The 21st Century Principal

I have posted about some Mac blogging software options before. Recently, I stumbled upon Desk, which offers some features totally unlike the other blogging options available. Desk is an interesting writing app for Mac users. It offers writers a distraction-free place for writing blogposts. The main features of this app are:

• Currently supports several platforms including: Blogger, Wordpress, Tumblr, Squarespace, Movable Type, and Typepad.
• Clean, distraction-free interface.
• Assorted writing modes such as full-screen, transparency, day & night, and floating.
• Save your work locally or in iCloud.
• Automatic backups.
• Manage multiple blogs on multiple platforms.
• Access and update existing posts and drafts.

Desk App Day & Night View

As a Mac user, I have been searching for blogging software, and Desk is an interesting and functional option.

“A VAM (Value-Added Model) score may provide teachers and administrators with information on their students’ performance and identify areas where improvement is needed, but it does not provide information on how to improve the teaching.” American Statistical Association

Today, I spent a little time looking over the American Statistical Association’s "ASA Statement on Using Value-Added Models for Educational Assessment.” That statement serves as a reminder to school leaders regarding what these models can and cannot do. Here, in North Carolina and in other states, as school leaders begin looking at  No Child Left Behind Waiver-imposed value added rankings on teachers, they would do well to remind themselves of the cautions describe by ASA last April. Here’s some really poignant reminders from that statement:

• “Estimates from VAMs should always be accompanied by measures of precision and a discussion of the assumptions and possible limitations of the model. These limitations are particularly relevant if VAMs are used for high-stakes purposes.”
• “VAMs are generally based on standardized test scores, and do not directly measure potential teacher contributions toward other student outcomes.”
• “VAMs typically measure correlation, not causation: Effects—positive or negative—attributed to a teacher may actually be caused by other factors that are not captured in the model.”
• “Under some conditions, VAM scores and rankings can change substantially when a different model or test is used, and a thorough analysis should be undertaken to evaluate the sensitivity of estimates to different models.”
• “Most VAM studies find that teachers account for about 1% to 14% of the variability in test scores, and that the majority of opportunities for quality improvement are found in the system-level conditions.
• “Ranking teachers by their VAM scores can have unintended consequences that reduce quality.”
• “The measure of student achievement is typically a score on a standardized test, and VAMs are only as good as the data fed into them.”
• “Most VAMs predict only performance on the test and not necessarily long-range learning outcomes.”
• “The VAM scores themselves have large standard errors, even when calculated using several years of data.”

In this season of VAM-viewing, it is vital that informed school leaders remind themselves of the limitations of this data. You can’t take the word of companies promoting these models as “objective” and “fool-proof” measures of teacher quality. After all, they have those multimillion dollar contracts or will lose them if one casts doubt about VAM use. Still, a 21st century school leader needs to have a more balanced view of VAM and its limitations.

Value-added ratings should never be used to inform school leaders about teacher quality. There are just too many problems. In the spirit of reviewing VAM data with teachers, here’s my top ten reminders or cautions about using value-added data in judging teacher quality:

1.  Remember the limitations of the data. Though many states and companies providing VAM data fail to provide extensive explanations and discussion about the limitations of their particular value-added model, be sure those limitations are there. It is common to hide these limitations in statistical lingo and jargon, but as a school leader, you would do well to read the fine print, research for yourself, and understand value-added modeling for yourself. Once you understand the limitations of VAMs you will reluctantly make high stakes decisions based on such data.

2. Remember that VAMs are based on imperfect standardized test scores. No tests directly measure teacher  contributions to student learning. In fact, in many states, tests used in VAMS were never intended to be used in a manner to judge teacher quality. For example, the ACT is commonly used in VAMS to determine teacher quality, but it was not designed for that purpose. As you review your VAM data, keep in mind the imperfect testing system your state has. That should give you pause in thinking that the VAM data really tells you flawlessly anything about a teacher’s quality.

3. Because VAMs measure correlation not causation, remind yourself as you look at a teacher’s VAM data that he or she alone did not cause those scores or that data. There are many, many other things that could have had a hand in those scores. No matter what promises statistics companies or policymakers make, remember that VAMs are as imperfect as the tests, the teacher, the students, and the system. VAM data should not be used to make causal inferences about the quality of teaching.

4. Remember that different VAM models produce different rankings. Even choosing one model over another reflects subjective judgment. For example, some state’s choose VAMs that do not control for other variables such as student demographical background because they feel to do so makes an excuse for lower performance for low-socioeconomic students. That is a subjective value judgment on which VAM to use. Because of this subjective judgment, they aren’t perfectly objective. All VAM models aren't equal.

5. Remind yourself that most VAM studies find that teachers account for about 1 to 14 % of variability in test scores. This means that teachers may not have as much control over test scores as many of those using VAMs to determine teacher quality assume. In a perfect manufacturing system where teachers are responsible for churning out test scores, VAMs make sense. Our schools are far from perfect, and there are many, many things out there impacting scores. Teaching is not a manufacturing process nor will it ever be.

6. Remind yourself that should you use VAMs in a high stakes manner, you may actually decrease the quality of student learning and harm the climate of your school. Turning your school into a place where only test scores matter, where teaching to the test is everybody’s business is a real possibility should you place too much emphasis on VAM data. Schools who obsess about test scores aren't fun places for anybody, teachers or students. Balance views of VAM data as well as test data is important.

7. Remember that all VAM models are only as good as the data fed into them. In practical terms, remember the imperfect nature of all standardized tests as you discuss VAM data. Even though states don’t always acknowledge the limitations of their tests, that doesn’t mean you can’t. Keep the imperfect nature of tests and VAMs in mind always. Perhaps then, you want use data unfairly.

8. Remember that VAMs only predict performance on a single test. They do not tell you thing about the long-range impact of that teacher on student performance.

9. Finally, VAMs can have large standard errors. Without getting entangled in statistical lingo, just let it suffice to say that VAMs themselves are imperfect. Keep that in mind when reviewing the data with teachers.

The improper use of VAM data by school leaders can downright harm education. It can turn schools into places where in-depth learning matters less than test content. It can turn teaching into a scripted process of just covering the content. It can turn schools from places of high engagement, to places where no one really wants to be. School leaders can prevent that by keeping VAM data in proper perspective, as the "ASA Statement on Using Value-Added Models for Educational Assessment" does.

"You can prep kids for a standardized test, get a bump in scores, yet not be providing a very good education." Mike Rose, "The Mismeasure of Teaching and Learning: How Contemporary School Reform Fails the Test"

It should not be a surprise at all to politicians, policymakers, and educators that the cry and backlash against testing and accountability is growing. During my 25 year career, I've seen the number of state tests administered in public high schools in North Carolina grow from 1 to well-over 2 dozen. Testing and test scores are the talk, and the focus is almost always on "how can we get those test scores up?" About the only ones, with the exception of a few teachers, who are enthusiastic about all this testing are school administrators, who for the first time have a "cattle prod" as Taubman calls it in his book Teaching by Numbers, to shock those teachers who get out of line and who aren't "producing." Blind acceptance of test scores as "the only data of importance" is common, because such data is seen as an "objective" measure, another myth perpetuated by testing and accountability supporters. But is that true?

Peter Taubman's book Teaching by Numbers: Deconstructing the Discourse of Standards and Accountability in Education points out some flaws with this blind acceptance of testing as "the data" on which to base all educational decisions. He writes,

"Fundamentally, tests provide little more than data, but just as one must question the confessions extracted under torture, one has to wonder just how reliable that data is, when it is wrung out of students shocked by the constant administration of tests." 

In other words, no one questions, least of all school administrators, this "data" we're looking at as measures of teacher, school effectiveness and student learning. Tests are data, but how good is that data when students have been subjected to test-after-test-after-test as we do in high schools in North Carolina? North Carolina education leaders truly believe in the maxim, "If it breathes; test it." Data collected under the oppressive, tortuous testing system in our state isn't foolproof, and our jobs as administrators, educators and teachers is to remember that when we start looking at numbers.

There's no doubt when our state education leaders, administrators use the phrase "accountability" they mean primarily multiple choice tests designed to keep teachers, administrators and whole schools in line. As Taubman writes again,

"All too evident, accountability translates into teachers' responsibility for their students' learning as measured by performance on tests." 

I would add that when our state leaders and most administrators use the phrase student achievement they are only speaking about test scores. The testing math in North Carolina is captured by this equation:

Student Achievement=Test Scores

Reducing learning to a test score is great if you are accountant, but for those of us who know teaching, we know that genuine learning is rarely, if ever, only contained between the letters of a multiple choice question. Real, worth-while learning is not always subject to being captured on a a standardized test.

Administrators love tests though, and with the same enthusiasm that politicians do. Why is this? I think Taubman once again hits the bullseye. He writes,

"One reason administrators are sympathetic to testing, the data it generates, and various practices connected to testing and data aggregation is that these provide control from a distance, a fundamental component of what is called audit culture." 

Testing allows principals to become accountants, district leaders to become accountant managers, and superintendents and state level leaders become CEOs. Through test scores, all levels of administrators finally have a tool to control what happens in classrooms. They can dictate how teachers can act, and even in some school systems, teachers are given scripts to follow to make sure they cover what is to be tested. Increase the number of tests administered and you control more and more of what happens in schools. All that talk about allowing teacher decision-making, but holding teachers accountable for those decisions is just empty rhetoric. Tests are measures of control and compliance, and they are gradually strangling public education. Testing finally gives administrators what they think is an "objective" tool for getting rid of teachers and for making sure everyone is compliant.

Test data also gives administrators at every level "bragging points." It gives them something to boast about to the public, to business, to industry, and to politicians. Never mind that testing almost always reduces teaching and learning to only what can tested. Taubman gets it right once again when he writes,

"Tests constitute one way the educational reforms show the educational system. Extracting data from students, teachers and schools, they force our noses into the bottom line. Keeping us under constant surveillance, they make us vulnerable to centers of control beyond our reach, and, providing the illusion of objective accountability and meritocracy, they reduce education to right answers and information." 

Testing is about keeping teachers and students noses to the bottom line. It is about using the "illusion of objective accountability" to make sure no one gets out of line.

There is no question that this accountability and testing culture is negatively affecting teaching as a profession as well. According to Taubman,

"High stakes tests erode the autonomy of teachers, for if tests determine the curriculum, and if tests tell us what is important to know as a teacher, and if these tests are fabricated by centers of control beyond the reach of teachers, then the teachers' passions, commitments, and wisdom count less and less." 

As mentioned earlier, accountability and testing is in some case reducing the act of teaching to little more than a "scripted lesson." Instructional delivery is simply following the state or district lesson plan. Teacher autonomy due to the massive testing load is at an all time low. Teaching is no longer a profession; it is a factory job, whose goal is to churn out test scores. If a teacher fails to "make production," they are branded "Ineffective" or "Not Making Expected Growth" as its called in North Carolina.

What is more amazing is that state educational leaders just don't get it. Enrollments in education programs in colleges and universities for training teachers is at an all time low, and it isn't just about salaries. Teaching is just not very attractive when your job is test-score production. Talk to any students about becoming a teacher, and they laugh in your face. Even worse is when you find yourself as an educator no longer encouraging young people to become teachers because being a public educator anywhere, much less North Carolina, has been robbed its ability to be satisfying career because too much emphasis is placed on accountability and testing.

Where does all this end? I wish we knew. North Carolina, as do other states, continues to ramp up its testing by adding new tests, and the state stubbornly hangs on to its massive testing regimen. Will it be when there's no one entering teacher education programs in our state? Will it be when there is no one with more than 10 years experience left teaching in the classroom? Or, will it be when parents, students, and teachers finally push back and say they've had enough? Testing and accountability is more oppressive than ever in North Carolina and elsewhere, and it is sinking public education and the teaching profession along with it.

“How reward power is exercised affects outcome. Compliance is most likely if the reward is something valued by the target person. Thus, it is essential to determine what rewards are valued, and a leader should not assume that it be the same for everyone.” Gary Yukl, Leadership in Organizations

As our political leaders and state level policy makers continue to try to find ways to “improve our K-12” systems of education, one persistent idea that just won’t go away is the idea of merit pay and punishment by accountability. They still remain faithful to the idea that somehow teachers will raise test scores if they are offered a big enough carrot or if their livelihoods are somehow placed in jeopardy enough to bring about a level of fear strong enough to give them the test scores they desire. After over a decade of “test-reward-and-punish” policies under No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, you would think they would finally give up. Instead, money is still being poured into even more standards development and testing, in the hope that somehow education reform magic will happen. What these educational policymakers and politicians just don’t understand is performance pay and punishments are dead in the water before they are even implemented.

One of the reasons for the uselessness of merit pay is captured succinctly by Gary Yukl in his book, Leadership in Organizations. Rewards will only bring about compliance if those rewards are something valued by the "target person.” Don’t get me wrong, teachers and educators want to be paid fairly and be able to live comfortably, but educators know going into the the job that what they are doing is an endeavor much greater that a paycheck. Most are just not built to pursue the big carrots for their own sake. That is one thing that politicians and policymakers don’t get. Perhaps they are motivated by greed, but many of us are not.

Another problem with the carrot and stick approach to education reform is that many educators just don’t believe that test scores are a worthy goal to pursue. Most teachers who have been in the classroom see the tests for what they really are: a single measure focused on a small portion of learning given at a single point in time. That means the test can give s snapshot of only a sliver of learning, but it can’t be the ultimate goal of learning because so much of learning falls outside testing. Our current public education system is asking educators to believe that test scores are an important goal of learning, and many aren’t buying it, and never will.

As Yulk points out, “Even when the conditions are favorable for using rewards, they are more likely to result in compliance rather than commitment.” Rewards only get people to do what is required; they do not engage people’s hearts and minds totally in the goal of education. Under rewards, people aren’t committed to their jobs, the kids, or to the profession. Our current system of accountability and testing along with its reward and punish for test score performance will never work because at its heart, because teaching requires more than compliance; it requires dedication and commitment and no amount of money can purchase that.

In this News and Observer article entitled "A Hidden, Drastic Change in NC School Funding" Helen Ladd and Edward Fiske describe more sinister legislative action taken by our North Carolina Legislature and Governor during this last legislative session.

In the past, school districts received funding based on projected enrollment. This allowed school districts to plan for growth, and if their enrollments did not pan out, adjustments to funding were made. Now, the waning hours of this past legislative session, and without much public input, schools funding will be based on last year's enrollment. Basically, as Ladd and Fiske point out, "Funding to cover growing enrollments will have to be negotiated and compete with other state priorities." The bottom line, is our legislature has opened the door to being able still cut education further without saying they are cutting education.

In spite of the recent political advertising by Governor Pat McCrory and House leader (US Senate Candidate) Thom Tillis boasting about their "increased" education funding, these two have been leaders in a North Carolina government that has done more to hurt education than ever. Of course I have to throw Senate leader Phil Berger in that mix as well because he is the third prong of this anti-public education crew. The one thing all of these gentlemen have been consistent about is their disdain for public education and for public educators. They have resorted to trickery and deception on a number of occasions before, so this little budget wizardry is hardly surprising.

These are sad times in North Carolina when our North Carolina Legislature and Governor have resorted to deceptive and underhanded tactics to continue to underfund and undermine public education. Teachers and educators in general are leaving. None of our young people are choosing teaching as a profession. It has become fairly clear that our current state government continues to damage public education in North Carolina in ways I fear it would never recover, but perhaps that's the plan.

I admit it. I am one of those guilty ones who set his alarm to get up at 3:00 AM Eastern Standard Time in order to purchase an iPhone 6 + on September 12. I must admit, I have been more than pleased with my experiences so far.

The issue I had with my old iPhone 4s was simply screen size. It worked well as a phone, an email-checking device, and even for occasionally checking my social media accounts, but the screen-size made it difficult for me, a fifty-plus year old to read any text for a length of time. With the iPhone 6+ I have finally found a phone, or phablet as they're called, that meets my needs.

With the iPhone 6+ I am able to do all the things I was able to do with the iPhone 4, but now, due to its size, I can now do many of the things I used to do with my tablet on my phone. For example, reading from my Kindle app on the iPhone 4 was a miserable experience for me. The screen was just too small. In addition, this same small screen problem prevented me from using my other favorite productivity apps such as Pages or Writer Pro. Now, I simply connect my MaCally keyboard to my iPhone 6 +, and I can type away, as I'm doing with this blog post.

Now the naysayers point to the size of the iPhone phablet as a negative, saying it's just too big to use as a phone, but with my extra large hands, I have had no problems. In fact, there've been few issues at all with the device. The battery life is actually better than either my iPhone 4s or my iPads, mini or otherwise. It really does hold a charge.

I suppose the question many would ask is: Why should I get an iPhone 6+? Well, if you're like me, it brings the best of two devices together: phone and tablet. I actually have found myself using the iPhone 6+ for many tasks I had relegated to my tablet. Overall, my early experiences are mostly positive. I am hoping for a little better case as these devices become more popular.







My iPhone 6+ Screen

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Most of us have heard the old politician joke that begins with the question, "How can you tell when a politician is lying?" And the answer? "Their lips are moving?" While the humor from that joke might have disappeared from that statement after years of use, the truth of that statement is perhaps alive and well in North Carolina. Maybe the word lying isn't exactly correct, but there sure is a great deal of prevaricating going on.

Recently, in a WRAL newstory, "Letter from McCrory Stirs Pot Over Teacher Raises," it seems our governor's office and NC US Senate candidate have declared that a 5.5% raise is the same as a 7% raise. According to that same article, Josh Ellis, a spokesperson for Governor McCrory, states that McCrory and Thom Tillis are saying the same thing. According to Ellis, the difference between whether his office and the North Carolina Legislature gave teachers a 5.5% average raise or a 7% raise is a matter of "accounting differences." Methinks I see both politician's lips moving on this one.

The question I ask is really simple, "Why does our NC Governor and NC State Legislature, led by Thom Tillis and Phil Berger have to resort to deception and trickery when they should simply be doing something right for education and teachers?" I certainly know part of the answer; there's an election in a couple of months and they had to at least "give the appearance of giving teachers a raise." What better way to do that than by using "accounting trickery" to cook the books? That way, they can claim the same truth, and both be right. Well, they might use this "accounting wizardry" in their businesses, but it is just plain wrong to play those games on the hardworking teachers in this state, and to deceive the public as they've done.

What's even worse, other legislators like NC Representative Nelson Dollar and State Senator Tom Apodaca don't even appear to be sure about the amount of raise they gave teachers. Apodaca is quoted as saying that from "everything he's seen on the pay raise tells him its a 7% average hike, not the 5.5% percent raise listed by the governor." The phrase "from everything he's read" could certainly mean he hasn't read much except the lines being fed to him by legislative leaders.  Other legislators aren't sure about other things in this raise as well. NC Representative Dollar seems to be either confused or is being misleading. Hard to tell which, except his lips are moving too. He even questions whether the raise provided by this NC Governor and Legislature included taking away longevity and adding it back as part of the "7.7%" raise. He claims the 7.7% does not include the longevity. Perhaps its some of the NC Legislative Accounting again. According to our state legislature and governor's office, 2+2 can equal whatever they decide it equals apparently.

What's really bad about all this, is that appears we have a NC governor and NC Legislature that purposefully or unpurposefully made the raises they gave teachers this year murky. For Thom Tillis and Governor Pat McCrory, it makes a great deal of sense to do just that in an election year. Figure out a way to give the least amount of raise, and then use fuzzy accounting to inflate the amount of raise you gave. Instead of using reality to back their arguments, they use inventive accounting. Either these two gentlemen think the general public and teachers are too stupid to figure it out, or they are more devious that even I could imagine. Once again though, you have to keep in mind their lips are moving!