COMMUNICATING ABOUT EVALUATIONS WITH STUDENT GROWTH MEASURES

1. COMMUNICATING ABOUT EVALUATIONS WITH STUDENT GROWTH MEASURES CCSSO TOPICAL MEETINGRALEIGH, NC Sept. 19, 2013

2. The View from 30,000 Feet

3. Distribution Content 2

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5. 3 Key Questions Who? What? Why?

6. Who? SEA colleagues (“family first”) Teachers/Principals Legislators Media

7. What? New Different Better

8. Why? What’s in it for me?

9. Students at the Center

10. All Roads Lead to Student Success Effective Teaching Standards/curriculum Tests School leadership Data/Accountability

11. All Roads Lead to Student Success Effective Teaching Evaluations Measures Support Feedback Standards/curriculum Tests School leadership Data/Accountability 10

12. How to Discuss Student Growth Models

13. Why are evaluations such a hot-button issue in the first place? Concerns about testing Concerns about lack of control and input Concerns about data-driven accountability Concerns about mechanization of teaching Evals Source: TNTP • Tying student achievement data to evaluations embodies the fears and anxieties that many teachers have about reform and their profession. • Exacerbating factors: • Scary math • High stakes • Little perceived value • Misinformation

14. Value-Added Model: Lessons Learned Source: TNTP

15. Critical Themes • We’re all here to help students learn. • Of all the tools we can use to measure a teacher’s impact on student learning, value-added is the most sophisticated. • Value-added isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t have to be perfect to be useful. • Teaching is complex and can’t possibly be captured in a single measure. • Students of teachers with high VA ratings don’t just do well on tests. Source: TNTP

16. Be Prepared

17. 1. Explain the What

18. Use Visuals To Show How It Works Source: The Los Angeles Times

19. Show How It Captures Gains, Not Just Scores While Student A meets State standards, his value-added score reveals decreasing performance. Conversely, Student B does not meet State standards, but his value-added score reveals improved performance. Source: Chicago Public Schools

20. Show How It Works for Students with Different Starting Points Source: DC Public Schools

21. Attainment MODELWhich gardener has the tallest tree? 72 in. 61 in. Gardener B Gardener A

22. Gain modelWhich gardener’s tree grew the most in the past year? 20 in. 72 in. 14 in. 61 in. 52 in. 47 in. Gardener B Gardener A 2011 2012 2011 2012

23. Value-added modelWhich gardener’s tree grew the most in the past year when accounting for conditions such as rainfall and temperature? +18 in. 72 in. +22 in. 61 in. 52 in. 47 in. Gardener B Gardener A 2011 2012 2011 2012

24. 2. Explain the Why The Gates Foundation’s MET Project says: • Source: Learning about Teaching, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, December 2010

25. Don’t Make the Perfect the Enemy of Good TNTP says: A teacher’s value-added score is comparable to many widely accepted measures of performance in other professions. In order from most stable to least: Baseball Pitchers: Earned run averages, by year Insurance Salespeople: Value of policies sold, by month Baseball Hitters: Batting average, by year Elementary Teachers: Value-added student growth, by year Middle School Teachers: Value-added student growth, by year University Faculty: Student ratings, by semester Securities Analysts: Commissions, by quarter Sources: McCaffrey and Sass, Florida State University, and The RAND Corporation, 2009

26. Comparable Measures Brown Center/Brookings says: SAT/ACT correlations with college success Mortality rates for hospitals and surgeons Volume of home sales for realtors Returns on investment funds Output of sewing machine operators Productivity of utilities’ field-service workers Source: Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings

27. 3. Explain the How Six key steps: Select a measure of student achievement Collect individual achievement scores Determine individual growth Select the external factors Examine the effect of various external factors Calculate individual student growth relative to their comparison group

28. For Example:

29. 4. Anticipate and Combat Resistance

30. Reminder: It’s about the Kids “Framing the problem in terms of false negatives places the focus almost entirely on the interests of the individual who is being evaluated rather than the students who are being served.” —Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings

31. 5. Be Prepared for Questions • Did my child make a year’s worth of progress in a year? Is my child making progress toward state standards? • How can I be creative if student progress is based on test scores? • What percent of a teacher’s evaluation will be based on value-added scores? • How will we evaluate teachers who don’t have them?

32. 5. Be Prepared for Questions Technical questions: • Are we able to connect teachers to student test scores? • Is it possible to show progress with all groups of students? • Who will design the value-added model? Design questions: • What other measures (observation, portfolios, etc.) will be used to evaluate teachers in concert with value-added scores? • How will this affect multiyear tenure (for instance, two-year tenure) if the accuracy of value-added scores improves with three years’ worth of data?

33. Useful Resources Communicating about Evaluations Toolkit http://www.cgcs.org/Page/265 Myths and Facts about Value-Added Analysis — TNTP http://tntp.org/assets/documents/TNTP_FactSheet_ValueAdded_2011.pdf Achieve NJ web site for teachers http://www.state.nj.us/education/AchieveNJ/teacher/overview.shtml

34. Final Thoughts What were your key takeaways from today? How will you use what we discussed in your state?

35. Questions and Discussion

36. Final Thoughts What were your key takeaways from today? How will you use what we discussed in your state?

37. Thank You Adam Kernan-Schlossadam@ksaplus.com