January 26, 2008

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Apologies Or Apologists? More On Tweed’s “Value Added” Pilot Project

Filed under: Education NYC DOE Teaching Testing by Leo Casey @ 8:18 pm

Over at the Quick and the Ed, Kevin Carey offers to apologize to us for Ed Sector’s caricatures of our arguments on Tweed’s “value added” pilot project. But Carey is unwilling to take us at our word, not prepared to accept that we meant what we said when we wrote that value added measures “hold promise as an useful tool in the repertoire of schools and educators,” and that “the way in which [value added] is being recklessly pursued by Tweed will cast discredit on the entire enterprise.” He knows our true intentions better than we do. To prove our bona fides, he insists that we answer a series of hypothetical questions about possible uses of value-added measures.

Let’s cut to the chase here. Rather than discuss what the UFT might do, let’s talk about what the UFT has already done, barely more than three months ago. We negotiated a school wide bonus plan with targets that will include school progress on a number of different fronts, from standardized test scores to promotion to graduation. In short, we agreed to the use of a number of “value added” measures. Since the bonuses were school based, the fundamental flaws of the DoE’s “value added” pilot project were not present.

Of course, Ed Sector may not want to take our word about the school wide bonuses either. So here’s what one commentator, a person no one would mistake as an apologist for the UFT, had to say:

Kudos to the United Federation of Teachers and the management of New York City Schools for announcing a new merit pay plan yesterday. This is… an important moment, coming from the cradle of teacher unionism and the nation’s biggest school district. It’s easy enough for people like me to harangue union leaders about merit pay, but a lot harder to hammer out agreements in real-world political settings that meet the needs and priorities of rank-and-file teachers. I hope it works well, and that the meritorious schools and teachers in New York get the additional pay they surely deserve.

Another commentator, even less likely to be thought of as a friend of teacher unions, wrote this:

My own take is that you can’t pay people enough to work in crappy schools but that money is one tool in the toolbox, along with good leadership, clear expectations, and real support to create the kind of environment that talented people want to be in and will thrive in. And recognizing and rewarding achievement is a smart thing for any profession to do. But, as I’ve written in the past, for this to be effective it has to be something done for teachers rather than to teachers. This plan tries to do that.

The first commentator was Ed Sector’s Kevin Carey, the second Ed Sector’s Andy Rotherham. Of course, this was in October — before the January emails came flying down I-95 from Tweed to the offices of Ed Sector, asking their most loyal advocates to once again carry their water in the educational blogosphere, this time on a “value added” pilot project that a number of Tweed officials have conceded in private is seriously flawed.

We won’t hold our breathe waiting for an apology. But we will point out that not only do Kevin Carey and Andy Rotherham owe one to us, they owe one to Kevin Carey and Andy Rotherham.

4 Comments »

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  • Leo,

    if we encouraged members in ’schoolwide bonus’ schools to support equal distribution of the $, there would be no problem.

    But since we did not, what are they going to look at? Well, many are good union people, and will try to divide equally anyhow.

    But principals will bring in… that same lousy data, and this:

    Since the bonuses were school based, the fundamental flaws of the DoE’s “value added” pilot project were not present.

    is clearly mistaken. There is probably even greater chance of raw numbers being abused.

    Jonathan

    Comment by jd2718 — January 27, 2008 @ 9:44 am

  • [...] Leo, If we encouraged members in ’schoolwide bonus’ schools to support equal distribution of the $, there would be no problem. But since we did not, what are they going to look at? Well, many are good union people, and will try to divide equally anyhow. But principals will bring in… that same lousy data, and this: Since the bonuses were school based, the fundamental flaws of the DoE’s “value added” pilot project were not present… is clearly mistaken. There is probably even greater chance of raw numbers being abused. -Jonathan Comment section of Edwize [...]

    Pingback by Sunday links. « PREA Prez — January 27, 2008 @ 12:49 pm

  • Jonathan:

    The question of how the bonus is distributed is a separate question from whether or not the school meets the metrics to receive the bonus.

    My argument was about the latter — that insofar as the measures were for the entire school, the problems with figuring out the effect of individual teachers and with the distribution of students among individual teachers were not pertinent. In other words, the school wide bonuses were well-aligned with the state of development of “value added” and our ability to identify student progress.

    I have more confidence than you do in the ability of schools to see the wisdom of equal shares of the bonuses. But this will become an empirical question, and we will be able to see which judgment was more correct.

    Comment by Leo Casey — January 27, 2008 @ 4:05 pm

  • But if we agreed that there is wisdom (and fairness!) in equal division, why weren’t we advocating it? The UFT’s recommendation would have been powerful.

    When there’s a chance to speak to fairness, let’s not be silent.

    Jonathan

    Comment by jd2718 — February 9, 2008 @ 2:14 pm

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