From Harford Students Count on Us:
Next year, teacher evaluations could include PARCC scores, despite overwhelming evidence that evaluation systems centered on state test scores only increase the hyper-focus on standardized testing.
In 2014, MD Legislators passed a two-year moratorium on the state’s ability to mandate that PARCC scores be in teacher evaluation. It’s time to make that permanent. If we don’t, the Maryland State Department of Education could attempt to force districts to incorporate PARCC scores in evaluations starting next year.
School districts should have the autonomy to work with educators to create a system that works for students, teachers and schools in their communities. Teachers should not be evaluated using flawed standardized assessments.
Our students are more than a test score, and our evaluation systems shouldn’t double down on a culture of over-testing.
Click here to email your legislators now and tell them that the state shouldn’t force PARCC test scores into our teachers’ evaluations
The average Maryland students takes more than 200 mandated standardized tests during their K-12 career, leading to a dramatic loss of instruction time and narrowing of curriculum.
The time to reduce over-testing is now. Please urge your legislators to support critical steps to scaling back the over-emphasis on testing including:
– Setting a cap of 2% for how much instructional time can be devoted to mandated standardized testing.
– Creating transparency in testing through regular reporting to parents about mandated standardized tests in each school district.
– Ensuring that the PARCC test cannot be used in teacher and principal evaluations, which only encourages heightened focus and pressure on standardized testing performance.
– Reducing the months-long disruption caused by the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment by changing it to a sampling test rather than a test given to every student.
– Applying to the federal government to seek innovation in testing so districts can experiment with performance-based assessments rather than PARCC.
Please fill out the form to email your legislators with your personal story of how testing impacts your students and school and urge them to make reducing standardized testing a priority during this legislative session.
I am in agreement with the general content and theme of this article. Specifically, the PARCC exam should be permanently discarded. No one person, student or teacher, should be held accountable or have the scores used against them. The great responsibility of teaching should remain in the hands of our educators. Needless to say, as in every aspect of our lives, there must be methods in place to determine if a teacher is actually educating their students. In my humble opinion, if the vast majority of those we entrust with our offspring were allowed to actually teach, not saddled with extraneous paperwork, ridiculous amounts of class time used solely for test preparation, and never ending restrictions as to the ability to keep disruptive students in check, our community would be a heck of a lot better off.
Perfectly stated!!!
I believe in the teachers in Harford County, at least the vast majority of those I’ve had the opportunity to meet. Those of you that believe in your heart, that these educators don’t care about the needs of their students, academically, emotionally, plus their physical well being, are sadly mistaken. The politics that surround our school system are no different than any other bureaucracy, public or private. I’m sure we all have a bone to pick with lots of folks we’ve encountered in our lives. My hope is that Harford Countians will stop bashing our classroom teachers. Believe me, they really do give their best effort to do the right thing. Everyone of us are human…..at least for now.
What’s wrong with verifying the performance of public servants and ensuring the taxpayers are getting what they pay for?
I would be ok with getting rid of the PARCC with one concession: Any HCPS graduate who enrolls in remedial college classes has their tuition, books, and fees funded jointly by the HCPS superintendent and the HCEA president, from their personal accounts.
So what you are saying is that a student can come to class (sometimes), sit there and play with their cell phone, refuse to do homework, not turn in assignments, and generally put forth no effort, but the teacher should be held responsible when this kid can’t cut it in college? Basically, the entire responsibility for the kids education falls on the teacher, because that is the only variable that determines academic success?
Why would someone confer a diploma to an F student?
That’s a question for the school board and whoever else sets graduation requirements and standards. Teachers have nothing to do with that.
And, you really didn’t respond to my statement.
If they’re not doing their homework and not putting any effort into it, how are they passing your class? Or, if they’re using their cellphone in class, how are they distracted the next day when their cellphone is sitting in your desk drawer?
If you say a student has earned a passing grade, you should be willing to stand behind his or her future success in that subject.
Who said they were passing the class? They have to take the standardized test whether they are passing my class or not. And by the way, a “D” is still a passing grade, according to the people who make such policies, but I don’t know a single teacher that would “stand behind” the future success of a student who is passing with D’s, even if school boards and the attorney’s that sue them claim it is a passing grade.
Which brings me back to my original statement (which you really STILL have not addressed): is the teacher the ONLY variable that effects student achievement? In the situation you presented, the student has used his cellphone in class for a period of time before getting caught. So even if the teacher removes the cellphone, the kid has already missed instruction. Is this not a variable that needs to be considered? How about when he does it again the next class? Or simply refuses to do homework or study? And has parents that do not care that he refuses to do homework or study. Is this not a variable that effects his grade? Or is the teacher the only variable?
Don’t expect Kharn to answer…he’s a troll who just posts to get attention. Mommy didn’t hug him enough! All of his posts are just to get replies so when you ask him to explain his post, he runs. Typical Harford county scum.
Joker, you sure seem worked up about “Kharn.”
Are you a stalker? I think the HCSO would like to know.
Joker,
Not running, just busy making an honest living.
Sometimes people have to work beyond regular hours, but I don’t write on Dagger whining about it.
No big surprise, the link goes to the teacher’s union website.
I don’t understand the issue. If the test is standardized and the test is given to all students, then isn’t this a fair measure of teacher performance? If at an elementary school, and there are two fifth grade classes and one class performs well on the test and the second does poorly, isn’t that an indicator that the first teacher is doing their job well and the second is not? The test is the same for both classes, the variable is the teacher.
This article also states that there are over 200 tests given in Maryland, which equals more than 15 a year. If this is indeed true, what are the others? I have not heard of any other than the Parcc test.
Don’t forget about unproductive students. Im sure HCPS has sensitive, feel good, hit buzzwords to describe the shit heads who just show up to waste time.
You can scream “cultural diversity” all you want, even when chairs are being thrown at you (by the students) in E-wood school. Nowatimsayin?
Of course that doesn’t stop the in-the-closet mantra they secretly spew, that is “everyone goes to college” and the fact the high school diploma is basically, in my opinion, a certification of attendance. You showed up, you pass.
It makes me laugh when parents worry about their kids failing for an absence. It’s a bluff.
Of course in any random post someone has to bash E-Wood. It wouldn’t be the Dagger if you didn’t. However, blaming Obama in your post is missing. Please revise.
I could have said Edgehood?
Hey, buddy, I’m only going by all the “hot” activity that occurs in the Route 40 Corridor.
Of course, uncivilized students exist in all Harford County schools, but you’re more to hear the “F” word more and perhaps, get another chair thrown at you “down there” than “up here.”
Tried to keep it politically correct.
Calculon…
Don’t you think that student background, home environment, parental support, intelligence, etc, are also variables? If you have 25 students in classroom A, and 25 in classroom B, and you want to use a test to decide which teacher is more effective, you would have to guarantee that all other variables are equal in both groups. Can you do that?
If Coach Smith works with a Joey on how to be a quarterback, and Coach Jones works with Johnny, and Joey becomes the starter on the varsity squad, but Johnny gets cut from the team, does that automatically mean that Coach Smith is better than Coach Jones? How about if Joey went home and practiced his tail off, while Johnny went home and played Minecraft? Or maybe Joey is 6′ tall, and Johnny is only 5’6. What do you think? Are there other variables in making a great athlete than just the coach? Or in making a great student than just the teacher?
Well, we could rotate teachers from below I95 to above I95 every two years.
So what you are saying is that if we took the teachers from our best high school and had them exchange places with teachers at our worst, the immediate results would be that our formerly best high school would now be our worst, and vice-versa? That would be an interesting experiment. It would certainly determine if teachers are the sole reason for the scores.
Tell me…how much of your salary would you be willing to bet that this is EXACTLY what would happen? That teachers from say, Fallston, could go to Edgewood and immediately have Edgewood getting the scores that Fallston previously did? And that Fallston would immediately receive the scores that Edgewood did when those teachers were there? How much would you bet?
If you only looked at the IB program? I’d bet my entire salary.
If you looked at the entire Edgewood student body? Zero.
There’s a reason the good magnet programs are at the worst schools.
But it would give every teacher a chance to spend two years at a good school to prove they can produce successful results when given better students. Two years of poor results above I95? You’re fired.
Well, wait a second. You are saying that the teachers are the only factor in student achievement. You want teachers to be evaluated by a test that does not take into account any other factors (if they exist) that effect student learning. But you wouldn’t bet your salary moving teachers from a highly successful school to a poor performing one will immediately turn the poor performing school into a highly successful one? Why not? I thought you believed that teachers are the only factor in student achievement? So why wouldn’t you put money on it?
And you would bet on the IB program, but not on the entire Edgewood student body. Why? Are you suggesting that there might be other factors effecting the learning of kids at Edgewood that may not exist in the IB program?
So when we evaluate teachers, the teachers are the only factor. But if you had to bet money, you immediately made a distinction between the quality of students of one school over the other!
Uh-huh,
Your math in this situation does not make sense. If Joey and Johnny are compared then it is 100% versus 100%.
If there are 25 per students in each class as per your post and a student is a problem then one bad score accounts for only 4% of the total class performance. Students are generally randomly assigned to teachers for homerooms, not all bad performers are placed in one room. In terms of random sampling this would make an accurate assessment of teacher performance if the PARCC tests are equal and the same.
I see…so a random sampling eliminates all other variables other than teacher effectiveness? Interesting…
That’s why you would use a paired sample t-test to compare each student’s knowledge from the beginning of the year vs the end.
Sure. So you would know where the kids were at in the beginning of the year, and see how they progressed. I get it.
So that would create a situation where the only variable in the student’s learning is the teacher? Like, if a student doesn’t make any progress, it is solely because of the teacher, because no other factors effect whether the kid makes progress or not?
Isn’t a teacher supposed to inspire students to learn, regardless of what is going on outside the classroom?
So basically what you are saying is that the only factor that effects student learning is the teacher, because if there are obstacles that effect the student’s learning and the teacher can’t get the kid to rise above it, that is also the teacher’s fault. Therefore, the teacher is the only factor that effects student learning.
Interesting.
So the only factor involved when an obese guy dies of a heart attack is his doctor. Because even if there were other factors involved, like the guy drank way too much and refused to exercise, it was the doctors job to inspire the person to lose weight and live a healthy lifestyle. Since the doctor didn’t do that, he should be sued for malpractice.
I’ve said this before and I will say it again….I won’t take this and previous articles seriously until this group identifies it’s general membership. Is this the opinion of one person, two, thirty? Who is this group?
Now there’s something that’s sure to keep the authors awake all night: worrying over what they need to do to get you to take them seriously. Ambien, anyone?
That’s a question for the school board and whoever else sets graduation requirements and standards. Teachers have nothing to do with that.
And, you really didn’t respond to my statement.
No big surprise, the link goes to the teacher’s union website.
I don’t understand the issue. If the test is standardized and the test is given to all students, then isn’t this a fair measure of teacher performance? If at an elementary school, and there are two fifth grade classes and one class performs well on the test and the second does poorly, isn’t that an indicator that the first teacher is doing their job well and the second is not? The test is the same for both classes, the variable is the teacher.
This article also states that there are over 200 tests given in Maryland, which equals more than 15 a year. If this is indeed true, what are the others? I have not heard of any other than the Parcc test.
In response to this, the teachers are only 1 variable in this equation, the students are the other variable.
Teachers are not teaching 1 lesson a day a class, they are teacher 30 different ones to all 30 different students.
Students have more control over the classroom now than they ever had due to new rules and regulations being created by lawmakers. These new laws are being implemented into every classroom and affecting our classroom, both negatively and positively.
To say the responsibility of each student lies solely on a teachers shoulders is absurd. The students also go home in the afternoon, 1 student may not have parents that force him/her to do any homework. another student may have a family that does not force them to listen to simple rules, 1 student may not even have a home to go to, do you think they care about homework at that point?
Yes, teachers do have a good portion of responsibility to the students learning. However, 20 years ago Teachers taught a lesson and the Students listened, if a student didn’t listen, then they were removed from the classroom and maybe even school. Now a days, the students who do not listen and put no effort into school or instruction is kept in the classroom, distracting all other students and taking away from their peers learning time.
Its just hard to read the criticism of teachers when their is not a true understanding of what they go against each day.
I am not saying teachers should not be criticized or held accountable for their credibility and effectiveness as a teacher. But to be expected to be 100 % accountable for each student is crazy.
Teachers see students 50 -90 minutes a day, depending on what school you are at, its enough to make an impact, good or bad, but not enough to be solely accountable for peoples future.
Hesaidshesaid
I am looking at issue of reviews from a purely scientific/statistical standpoint. With a random sample there will be a bell curve of some students who perform better than others and some will perform worse. In the middle there will be an average. If students are tested using the exact same test, when factoring the results the average test score of an entire class this will tell if a teacher (or school) is effective. One or two poorly performing students will not effect the sample’s average significantly, but many will.
Most people at their jobs have some level of review and standard they must meet. If these tests can not be used, then what should be?
…that schools that serve certain socioeconomic neighborhoods tend to be the failing ones, while the best schools tend to be in the wealthiest neighborhoods? If a random sampling worked the way you claim, the scores shouldn’t consistently be skewed favorably towards the side of wealth, should it? I mean, 25 random kids is 25 random kids, right? Why should there be such a difference between 25 kids in one school and 25 in another?
Or is it that bad teachers just happen to seek out employment in poor school districts, and poor school districts only hire bad teachers?
This applies to this situation as well. Schools in Baltimore and other underserved communities rely heavily on teachers with no to little experience. I have a number of friends who have gotten their start through the Teach for America Program. These teachers have only a few weeks training and a B.A. before they arrive in the classroom. Most stay the required time and then move on to better paying jobs. Less experience means underserved students result in poorer scores overall. I have nothing against Teach for America, I think it is a good program, but it just a stepping stone to a better job elsewhere for most.
I still have not heard what teachers want to use as a meaningful tool for measuring performance if test results are not the answer.
So what you are saying is that these kids are failing ONLY because of the teachers, right? There is nothing else in their life that is contributing to their failure?
Why is it that these schools can’t attract experienced teachers?
Family, religion, moral, ethics, personality, fortitude, and willingness.
All of those you’ll never hear a Public School system describe in the answer why a student fails.
Of course, it’s amazing to me how much a democratic ruled state considers “dumping more money” into say, Baltimore City schools with 1/2 its student population expected to graduate when the cost per student is one of the HIGHEST in the state.
Uh-huh,
You and I are debating two entirely separate issues. My comments are addressing the issues in the above article which is about whether the PARCC test is an accurate assessment of teacher performance. I have not in any of my posts stated anything about homelife of failing students. Of course that may be a factor in some cases, but overall I think that the vast majority of parents are involved in their children’s school and are invested in seeing their children succeed.
I don’t think we are debating two separate issues. You believe that the PARCC assessment is an accurate assessment of teacher performance. To that end, you are stating that teacher performance is the only variable that effects student achievement. I am stating that the PARCC assessment is NOT an accurate assessment of teacher performance, because a wide variety of other variables effect student achievement, such as home life.
If home life IS a factor in student achievement (as you admitted it can be), then the PARCC is not an accurate assessment of teacher performance because it is only considering one variable when others exist that are skewing the results.
As far as your thinking that the majority of parents are involved in their child’s education: that may be true at some schools, but certainly not all. I’m sure you can look around the county and guess which schools have the most parental involvement, and which have the least. Again, you are admitting that parental involvement is a factor in student achievement. Yet, using the PARCC exam to evaluate teacher effectiveness does not take this into account.
HCPS is a mess so why would we expect anything less. It’s a damn shame how screwed up the system is and how the kids are suffering. Cut this, cut that, charge for this and that…while the good ole boys are getting paid. All this testing takes away from classroom instruction and it’s just people making $$$. The tests are BS and everyone knows it. Really sad how this county government, school board…whoever you want to call out has destroyed this school system.
Show me a dumb kid in September, and I’ll show you a dumb kid in June. The tests don’t prove much, and they’re expensive. The schools and teachers can’t do much about them. They can move motivated kids through the process toward a successful education and hopefully a successful future, but that is about all they can do.
The problem is the teachers and administrators also move those “dumb kids” through the process, and their diplomas have the same exact value as the motivated kids’.
Exactly the problem, Kharn. Not really a problem for those of us who hire people, we are too smart to believe having a high school diploma means anything. But it is a problem for the kid. He/she believes it means something and have set their expectations on that belief. But they can’t write legibly, they can’t do simple math, they can’t spell, have no clue regarding grammar. They don’t know geography and can’t manage their lives. So they can’t get or keep a decent job.
But never fear, the Lib-Dems are riding to the rescue and will throw more money at the crisis that they created in return for votes.
Mac,
An uneducated kid will almost never have a successful future. A motivated kid will do whatever it takes.
Certainly hard to argue that. I’m just saying that schools never made someone smart, they can only educate them, and even then, only if they’re motivated at least a little.
We saw some good examples of situations that are out of someone’s control. If someone never brushes or flosses, it would be unfair to blame his dentist for his lousy teeth. It’s the same with blaming schools and teachers for poor education or poor standardized test scores. Some of these kids come from homes where education has no value, and at the dinner table-if they ever sit down together-the parents tell the kids how terrible the teachers are, and that sets the tone.
I have never known a single teacher who wanted to reward a failing student with a passing grade. The pressure comes from administration, who tells the teacher to give the failing student make up work, extra credit, anything so the student can gather enough points to pass, so they can get them up the ladder and out the door. Do a search on “teachers pressured to pass students”, and read.
And it is not limited to public schools, either. I know someone who taught in private school who was called into the principals office and was advised that the failing student’s parent was among the biggest financial donors to the school. She was advised that it was “in your best interest to find a way to make him pass”.
I think it’s really pretty simple. If you want to hold the teacher fully responsible then give them all of the authority.
But they can’t be fully responsible in reality. No one can make a kid learn. Not the teacher, not the school administration and in today’s society apparently not even the parent. But the teacher is the easy target. I do think that there needs to be a fair and impartial way to evaluate the teacher and I believe there are some teachers that aren’t cutting it and need to be weeded out.
But I can tell you that passing every kid on from year to year and then giving them a diploma at the end is one of the most severe forms of child abuse. And building up their self-esteem falsely is just as bad. Don’t we owe our children more than that?
Judy, Judy, Judy.
Personal responsibility? Parental responsibility? Sorry, darling, that is so yesterday. Why one of the little darlings might get their feelings hurt.