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Philissa Cramer,

“… we’ve never been able to cover every single story we think merits coverage…”

No, but there’s more than enough time and space to give disproportionate coverage to a front organizations like ME$ME, with reporting that’s half-a-step removed from recycling their press releases. As you know, I have on several occasions written in great detail about how GS subtly and not-so-subtly validates their premises, without ever receiving a response. Apparently, that did not rise to Elizabeth Greeen’s exalted criteria of “constructive feedback.”

And, Elizabeth Green, it doesn’t have to be a conspiracy (which is the tired, default, attack-the-messenger defense when propaganda posing as reportage is pointed out), merely an uncritical, opportunistic consensus that validates the carefully marketed (but grossly deceptive) narrative of self-proclaimed ed reform.

Look up Edward Bernays and his ideas and efforts in engineering consent: it might provide a mirror to much of what gets published on this and other sites. Or would that undermine comfortable illusions of “responsible, objective” journalism?

Superteach2005, I assume you are addressing this to me, so I will respond. I am not part of E4E, so I can’t speak for them. I’m only pointing out that their report makes policy recommendations that would make teacher evaluations more substantive. It may be that they did not take into account recommendations that would make sense at a secondary level. Could you elucidate what recommendations are lacking in this regard?

I’m confused by your question of “has the union give you the right to make policy”? The union serves to protect my rights as a worker. They do not constrain my rights as a citizen. I and any other citizen who has a viewpoint on policy has a right to speak up for what policies we believe will make for a better educational system. If I or any other chooses to speak up on matters of policy, it doesn’t mean I believe I know it all–it means that I believe my voice is worth being heard.

There’s a dangerous subtext to your comment, in that you seem to suggest that teachers who do not defer to the political position of their unions should fall into line. Teachers have many different perspectives on educational policy, and they have a right to voice it as individuals in a democratic nation. And they have a right to try to influence policy and make their voices heard in any manner that they feel is most effective.

I became involved in drafting a set of policy recommendations through an online forum called VIVA (http://vivateachers.org), and through this process of collaborating with other teachers and advocating for good policy — beyond polemical stances — I and other teachers I worked with felt extremely empowered as individual voices. As teachers, we differed on many issues, but ultimately created a set of recommendations that were pretty solid (I’m biased, obviously) and that aligns somewhat with what E4E has created, though I disagree, as previously stated, with the use of an outside observer.

Let’s debate policy recommendations on the basis of their merit and substance, not as to where their perceived political affiliations may lie. If it’s good policy, then it can make a big impact on our classrooms. And teachers are the ones who know best what will make for good policy. We need to get involved in any way we can.

Mark,

One of the other suggestions was using mentors instead of outside
observers or peers.   The goal in any of the systems is to have some
sort of check and balance on a principal (or dept. chair, etc) making
capricious teacher ratings.   Hopefully we can turn observations into
ways for teachers to grow, rather than the current system where they’re
helpful to no one.

As you pointed out, the idea that any dissenting voice makes the union weaker and should be demonized is ridiculous.   I’ve been to a talk by Mulgrew and he explicitly said that he was in support of more substantive teacher ratings.  

Finally, although it won’t be believed by many people here, there is no monetary incentive to joining any E4E policy team.   Just like there’s no incentive to take an active roll in the union; we each attempt to help in whichever way we feel best.  

well you made a good point to start secondary level  people were omitted because of what reason???? Ill tell you why because this whole issue has been raised by elementary people who really have little or no experience at any level.

You are making policies that should be a part of the uft negociations. THis group is trying to backdoor the union with the backing of Bloomberg who has stepped on peoples rights from the first day he was elected. This group has taken money from Bill Gates who wants to destroy public education in this country.
 You think these recommendation are pretty solid huh? You are the laughing stock of the education world.Truthfully you should be embarrased to be part of all this.

Without knowing the politics and various stakeholder positions, I would like to offer a thought about teacher observations. There are three types of data collected in observations: descriptive, inferential, and evaluative. Descriptive data include timer and counter data such as class learning time, number and level of questions asked, student time on task, number and types of praise statements, number of interactions by gender or race or primary language, etc, etc. This type of data is the most valid and reliable, is easy to collect with the right tools (see recommendation below), and is the basis for defensible decision making.

Inferential data is a summary of the descriptive behaviors in a class, and is typically recorded with a checklist (and most often without actually collecting the descriptive data). An observer scans the room and checks ‘students were engaged’, ‘teacher was positive’, 
‘teacher responded to misbehaviors’. Observer bias and intra/inter-rater reliability are significant issues.

Evaluative data is where an observer mentally summarizes the descriptive behaviors (without recording) and applies external or internal criteria of value to the summary. These are typically a scale of Poor to Distinguished, or Unsatisfactory, Emerging, Practicing, Accomplished; etc. Problems with validity and reliability become extreme.

As long as teacher evaluations are based, even in part, on inferential and evaluative data collected in classroom observations there will be broad dissent and distrust. The descriptive data is the key to fair evaluations – what is actually happening in the classroom with the context of the teaching taken into account (size of class, number of SpEd students, quality of materials/technology available, etc). The record of descriptive behaviors is the basis for the summary and fair evaluations, and must be collected for the system to work.

My recommendation: after 30 years in teaching and teacher education, I developed software to make the collection of descriptive data easy and accurate. Please explore the eCOVE Observation Software (www.ecove.net). And please understand that I am not a business person trying to get rich from education; I am an educator trying to develop and improve tools that will honestly help the classroom teacher for the benefit of my grandchildren.

Feel free to contact me directly. I’d love to discuss the Data-Based Observation Model with you.   

John Tenny, Ph.D.
john@ecove.net