world to make that point for us?

So I suppose I'll put away my drum when I feel like we're headed in the right direction.  I admit that may be to my own detriment.   But I will certainly consider my messaging- because I believe in due process- and I believe in professional growth- and I believe in teachers.  And perhaps my drum is beating on the wrong points.

But let me just say this- and perhaps this is my downfall- most of my postings have been reactionary in nature: and attitude reflects leadership.  The lesson might be that I stop reading about my leaders and do more talking to them.

What are we fighting about?

On April 15, 2010, a teacher whom I taught with in my days at Neelsville Middle School was murdered.   I didn't know Brian Betts very well.   But  Brian was one of those people.   If you were around him, you were impacted by him.

Eight or nine years ago, Brian forward me an editorial that appeared in the Gazzette regarding the "extreme" salaries paid to teachers in Montgomery County Public Schools.   Some lawyer from such and such who wrote a semi-regular column.      He went on to explain that teachers, when you added in their benefits, made some extraordinary amount of money, all at tax payer expense.  I was new to the system then, and had a strong emotional reaction to his argument.   I wrote a response based on the premise that I never would have been in education had it not been for the ability to make a livelihood - without the ability to raise a family.   At the time, MCPS was probably the only place in Maryland where teachers were compensated with relative fairness.    Simply put,  compensation was why I chose to teach.   It is why I ended up in Montgomery County.


I did not send my reply to the editors, but to Brian.    He said two words in a return email.   "Send it."

I didn't.

On April 16th I started this blog.   And I don't know much, but I do know this:  Our schools- MCPS, Maryland, the nation- they can do better.   I have no patience for grandstanding.    I have no patience for data manipulation used to distort truths or to reach individual ends.    Our schools are not bad.   Our teachers are not the enemies.  But if you're not improving, you're doing something else.  

So I ask, what are we doing to make our system better?   What are we doing to make teachers better?   Are we putting in place costly programs?   Or are we investing in the one in school factor proven to matter most: a quality teacher in every classroom.

It's time to make our schools better.   It's time to identify problems, and create solutions.   But we can't do that if we won't engage in an honest analysis of the problems.   Want to stop the emphasis on standardized testing?   Determine the problem- then proffer solutions.

Of course, I'm not sure that we all acknowledge the existence of a problem.    Obviously, the "reform" movement does.   This group of expert teachers from the Center for Teaching Quality does.   Many teachers I talk with do.  Could it be that ALL these people are simply anti-teacher? 

There's a need to push forward to improve our schools.   There is great work being done.  I see it everyday.   But there is need to think about how we can do it better.   I'm not talking about taking over schools, or firing people, or making sure everyone has a voucher.   I'm talking about ways to come together and make things better.

Teachers must do more than ask for more money and more benefits.  We must do more than claim we are under-appreciated (even if there is a degree of truth in these claims).   Instead, we must continuously monitor our own growth and consider how we can improve that system.   When we do that- the money and benefits will follow.    But first we must first build concensus on the problems.  Only then can we determine how to fix those problems.