[NOTE: The following testimony was submitted by MCEA to the State Board of Education.]
While we appreciate that the intent of these regulations is to improve student achievement and teacher performance in Maryland, we have concerns that we hope you will consider prior to enacting these regulations. The most important one has not, we believe, even been realized by those who drafted these regulations.
Currently, students take the HSA and MSA tests in seven of their 13 years in public schools in Maryland. These tests are administered over the course of seven days. Most students are engaged in taking the test for a half day on four of those seven days. The proposed regulations would double the amount of state testing to which students are subjected to include every grade level in elementary school. At the secondary level, the regulations would more than quadruple the amount of state testing for students in a traditional seven period day from six in middle school and four in high school to twenty one in middle school and twenty eight in high school. Although the increase in testing envisioned in these regulations is not spelled out specifically, the intent is there. The regulations call for teachers’ evaluations to include a student growth component every year. The regulations make clear that the HSA and MSA test results will be used for the teachers who teach those grades and subject areas. In order for the evaluation system to be fair, equivalent tests will have to be developed and implemented in all grades and subjects not included in the HSA and MSA tests- otherwise the evaluation system for one set of teachers will be vastly different from the rest. Such an evaluation system would be untenable. Does the state Board of Education truly believe that students would benefit from an increase in testing of this scope and magnitude? Is the State Board prepared to explain this increase to parents and students? The increase is even more astounding given the fact that students do not directly benefit from the results of the HSA and MSA tests. The results are received by schools after the year has concluded and the students have moved onto the next grade. Is it conceivable that increasing testing in this way would result in anything other than even more lag time between the administration of the tests and the results being returned to schools and students?
Also at issue is the loss of instructional time that would result from such an increase in testing. Teachers, parents, and students have been alarmed by time already lost to test preparation and administration under the current regime of tests mandated by NCLB. Tests cannot and should not replace active learning time engaged with one’s peers under the guidance of a highly skilled teacher. There is a significant risk of demoralizing those students who these regulations ostensibly seek to benefit the most- poor and highly mobile students. These students already perform below their peers on such tests- an increase in the number of these tests would lead to greater disengagement from school at a time when we are focused on reducing dropout rates and when earning a high school diploma is even more critical to a child’s future.
Beyond the effect on students, many issues regarding the use of standardized tests for teacher evaluation exist. Primary among these is the fact the tests being considered for use in teacher evaluation are not intended to be used nor are they suited for that purpose. A briefing paper issued on August 29, 2010 by the Economic Policy Institute entitled “Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers” and coauthored by nine nationally recognized researchers on education policy states:
Most secondary school teachers, all teachers in kindergarten, first, and second grades and some teachers in grades three through eight do not teach courses in which students are subject to external tests of the type needed to evaluate test score gains. And even in the grades where such gains could, in principle, be measured, tests are not designed to do so. Value-added measurement of growth from one grade to the next should ideally utilize vertically scaled tests, which most states (including large states like New York and California) do not use. In order to be vertically scaled, tests must evaluate content that is measured along a continuum from year to year. Following an NCLB mandate, most states now use tests that measure grade-level standards only and, at the high school level, end-of-course examinations, neither of which are designed to measure such a continuum.
The paper goes on to note concerns in numerous areas including statistical misidentification of effective teachers, disincentives for teachers to work with the neediest students, and less teacher collaboration.
In an interesting note, the paper states that:
There is no perfect way to evaluate teachers. However, progress has been made over the last two decades in developing standards-based evaluations of teaching practice, and research has found that the use of such evaluations by some districts has not only provided more useful evidence about teaching practice, but has also been associated with student achievement gains and has helped teachers improve their practice and effectiveness.
Such systems exist in the state of Maryland, notably in the comprehensive Teacher Professional Growth System used successfully in Montgomery County for 10 years. Such systems document the actual classroom performance of a teacher and offer structured support to help a teacher improve. If improvement does not occur at a level sufficient to meet the rigorous standards we have set, a teacher faces non-renewal or dismissal. Our system has helped thousands of teachers improve their craft in their first year of teaching (as we include all novice teachers in our Peer Assistance and Review program automatically) as well as teachers in their thirtieth year of teaching. This system is accepted, indeed embraced, by the teachers of Montgomery County because it is perceived as fair. Given the questions about every aspect of using standardized test results in the way these regulations propose, would the new teacher evaluation system ever be perceived as fair? It is unlikely.
Finally, the proposed regulations go well beyond the Education Reform Act of 2010. It is clear that the governor and the legislature debated and rejected the arbitrary percentages that student growth is to count in a teacher’s evaluation that are included in the regulations. The Board of Education should not and cannot supersede the will of the legislature.
Doug Prouty, MCEA President
Monday, August 30, 2010
Race To The Test
Last week brought news that the U.S. Department of Education had selected Maryland as one of ten finalists in the administration’s Race To The Top (RTTT) grant competition. This caught most observers by surprise. The common wisdom over the last 12 months has been that Maryland had little chance of winning. The machinations between the State Superintendent of Education, the leadership of the General Assembly, the Governor’s Office, and local boards of education have been more focused on trying not to get blamed if and when the state’s application fell short.
Now that Maryland actually will receive $250 million dollars in new federal education aid, it’s long past time for the public to understand what was proposed in the 600+ page Maryland Race To The Top Application.
To start with – fully 50% of the federal aid will never get out the door of the Maryland State Department of Education. The grant proposal – written by MSDE – only provides for 50% of the money to go directly to local school systems. For those taxpayers concerned about bureaucratic bloat in state and federal government – the RTTT grant is a massive increase in MSDE’s budget.
To fulfill the promises made in the Maryland RTTT application, the state government will have to implement a massive expansion of standardized testing in our schools. The State Superintendent’s plan to require that teacher evaluations be formulaically linked to student tests scores will – by necessity – mean new tests in all subjects and in all grade levels. It apparently will also mean a completely new set of assessments at the beginning of each year, in order to provide the baseline data needed to measure student growth in a value-added measurement system.
If you are concerned about the amount of school time spent on testing and on test prep; you ain’t seen nothing yet.
This may hit our youngest students first; as the state expands the required Maryland State Assessments (MSAs) down into second grade, first grade, and kindergarten: testing three to five year old children every year. But it will also mean new standardized tests in all subject areas in middle schools and high schools. And what about those art teachers? One can only imagine how the State Department of Education will develop a standardized, multiple choice test for that one. But in MSDE’s vision, all teachers – including the art teacher – have to have their performance evaluations formulaically linked to standardized tests in order to judge their effectiveness.
Say goodbye to creativity in the classroom. No time for that guest speaker, that field trip to the museum, that National History Day project, that student art show or concert performance, or that wonderful novel that’s not in the state curriculum. The focus in every subject and in every grade will be on memorizing the information that will be on the state multiple choice test.
One of the many ironies here is that not too long ago, Maryland had an earlier state testing system – the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) that actually required a degree of student writing. But it proved to be too expensive, and it took too long to read and score hundreds of thousands of essays and short answers, so Maryland (like most states) decided it was cheaper and quicker to just rely on multiple choice tests that can be graded by machines. And now we’re going to have more of them.
For all the attention that the Race To The Top has received from the media and educational pundits, little notice has been given to the $179 million Maryland received the week before as a result of the federal Education Jobs Bill. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 98% of that money is passed straight through to local schools, and is to be used to “save or create education jobs” at the local school level.
Montgomery County Public Schools will get $19 million from the Education Jobs bill. I’m proud to say that the National Education Association – MCEA’s national affiliate – was one of the prime movers behind passage of this bill. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill will prevent the layoff of close to 160,000 classroom teachers nationwide. No new bureaucracies, no new mandated tests and curriculum. Just lower class sizes.
Unless the County Council tries to divert these funds to non-education programs, this money should minimize further cuts in next year’s MCPS budget.
The Montgomery County Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools declined to sign on to Maryland's RTTT application. That was the right thing to do. The teacher evaluation system in Montgomery County has been profiled in numerous national publications. The Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) Program – like those it was modeled on in Toledo and Rochester – is increasingly held up as a model for reform of teacher evaulation systems. Several states have begun to either create incentives for peer evaluation systems or even mandate them.
Montgomery County simply wanted assurance that its locally developed, effective teacher evaluation system not be upended by new state mandates. MSDE refused.
But Montgomery County isn’t the only group questioning the state’s plans. The Frederick County Board of Education also refused to sign on. In fact, leading education researchers across the nation are criticizing the drive to link teacher evaluations to student test scores. The Washington Post’s education blogger – Valerie Strauss – had a recent column about a major new research report that questions the proposed linkage of teacher evaluations to student test scores as statistically inappropriate.
And - significant questions are being raised by the Maryland General Assembly.
Last winter, the General Assembly passed the Education Reform Act of 2010. This was seen as the state legislature’s move to look as if they supported the Race To The Top application, so they wouldn’t be blamed if and when it lost. The Act called for ‘significant portion’ of a teacher’s evaluation to be determined by student growth data. Yet the proposed MSDE regulations go way beyond that, calling for 50% of a teacher’s evaluation to be determined by this data. The General Assembly specifically rejected a proposal to specify that 50% of a teacher's evaluation should be linked to student test scores.
The Education Reform Act charged the State Board of Education to develop "general standards" for performance evaluations which specifically stating that county Boards of Education were charged with establishing the actual evaluation criteria. It's hard to see how MSDE's 50% number can be described as a "general" standard. It sure sounds pretty specific to me.
Whether the new General Assembly will approve the proposed MSDE regulations, and whether they will take further action to ensure that MSDE follows the intent of the 2010 law, are yet to be seen. When – and whether - the Governor will step in to provide his own leadership on education is also a question.
Let’s just hope that some sanity is restored before we turn our schools into even more obsessive testing factories and our students are subjected to even more tests which do not contribute to their learning.
Tom Israel, MCEA Executive Director
Now that Maryland actually will receive $250 million dollars in new federal education aid, it’s long past time for the public to understand what was proposed in the 600+ page Maryland Race To The Top Application.
To start with – fully 50% of the federal aid will never get out the door of the Maryland State Department of Education. The grant proposal – written by MSDE – only provides for 50% of the money to go directly to local school systems. For those taxpayers concerned about bureaucratic bloat in state and federal government – the RTTT grant is a massive increase in MSDE’s budget.
To fulfill the promises made in the Maryland RTTT application, the state government will have to implement a massive expansion of standardized testing in our schools. The State Superintendent’s plan to require that teacher evaluations be formulaically linked to student tests scores will – by necessity – mean new tests in all subjects and in all grade levels. It apparently will also mean a completely new set of assessments at the beginning of each year, in order to provide the baseline data needed to measure student growth in a value-added measurement system.
If you are concerned about the amount of school time spent on testing and on test prep; you ain’t seen nothing yet.
This may hit our youngest students first; as the state expands the required Maryland State Assessments (MSAs) down into second grade, first grade, and kindergarten: testing three to five year old children every year. But it will also mean new standardized tests in all subject areas in middle schools and high schools. And what about those art teachers? One can only imagine how the State Department of Education will develop a standardized, multiple choice test for that one. But in MSDE’s vision, all teachers – including the art teacher – have to have their performance evaluations formulaically linked to standardized tests in order to judge their effectiveness.
Say goodbye to creativity in the classroom. No time for that guest speaker, that field trip to the museum, that National History Day project, that student art show or concert performance, or that wonderful novel that’s not in the state curriculum. The focus in every subject and in every grade will be on memorizing the information that will be on the state multiple choice test.
One of the many ironies here is that not too long ago, Maryland had an earlier state testing system – the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP) that actually required a degree of student writing. But it proved to be too expensive, and it took too long to read and score hundreds of thousands of essays and short answers, so Maryland (like most states) decided it was cheaper and quicker to just rely on multiple choice tests that can be graded by machines. And now we’re going to have more of them.
For all the attention that the Race To The Top has received from the media and educational pundits, little notice has been given to the $179 million Maryland received the week before as a result of the federal Education Jobs Bill. According to the U.S. Department of Education, 98% of that money is passed straight through to local schools, and is to be used to “save or create education jobs” at the local school level.
Montgomery County Public Schools will get $19 million from the Education Jobs bill. I’m proud to say that the National Education Association – MCEA’s national affiliate – was one of the prime movers behind passage of this bill. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill will prevent the layoff of close to 160,000 classroom teachers nationwide. No new bureaucracies, no new mandated tests and curriculum. Just lower class sizes.
Unless the County Council tries to divert these funds to non-education programs, this money should minimize further cuts in next year’s MCPS budget.
The Montgomery County Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools declined to sign on to Maryland's RTTT application. That was the right thing to do. The teacher evaluation system in Montgomery County has been profiled in numerous national publications. The Peer Assistance and Review (PAR) Program – like those it was modeled on in Toledo and Rochester – is increasingly held up as a model for reform of teacher evaulation systems. Several states have begun to either create incentives for peer evaluation systems or even mandate them.
Montgomery County simply wanted assurance that its locally developed, effective teacher evaluation system not be upended by new state mandates. MSDE refused.
But Montgomery County isn’t the only group questioning the state’s plans. The Frederick County Board of Education also refused to sign on. In fact, leading education researchers across the nation are criticizing the drive to link teacher evaluations to student test scores. The Washington Post’s education blogger – Valerie Strauss – had a recent column about a major new research report that questions the proposed linkage of teacher evaluations to student test scores as statistically inappropriate.
And - significant questions are being raised by the Maryland General Assembly.
Last winter, the General Assembly passed the Education Reform Act of 2010. This was seen as the state legislature’s move to look as if they supported the Race To The Top application, so they wouldn’t be blamed if and when it lost. The Act called for ‘significant portion’ of a teacher’s evaluation to be determined by student growth data. Yet the proposed MSDE regulations go way beyond that, calling for 50% of a teacher’s evaluation to be determined by this data. The General Assembly specifically rejected a proposal to specify that 50% of a teacher's evaluation should be linked to student test scores.
The Education Reform Act charged the State Board of Education to develop "general standards" for performance evaluations which specifically stating that county Boards of Education were charged with establishing the actual evaluation criteria. It's hard to see how MSDE's 50% number can be described as a "general" standard. It sure sounds pretty specific to me.
Whether the new General Assembly will approve the proposed MSDE regulations, and whether they will take further action to ensure that MSDE follows the intent of the 2010 law, are yet to be seen. When – and whether - the Governor will step in to provide his own leadership on education is also a question.
Let’s just hope that some sanity is restored before we turn our schools into even more obsessive testing factories and our students are subjected to even more tests which do not contribute to their learning.
Tom Israel, MCEA Executive Director
Monday, August 23, 2010
Welcome New Educators!
Last week, almost 400 new teachers and other professional educators began work in MCPS. MCEA President Doug Prouty helped welcome them to "New Educator Orientation" last Monday. On Wednesday, scores of new educators came by MCEA's Information Table at the NEO Info Fair: turning in membership cards, signing up for the Sick Leave Bank, and asking questions about member benefits. And on Thursday, they all participated in MCEA's 'Welcome to MCEA' workshop.
Many thanks to MCEA members Jodi Braz, Lauri Friedman, Deborah Menke, Estelle Moore, Lauren Moskowitz, Veronica Peirson, Mavis Ellis, Andrea Robinson, Phyllis Parks-Robinson, Amy Watkins, and Eboni Walker who led the MCEA workshops.
Any new educators who have not joined MCEA - and the Sick Leave Bank - are encouraged to do so as soon as possible. Sick Leave Bank benefits are available just four months after joining - provided you join the Bank within 90 days of starting work with MCPS. If you wait to join up, you will face a 12 month waiting period before you can apply for benefits.
To join MCEA, either 1) talk with the MCEA Building Rep at your school or worsite, 2) contact Jackie Thompson, MCEA's Membership Coordinator, or 3) join online through the NEA website.
We also encourage all new educators to go to the special New Members page of the MCEA website. There you will find the MCEA Welcome Packet, enrollment forms for MCEA and for the Sick Leave Bank, as well as other useful information as you start your career in MCPS and MCEA.
Tom Israel, MCEA Executive Director
Many thanks to MCEA members Jodi Braz, Lauri Friedman, Deborah Menke, Estelle Moore, Lauren Moskowitz, Veronica Peirson, Mavis Ellis, Andrea Robinson, Phyllis Parks-Robinson, Amy Watkins, and Eboni Walker who led the MCEA workshops.
Any new educators who have not joined MCEA - and the Sick Leave Bank - are encouraged to do so as soon as possible. Sick Leave Bank benefits are available just four months after joining - provided you join the Bank within 90 days of starting work with MCPS. If you wait to join up, you will face a 12 month waiting period before you can apply for benefits.
To join MCEA, either 1) talk with the MCEA Building Rep at your school or worsite, 2) contact Jackie Thompson, MCEA's Membership Coordinator, or 3) join online through the NEA website.
We also encourage all new educators to go to the special New Members page of the MCEA website. There you will find the MCEA Welcome Packet, enrollment forms for MCEA and for the Sick Leave Bank, as well as other useful information as you start your career in MCPS and MCEA.
Tom Israel, MCEA Executive Director
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