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I have an idea why Gates is distancing himself – because once these scores are released (with the caveat that they have large margins of error), the veil will be pulled back on the “objective” nature of the value-added system.

People will see one teacher go from 7th percentile one year to an 87th percentile the next year, then fall down to a 50th percentile the third year, and start to ask “Hey, does this system make sense?  Why are there such swings in the ratings?” 

There is a reason Gates, the DFER’s, the charter school people, and so many other so-called “education reformers” have come out against the publication of these reports just as the UFT and the NYSUT have agreed to a state system wherein test scores are THE determining factor in a teacher’s evaluation (come up “ineffective” on the 40% of the eval based upon test scores, you are declared “ineffective” overall.)

They are afraid it will undo all the hard work they have done to convince the public that VAM is valid, fair and just, that an evaluation system based upon this is “objective” and scientific” (as Cuomo said it is last May during the LIFO fight.)

They are afraid that once VAM and the “objectivity” of a test-based evaluation system get some scrutiny, they will not hold up.

When someone with a big ego loses control over what he started he is going to try and slow down the wave he created. He knows that it really doesn’t work for so many reasons and he is in damage control mode. Hopefully this will be the beginning of the end of the education deformers. We can only hope.

Or maybe he and other ed reformers are trying to stay on the right side of public opinion.  Or perhaps he even genuinely thinks that public release of evaluations is counterproductive.  

I left a message on Leo Casey’s article.  It didn’t get posted.  Shocking!

Gates: A day late and a dollar short. And by the way, got to love the NY Times on Schoolbook: “The ratings are imperfect, according to independent experts, school administrators and teachers alike. There are large margins of error, because they are generally based on small amounts of data. And there are many other documented problems, like teachers being rated even when they are on maternity leave.” Yet they’re going to publish them anyway, and are “inviting” teachers to respond to them. The data does not deserve a response, although I’m sure there are people who will be so upset that they feel they must set the record straight. The whole situation is shameful.

Bill Gates,
You want to improve education by helping destroy the profession that is needed to do the job!

It is too little, too late. You are responsible in setting in motion a process that will take years to stop.
Use your billions to stop poverty.
Sponsor students and pay their tuition in college.

Noticeably absent are remarks from proponents of publishing TDRs. What do Bloomberg, Klein and the editors suing for the information have to say now that every other stake holder has come out against TDR publication? 

They may comment when Stuy Highs Teachers come out at the bottom–u can’t meet AYP if kids are too close to the top—it’s just Math-where do u go from the top?

Wow.  Even Bill Gates is saying, “DON’T release the Kraken.”

(Apologies to Liam Neeson, HT to Nuff Said.)

Gates should have spoken out earlier. For a long time now, people have been saying (eloquently, forcefully, and persasively) that this is a terrible idea.

But even if he had done so, it probably wouldn’t have affected the result. It is a weakness in the law. A publication makes a FOIL request. If the recipient agency does not have legal gronds for refusing to honor the request, then it must comply.

These legal grounds must be reconsidered. The information to be released here is not pure data; it is a judgment of an employee’s effectiveness. The fact that it’s done by formula doesn’t make it less of a judgment. It is biased not only by the formula but also by what the formula excludes. There should be a provision in the law protecting employees against the release of this particular kind of information.

Also, the law needs to be revised in light of the nature of online publications. Information is no longer released to the local community; it is available to the world. Teachers’ ratings will be accessed by potential employers, family members, friends, even dates. Do they need this information? No. Will they use it to good ends? Probably not. The law must include some sort of protection against abuse.

So, the best hope lies in revision of the law. We can’t expect newspapers to refrain from publishing the ratings, now that they have been given the go-ahead to do so. Nor can we place hope in a union lawsuit; the union’s objections have merit but apparently do not hold up under current law. I imagine a deft lawyer could set a precedent through fine interpretation of the current law, but it doesn’t look like the court was willing to do that.

In the meantime, the scores will likely be released, and people will be hurt. That goes for teachers labeled “effective” as well. Flawed, shallow praise can be worse than no praise at all, especially when others are receiving flawed, shallow blame.

My thoughts: I would very much prefer that my scores were not printed in the paper. However, I would have no problem explaining to people that the scores are invalid and flawed. The people who read the papers are not the ones who are responsible for me putting food on the table. The big problem is that with the new evaluation system going into effect, these scores will be used to lay off teachers in the near future. It amazes me that teachers are more concerned with having a flawed scores printed in the newspapers than the fact that these flawed scores can and will be used against them by the DOE. 

What is the average career length of a Teaching Fellow? My school just lost a TF who decided after 4 years to become a massuese.

Let me just say this once again–God bless Gotham Schools for having the integrity to resist doing what the Times, the News, the various local channels, and who knows who else is going to do. 

This is not to say that the DOE did this against its will. It appears that the DOE may even have prodded the media to make the FOIL requests. But the only way to prevent this in the future is to change the law.

Also, a correction: I referred in the last paragraph to the label “effective,” but in the TDRs teachers are classified as “low,” “below average,” “average,” etc.

I understand the concern with this particular case, but I’m not sure that rewriting the law to make government records less accessible to the public is a good idea.  If anything, government should be more transparent, not less.