Sinquefield pushing it, but new study shows using test scores to evaluate teachers doesn't work

It appears likely that Missouri voters will soon decide whether teachers should be evaluated and paid based on scores their students make on standardized tests.

Retired billionaire Rex Sinquefield has poured more than $1.3 million into an effort to put the issue, coupled with the elimination of teacher tenure, on the ballot.

The push across the country to make teachers "accountable" has led to the creation of value-added formulas that supposedly show the contributions that teachers make to the test scores of their students. What most of them have shown is that the highest scores are posted by the teachers who manage to get the best students.

Furthermore, as you might expect, these formulas do not take into account any of the other factors that go into test scores- everything from a student's poverty level to abuse at home, emotional problems, or even being under the weather on the day of the big tests.

Even without the ballot initiative, Missouri has been moving in the direction of basing part of a teacher's evaluation on test scores and the reason is purely financial. The Obama Administration's Education Department has made it clear that if you do not make scores a part of the process, you are not going to be receiving any federal money, and that, of course, is the language that speaks with the most clarity to our state officials. The moves have also been necessary in order for states to receive relief from the horribly conceived No Child Left Behind.

So in order to rake in Race to the Top money and to satisfy billionaires who have made it clear that they are not friends of public education, we continue moving in the direction of a nightmarish scenario where even great teachers can end up losing pay or their jobs because of the luck of the draw on which students they receive. And with the stakes raised for teachers and administrators to improve test scores, we are already seeing increased instances of cheating.

What the "reformers" who are pushing for these so-called value-added metrics are conveniently ignoring is that studies are showing that the system simply does not work.

One such study, released Tuesday by the American Educational Research Association finds little correlation between these value-added measures between testing and effective teaching. The shocker is that the study is based on data from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has been pushing the new methods of teacher evaluation.

One of the researchers who released the study, Morgan S. Polikoff of the University of Southern California, says the results show that value-added metrics are nowhere near being ready to use in teacher evaluations. Yet we are moving full speed ahead.

As long as we continue to believe that all of education's ills come from having "poor' teachers and never address the many other factors that contribute to student failure we are doomed to shortsighted reforms that in the long run will damage public education far more than it will help it.

Missouri's billionaire and the war against teacher tenure

The lies have already begun and they will be front center now until Missourians vote on whether tenure should be eliminated for classroom teachers

You have heard the lies before.

-There is no way to get rid of a bad teacher once he or she has tenure.

-Schools would miraculously get better if we could only get rid of all of these experienced teachers who have tenure (and replace them with Teach for America graduates with five weeks of training).

-What other job guarantees its workers lifetime employment?

In addition to those misleading and untruthful statements, this ballot initiative would also require that teachers' evaluations be based on student scores on standardized tests.

It is all happening because one man, retired billionaire Rex Sinquefield, who spent most of his formative years in parochial schools and has little knowledge of what actually goes on in public schools (if you remember, Sinquefield is the man who thought the KKK invented public education), is willing to spend whatever amount of mouey he has to in order to get his way.

As noted in the April 25 Turner Report, Sinquefield has put $1.6 million in less than a year into one of his front groups, the misnamed TeachGreat, in his effort to eliminate teacher tenure.

Those fighting tenure will say that you only have to teach a couple of years and then your job is safe for life. They use New York City as an example, time after time. In the first place, it takes five years to achieve tenure in Missouri, far more than the two or three years in most other states.

And that is not five years of teaching- that is five years teaching in the same school system. On the day teachers begin their sixth year in a school district, they are tenured.

By the time that sixth year rolls around, most bad teachers are not in any position to gain tenure. They have already been sent packing by their school districts, or more often, they realize they are not cut out for a classroom career.

We all know an exception or two, unfortunately, and those are the ones whose stories we will be told about over and over again between now and when we vote on the issue.

The myth that the problem with education is hordes of bad teachers who are populating our classrooms and that everything will be better when we have teachers with less experience, but more enthusiasm and idealism, (and I know and have worked with many veteran teachers whose enthusiasm and idealism not only surpass the younger teachers, but serve as inspiration to them), seems to be reserved only for education. We do not see movements to have million dollar lawsuits handled by young, inexperienced lawyers with five weeks of training, and the last time I recall, no one is circulating petitions to get rid of older doctors so we can have our surgery done by enthusiastic youngsters.

What other job guarantees lifetime employment?

None and neither does education. All tenure says is that if you want to remove an experienced teacher, you have to use due process and that due process is heavily weighted in favor of administrators. In stead of fighting due process because teachers have it, we should be fighting to make sure everyone has due process.

The truth, as you can tell by the fact that Sinquefield calls his front group TeachGreat, will be a casualty when the inevitable ads showing fictitious lazy, incompetent teachers and saddened students, who could be succeeding beyond their wildest teachers if they did not have to deal with experienced teachers.

As for basing teacher evaluations and pay on student scores on standardized tests, that may be the most ludicrous idea of all. The major factor in test scores is going to be the students who are in the classroom. If they come from homes where education is valued, they are likely to score higher on tests. If their families have more income,the same holds true.

In a speech made earlier this week in New York, Rex Sinquefield let it be known that he will accept no excuses such as this. After all, he notes, he was poor, he spent much of his youth in an orphanage, and yet he received a solid private school education and became a billionaire.

"We had a bad home life and we did very well in school and so can they," he said.

He never specified who "they" are.

I suppose he is leaving that to our imagination.

Michelle Rhee organization puts $31,000 into group working to strip teachers of tenure

StudentsFirst, the misnamed organization led by the former head of the Washington D. C. School District Michelle Rhee, contributed $31,000 to another misnamed organization TeachGreat.org, according to a 48-hour report filed Monday with the Missouri Ethics Commission.

TeachGreat.org, which is another alleged grass roots organization formed by retired billionaire Rex Sinquefield, exists only to push an issue for Missouri voters in November which would strip classroom teachers of their tenure rights and require their evaluations to be heavily based on the results of their students' standardized tests.

Ms. Rhee, during her speeches and writings, has placed the blame for nearly everything that is wrong in American public schools on teachers and says that taking tenure away from teachers will improve schools.

Video- Sinquefield group to present plan for Kansas City Public Schools

Leave it to Rex Sinquefield to come up with a plan to rescue Kansas City Public Schools by sending students to private schools. The plan is being pushed by the Sinquefield-funded Show-Me Institute.

Video: Rex Sinquefield: Public schools condemning students to life of failure, lack of opportunity

In this video posted on YouTube earlier today, retired billionaire Rex Sinquefield talks about how he plans to make a difference with his money, including his goal of eliminating all personal income tax and tax on profits.

On education, Sinquefield says, "The public school system is condemning them to a life of failure and lack of opportunity."

At least, he didn't repeat his earlier quote about the KKK creating public education.

Sinquefield has already contributed $750,000 this year to one of his front organizations attempting to put a measure on the ballot eliminating teacher tenure and forcing school districts to evaluate teachers based on the scores students make on standardized tests.

Tim Jones: Student transfer issue is not a big problem

A dangerous year for education will begin this week in the Missouri Legislature and the most dangerous person of all to those who care about public education is Speaker of the House Tim Jones, R-Eureka.

Jones is targeting Common Core, but at the same time he has made it clear he is still singing retired billionaire Rex Sinquefield's tune on eliminating teacher tenure, adding to the standardized testing culture, privatizing schools, and providing educational vouchers.

Another signal that Jones is out of step comes in this story from Missourinet, in which the speaker says he does not believe there is a problem with the school transfer issue and that the law, which, as it is now stands to destroy so-called "failing school" and cause serious financial hardship for the districts that receive the people who leave the "failing schools," is working just as it is supposed to work:

“The Supreme Court has simply upheld a law that a previous, Democratic General Assembly put into place,” Jones says. “Now of course, the education establishment is howling and saying that’s somehow unfair. I don’t know what’s unfair about allowing a child to have an opportunity at a good education versus being forever stuck and mired in a failing school district.”

He says he is willing to negotiate with the “education establishment,” but says he sees the transfer law as giving children in failing districts a chance at success.

“I am very sensitive to the needs of districts to be able to manage the populations in their classrooms, to be able to manage their funding, but I am more sensitive to the needs of the children and the needs of these parents, who want their kids to succeed.”

That is a bunch of nonsense. If Jones really had concern about the children, he and his colleagues would do something abour the poverty that causes most of the problems for the failing school districts and stop scapegoating the districts and their teachers.

National education blogger takes aim at Rex Sinquefield

In Missouri, we have become used to retired billionaire Rex Sinquefield as a fact of life.

We know he buys politicians, who all then say piously that no one can buy them, but that Sinquefield agrees with their way of thinking. It would be interesting to see if they still said that if his contributions were five dollars.

We also know that Sinquefield, like anyone else who is trying to sway public opinion to the side of something that is drastically wrong, follows the old Julie Andrews credo- A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.

2013 in Review- Transparency not important to Tim Jones when ALEC is involved

(This post was originally published in January 2013)

A video posted earlier today shows Missouri's Speaker of the House Tim Jones, R-Eureka, piously proclaiming that any bills that would reinstate campaign contribution limits are "non-starters" in this year's legislative session.

The most important thing with any ethics legislation, the speaker said, is "transparency." From Jones' way of thinking, it does not matter if someone contributes $100,000 to a politician as long as that contribution is recorded and openly available for the public to see.

Of course, that is assuming that the voting public has the time or the inclination to go to the Missouri Ethics Commission website and pore through the posted documents. It also assumes that there is a robust media willing to maintain their role of watchdog for the public and reveal these contributions from special interests and the gifts provided by lobbyists representing those special interests.

For the most part, those assumptions go unrealized and the wild west, give me the money and I'll take care of you attitude of the Missouri Legislature goes unabated.

But even Tim Jones and those who express the same attitudes about transparency do not seem to feel the same way about their association with the shadowy ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council). As I have noted in previous posts, Jones and other politicians have done a good job of hiding the influence the organization (which provides ready-made pro-business, pro-gun, anti-public school bills that are then submitted by legislators as their own) has in this state.

Who else is Chris Nicastro willing to sell out?

The chorus of people across the state who think Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro has worn out her welcome and should be given the old heave ho is growing larger with the passing of each day.

Don't count me among that group.

Put me with the people who never understood why Gov. Jay Nixon appointed someone with so little past success to such an important position. He could have found someone better by drawing names from a hat. (Note to self: Check and see if Jay Nixon picked Nicastro by drawing her name from a hat. Second note to self: If he did, buy Jay Nixon a new hat.)

Sure, she was a superintendent, but not everyone who holds that position is qualified to run the education department. And she was not considered to be a successful superintendent.

Since her arrival in Jefferson City, she has done nothing but sell out the students, parents, and teachers of Missouri public schools to the highest bidders.

Through a Sunshine Law request, Missouri NEA obtained DESE e-mails which showed Nicastro was rubbing slippers with retired billionaire Rex Sinquefield on his plan to eliminate teacher tenure and tie teachers' job evaluations to student scores on standardized tests.

The Turner Report has noted numerous times, the stealth operation through which Nicastro has installed Common Core Standards throughout Missouri.

But even those things, as nefarious as they are, pale in comparison with the sabotage Nicastro is inflicting on the Kansas City School District. A group called More-2  uncovered the truth that everyone knew was out there- that Nicastro was throwing the Kansas City School District under the bus in an effort to curry favor with some of the big spenders who have corrupted the word "reform" by associating themselves with it. More-2 shared the truth with the Kansas City Star. The e-mails More2 obtained included numerous revelations:

The electronic trail exposes a rushed bidding process, now criticized, that ultimately landed Indianapolis-based CEE-Trust a $385,000 contract to develop a long-range overhaul for the district’s failing schools.

Summer discussions in emails reveal Nicastro’s wish for a statewide district to gather poor-performing schools under new leadership, with an office for innovation and charter school expansion.

The Star's story naturally concentrates on CEE-Trust's connection with Kansas City's Kauffman Foundation, but as the Turner Report has noted the CEE-Trust's major benefactor, and this should come as no surprise to anyone, is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. CEE landed the job of advising Missouri about its failing school districts by winning a rigged bid that no one else but CEE could have possibly won.

The Kansas City School District threw a monkey wrench into Nicastro's scheme by making big enough improvements under the state's scoring system that the district should have been moved from unaccredited to provisionally accredited, but she made sure that did not happen.

According to the Star article, a plan was already in place to move one of Nicastro's old superintendent buddies, Norm Ridder of Springfield, into a new position as a superintendent over failing school districts. Ridder announced his retirement from the Springfield school system about the time the plan was drafted.

Nicastro's attitude was spelled out perfectly in this passage from the Star article:

In an internal email Aug. 21 regarding media interview requests for (CEE Head Ethan Gray, Nicastro wanted him to tread carefully around the question of charter schools.

“He needs to know to take a ‘middle of the road’ and/or neutral position on charters,” she wrote. “Charters are fine as part of the solution; they are here and not going away. They must be high quality. They will try to paint them as the outsiders, funded with private money, determined to privatize all public education, yada yada.”

No, Ms. Nicastro, it is not CEE that will be painted with that picture; that was done long ago.

You are the one who has shown, with your swooning infatuation with people like Rex Sinquefield, Bill and Melinda Gates, and the upper crust foundations from Kansas City, that you are determined to privatize all public education.

Having someone with so little regard for public education and such a penchant for underhanded behavior in charge of our state's education is a disgrace.

It's time for Chris Nicastro to hit the road.

(CORRECTION Since writing this post, I discovered that Chris Nicastro is appointed by the State Board of Education and not by Gov. Nixon, which does explain some other things I have been hearing, but which I will not go into at this time. My apologies to Jay Nixon. It also means that I will have to buy hats for everyone on the State Board of Education.)

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Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/12/07/4677672/emails-detail-a-hidden-plan-for.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/12/07/4677672/emails-detail-a-hidden-plan-for.html#storylink=cpy

Transparency not that important to Speaker when it comes to ALEC

A video posted earlier today shows Missouri's Speaker of the House Tim Jones, R-Eureka, piously proclaiming that any bills that would reinstate campaign contribution limits are "non-starters" in this year's legislative session.

The most important thing with any ethics legislation, the speaker said, is "transparency." From Jones' way of thinking, it does not matter if someone contributes $100,000 to a politician as long as that contribution is recorded and openly available for the public to see.

Of course, that is assuming that the voting public has the time or the inclination to go to the Missouri Ethics Commission website and pore through the posted documents. It also assumes that there is a robust media willing to maintain their role of watchdog for the public and reveal these contributions from special interests and the gifts provided by lobbyists representing those special interests.

For the most part, those assumptions go unrealized and the wild west, give me the money and I'll take care of you attitude of the Missouri Legislature goes unabated.

But even Tim Jones and those who express the same attitudes about transparency do not seem to feel the same way about their association with the shadowy ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council). As I have noted in previous posts, Jones and other politicians have done a good job of hiding the influence the organization (which provides ready-made pro-business, pro-gun, anti-public school bills that are then submitted by legislators as their own) has in this state.

Lobbyists' filings for gifts to Republicans attending ALEC's national conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, in July, for instance, were credited to the entire general assembly, though as far as available records indicate not one Democrat from the Show-Me State was in attendance. Not only did that make it appear that both parties were receiving the gifts, which was not the case, but it also attributed to those gifts to the entire General Assembly, all 197 members, and prevented taxpayers from knowing just what gifts were accepted by the relatively small number of legislators who were in Salt Lake City.

Among those who credited their expenses to the General Assembly:
-CenturyLink lobbyist Doug Galloway reported $1,000 in meals and drinks
-AT&T's John R. Sondag, $550 in meals for "dinner" and $800 for the Missouri Night reception
-Bryan Cave LLC's Guy William Black, $800 for meals
-Ford Motor Company's Tony Reinholdt, $600 for meals
-Catalyst Group's Daniel Pfeifer, $800 for meals
-Cerner's Carrie Sherer, $800 for meals
-Missouri Chamber of Commerce's Tracy King, $800 for meals.
A total of $6,100 in lobbyists' gifts was credited to the Missouri General Assembly.  

Showing a little more accuracy, but not much, lobbyist Trey Davis, representing Missouri Energy Development Association, credited $1,371.84 to the House Majority Caucus.
Judging from the lobbyists' reports, it appears that those attending the conference included Rep. Jason Smith, R-Salem; Rep. Chuck Gatschenberger, R-Lake St. Louis; Rep. Shelley Keeney, R-Marble Hill.

And undeniably, Speaker of the House Jones also attended the conference, especially considering that his "transparency" includes campaign disclosure reports that show three "contributions" from ALEC during 2012, totaling $2,673.49, and a $450 "sponsorship."

Transparency, it appears, is a double-edged sword when wielded by politicians like Tim Jones. It enables him to accept a $100,000 contribution from retired billionaire and public education opponent Rex Sinquefield, while proclaiming nothing is wrong with it as long as everyone knows he received it, while at the same time, transparency concerning connections with a group like ALEC is a much harder sell even in this state where we have become accustomed to politicians arriving in Jefferson City with their hands fully extended.