Someone has to say it!

Stop calling experiments that use value added data “research” unless you are willing to state up front that “the findings you are about to see have absolutely NO VALUE in understanding the complicated work of teaching and learning.”

Just today, EdWeek let us know that,

New teachers become much more effective with a few years of classroom experience, but a working paper by a team of researchers suggests the most—and least—effective elementary teachers show their colors at the very start of their careers.

There is so much about this article to shout about but let’s keep it simple this time.  Using VAMs as indicators that actually tell us if teachers are teaching and students are learning is worthless!  Therefore why waste our time?

And to make this little “story” even more problematic, the author never once brings into question the validity of the study’s findings considering the THICK research available on the problematic nature of using VAMs as teaching and learning indicator!  Nothing.  Not a single mention that the results might be absolutely meaningless given the possibility that VAM scores probably are unreliable and therefore if used over the time of the study, the results of the study are probably meaningless.

Look, I know certain people that stand to gain economically and politically want nothing more than for me to go away and stop raining on their parade.  But I can’t!  I have not added enough value to this disturbing conversation regarding the classification of human interactions into simplistic mathematical formulas that will be used to make unjust personnel decisions.

Or, I refuse to let economists like Tim R. Sass destroy the profession of teaching since he seems to have a limited ability to find real work in his chosen field.

Why go after Tim R. Sass? Because according to EdWeek,

Tim R. Sass, an economics and public-policy research professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, who was not associated with the study….but contends that, if a principal did not keep the teachers identified in the bottom 10 percent of effectiveness because of their value-added effectiveness in their first two years, the school would get rid of 30 percent of the teachers who rate as least effective five years out, and would keep all the teachers who would eventually be rated in the top 10 percent.

He did not recommend outright that districts try that, but said it was something to consider.

So EdWeek, (instead of finding an expert with education credentials that has studied teachers as a career or at least some crack blogger that has documented flaws in VAMs)  uses an economist “not associated with the study” to essentially say, “hey start firing teachers based on value added scores if you feel like it. I don’t necessarily recommend it outright but we can surely give it a try.”

Nice EdWeek. Real Nice!