Please follow and like us:

For a recent article in the Houston Chronicle, the newspaper sent 12 current candidates for the Houston Independent School District (HISD) School Board a series of questions about HISD, to which seven candidates responded. The seven candidates’ responses are of specific interest here in that HISD is the district well-known for attaching more higher-stakes consequences to value-added output (e.g., teacher termination) than others (see for example here, here, and here). The seven candidates’ responses are of general interest in that the district uses the popular and (in)famous Education Value-Added Assessment System (EVAAS) for said purposes (see also here, here, and here). Accordingly, what these seven candidates have to say about the EVAAS and/or HISD’s teacher evaluation system might also be a sign of things to come, perhaps for the better, throughout HISD.

The questions are: (1) Do you support HISD’s current teacher evaluation system, which includes student test scores? Why or why not? What, if any, changes would you make? And (2) Do you support HISD’s current bonus system based on student test scores? Why or why not? What, if any, changes would you make? To see candidate names, their background information, their responses to other questions, etc. please read in full the article in the Houston Chronicle.

Here are the seven candidates’ responses to question #1:

• I do not support the current teacher evaluation system. Teacher’s performance should not rely on the current formula using the evaluation system with the amount of weight placed on student test scores. Too many obstacles outside the classroom affect student learning today that are unfair in this system. Other means of support such as a community school model must be put in place to support the whole student, supporting student learning in the classroom (Fonseca).
• No, I do not support the current teacher evaluation system, EVAAS, because it relies on an algorithm that no one understands. Testing should be diagnostic, not punitive. Teachers must have the freedom to teach basic math, reading, writing and science and not only teach to the test, which determines if they keep a job and/or get bonuses. Teachers should be evaluated on student growth. For example, did the third-grade teacher raise his/her non-reading third-grader to a higher level than that student read when he/she came into the teacher’s class? Did the teacher take time to figure out what non-educational obstacles the student had in order to address those needs so that the student began learning? Did the teacher coach the debate team and help the students become more well-rounded, and so on? Standardized tests in a vacuum indicate nothing (Jones).
• I remember the time when teachers practically never revised test scores. Tests can be one of the best tools to help a child identify strengths and weakness. Students’ scores were filed, and no one ever checked them out from the archives. When student scores became part of their evaluation, teachers began to look into data more often. It is a magnificent tool for student and teacher growth. Having said that, I also believe that many variables that make a teacher great are not measured in his or her evaluation. There is nothing on character education for which teachers are greatly responsible. I do not know of a domain in the teacher’s evaluation that quite measures the art of teaching. Data is about the scientific part of teaching, but the art of teaching has to be evaluated by an expert at every school; we call them principals (Leal).
• Student test scores were not designed to be used for this purpose. The use of students’ test scores to evaluate teachers has been discredited by researchers and statisticians. EVAAS and other value-added models are deeply flawed and should not be major components of a teacher evaluation system. The existing research indicates that 10-14 percent of students’ test scores are attributable to teacher factors. Therefore, I would support using student test scores (a measure of student achievement) as no more than 10-14 percent of teachers’ evaluations (McCoy).
• No, I do not support the current teacher evaluation system, which includes student test scores, for the following reasons: 1) High-stakes decisions should not be made based on the basis of value-added scores alone. 2) The system is meant to assess and predict student performance with precision and reliability, but the data revealed that the EVAAS system is inconsistent and has consistent problems. 3) The EVAAS repots do not match the teachers’ “observation” PDAS scores [on the formal evaluation]; therefore, data is manipulated to show a relationship. 4) Most importantly, teachers cannot use the information generated as a formative tool because teachers receive the EVAAS reports in the summer or fall after the students leave their classroom. 5) Very few teachers realized that there was an HISD-sponsored professional development training linked to the EVAAS system to improve instruction. Changes that I will make are to make recommendations and confer with other board members to revamp the system or identify a more equitable system (McCullough).
• The current teacher evaluation system should be reviewed and modified. While I believe we should test, it should only be a diagnostic measure of progress and indicator of deficiency for the purpose of aligned instruction. There should not be any high stakes attached for the student or the teacher. That opens the door for restricting teaching-to-test content and stifles the learning potential. If we have to have it, make it 5 percent. The classroom should be based on rich academic experiences, not memorization regurgitation (Skillern-Jones).
• I support evaluating teachers on how well their students perform and grow, but I do not support high-stakes evaluation of teachers using a value-added test score that is based on the unreliable STAAR test. Research indicates that value-added measures of student achievement tied to individual teachers should not be used for high-stakes decisions or compared across dissimilar student populations or schools. If we had a reliable test of student learning, I would support the use of value-added growth measures in a low-stakes fashion where measures of student growth are part of an integrated analysis of a teacher’s overall performance and practices. I strongly believe that teachers should be evaluated with an integrated set of measures that show what teachers do and what happens as a result. These measures may include meaningful evidence of student work and learning, pedagogy, classroom management, knowledge of content and even student surveys. Evaluators should be appropriately trained, and teachers should have regular evaluations with frequent feedback from strong mentors and professional development to strengthen their content knowledge and practice (Stipeche).

Here are the seven candidates’ responses to question #2:

• I do not support the current bonus system based on student test scores as, again, teachers do not currently have support to affect what happens outside the classroom. Until we provide support, we cannot base teacher performance or bonuses on a heavy weight of test scores (Fonseca).
• No, I do not support the current bonus system. Teachers who grow student achievement should receive bonuses, not just teachers whose students score well on tests. For example, a teacher who closes the educational achievement gap with a struggling student should earn a bonus before a teacher who has students who are not challenged and for whom learning is relatively easy. Teachers who grow their students in extracurricular activities should earn a bonus before a teacher that only focuses on education. Teachers that choose to teach in struggling schools should earn a bonus over a teacher that teaches in a school with non-struggling students. Teachers who work with their students in UIL participation, history fairs, debate, choir, student government and like activities should earn a bonus over a teacher who does not (Jones).
• Extrinsic incentives killed creativity. I knew that from my counseling background, but in 2011 or 2010, Dr. Grier sent an email to school administrators with a link of a TED Talks video that contradicts any notion of giving monetary incentives to promote productivity in the classroom: http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation?language=en. Give incentives for perfect attendance or cooperation among teachers selected by teachers (Leal).
• No. Student test scores were not designed to be used for this purpose. All teachers need salary increases (McCoy).
• No, I do not support HISD’s current bonus system based on student test scores. Student test scores should be a diagnostic tool used to identify instructional gaps and improve student achievement. Not as a measure to reward teachers, because the process is flawed. I would work collaboratively to identify another system to reward teachers (McCullough).
• The current bonus program does, in fact, reward teachers who students make significant academic gains. It leaves out those teachers who have students at the top of the achievement scale. By formulaic measures, it is flawed and the system, according to its creators, is being misused and misapplied. It would be beneficial overall to consider measures to expand the teacher population of recipients as well as to undertake measures to simplify the process if we keep it. I think a better focus would be to see how we can increase overall teacher salaries in a meaningful and impactful way to incentivize performance and longevity (Skillern-Jones).
• No. I do not support the use of EVAAS in this manner. More importantly, ASPIRE has not closed the achievement gap nor dramatically improved the academic performance of all students in the district (Stipeche).

No responses or no responses of any general substance were received from Daniels, Davila, McKinzie, Smith, Williams.