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The council of DC
is charged by law with oversight of the DC Public Schools, not with
defining how DCPS should address the achievement gap or how to tweak the
IMPACT teacher evaluation instrument. I urge you to withdraw this bill. I
urge you, instead, to lead the council in fulfilling its mandated
oversight role by investigating the validity of IMPACT.
This bill incorrectly accepts as fact three false claims made by the two chancellors about IMPACT and teacher incentives: False Claim One: IMPACT accurately differentiates between highly effective, effective, minimally effective and ineffective teachers. False Claim Two: These differentiations are accurate reflections of the growth of learning in the students of the teachers. Please require the chancellor to provide the council (and post on the DCPS web site) the fully documented evidence that support claims one and two. False Claim Three: As Roland Fryer, the Harvard economist who studied monetary incentives wrote: "Providing incentives to teachers [based in part on students’ performance on standardized tests] did not increase student achievement in any statistically meaningful way. If anything, student achievement declined." As you know, Prof. Fryer backed out of evaluating the DCPS IMPACT, because the chancellor would not agree to allow random assignment of teachers into "treatment" and "control" groups. Notice the double standard: The two chancellors were uncompromising in using the federal law that excludes teacher evaluations from DCPS-WTU contract negotiations; however, when the chancellor was asked to submit IMPACT to an objective evaluation of its validity (or whether it accurately measures what it says it measures), whose procedures and outcome she could not control, she refused. If IMPACT were the accurate measure of teacher effectiveness that is claimed for it, why did the chancellor terminate teachers with "effective" or "highly effective" evaluations just because no principal would agree to place them? (Note: The contract with the WTU allows, but does not require, principals to make the final decision in placing a teacher. That authority remains with the chancellor.) Why does the chancellor terminate teachers with two "minimally effective" evaluations (two strikes and you’re out!), when it takes three to five years to become effective? Why is there no commitment to nurture a promising teacher, who may have been stuck with a particularly unprofessional principal or difficult class of students? Since a principal is given the authority under the "mutual consent" provision of the DCPS-WTU contract to accept a teacher, why is the principal not held accountable for teachers with low scores in the ineffective or minimally effective range and only gets credit for retaining teachers with scores of 300 or higher? See http://tinyurl.com/6rqsr4m (pp. 8, 39)? Why does the chancellor allow principals of schools like Ron Brown MS, Phelps ACE HS and Columbia Heights EC to maintain toxic, intimidating, and even abusive anti-teacher environments that lead many of our promising first and second year teachers to resign? At Phelps, since August 2010, twenty-six teachers, counselors, and support staff, almost half the faculty and professional support staff left, all but six by resigning or transferring, including the entire science and guidance departments: Twelve in their first year at Phelps, twelve in their second year, seventeen in their first or second year in DCPS. Six resigned during SY 2010-11, and four have left since the start of SY 2011-12. On June 16, 2011, on the occasion of Chancellor Henderson’s confirmation hearing, as building representative of Phelps, I testified before the Council. I described the principal’s disregard of DCMR regulations and contract provisions, and I read excerpts of two letters that two female faculty members (who had resigned during the school year) had written to the chancellor, describing the principal’s abusive and intimidating treatment of them and other female faculty members. The chancellor’s response: Make him a role model for other principals by using his picture in the principals’ IMPACT booklet (above link, p.15). At Columbia Heights EC, since September 2009, over 140 teachers have resigned or were fired? Every year about a half dozen or more quit in the middle of the year. Rather than hold the principal accountable for failing to retain teachers, the chancellor lauded her with the first, so-called Excellence in Leadership Award for being “an outstanding, dedicated and exemplary DCPS principal and awarded $10,000.” Bestowing public and stakeholder honors on a principal who treats teachers disrespectfully is a public slap in the face of teachers. With the great emphasis placed on “attracting and keeping great teachers,” why does the chancellor support and laud principals who are unable to retain excellent teachers? The logic behind IMPACT is similar to the Pentagon’s strategy during the War in Vietnam, where glowing promises of success rested upon a fundamental misunderstanding of Vietnam and rapidly eroding support at home. When the US backed government could not “win the hearts and minds of the people,” the Pentagon created a statistic from data it could control and manipulate into a short-lived illusion of success: The Body Count. The foundation partners that shower “highly effective” teachers with bonuses and praise require a quid pro quo that serves as proxy evidence of reform. The annual firing, “excessing” and forced retirement of hundreds of teachers is the body count sustains the illusion of progress and their support. The donors won’t question the validity of the IMPACT formula or its implementation, because they share the belief that teachers are the decisive factor in student performance and, therefore, responsible when students fail. They are now the silent, but real, stakeholders of DCPS. Like the Supreme Court justices in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) who chose to be blind to evidence that “separate” was the barrier against “equal,” these silent stakeholder-partners prefer the illusion to the real world of DCPS classrooms. The members of the Council, however – and the mayor - have a responsibility to distinguish illusion from reality. To do so, it must authorize a thorough and independent review of IMPACT and the chancellor’s policy of wanton teacher terminations. The Council needs to aggressively implement its oversight responsibility by asking the hard questions that give life to the principle of separation of powers. Video of testimony at http://oct.dc.gov/services/on_demand_video/channel13/January2012/01_23_12_COW.asx. My testimony is at the very end: 2:20:55 to 2:24:30. After the screen comes up, move the little blue cursor ball (in the channel directly under the screen) way over to the right until you come to 2:20:55. Addendum 1: 2011-12 IMPACT Guidebook for SCHOOL LEADERS: Principals Teacher Retention (TR) This component measures your ability to retain teachers with an IMPACT score of 300 or higher. To account for some natural turnover, DCPS set a goal for principals to retain 70% of teachers with an IMPACT score of 300 or higher on their annual IMPACT evaluation.
Addendum 2: Columbia Heights: Some references Columbia Heights EC Blogs (some of many; these also include replies that disagree with the criticisms) http://teachbad.com/2011/08/18/teachbad-and-jay-mathews-part-i/ http://thewashingtonteacher.blogspot.com/2009/06/rhee-delivers-mass-terminations-of-dc.html http://www.anurbanteacherseducation.com/2010/04/more-teacher-prepare-to-leave-columbia.html http://www.anurbanteacherseducation.com/2010/09/jay-matthews-puts-me-on-blast-maria.html Addendum 3: Phelps Departures (p. 4) |
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