From the Daily Journal
by BILL KACZOR
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Math teacher Antoine Joseph already had been thinking of leaving Miami Norland Senior High School, so when its annual grade from the state dropped from a D to an F nine years ago that just solidified his decision.
Joseph said it wasn't just a matter of being stigmatized as a failure — he was just tired of the circumstances behind the failing grade.
"There is a propensity to go to another school where the parents are more involved, the students are more eager to learn and they are more thirsty for knowledge," he said.
Joseph apparently was not alone. A recent study by a trio of economists showed a disproportionate number of Florida teachers left schools that got lower grades in 2002 after the state changed the way it evaluated them.
The researchers call it "accountability shock." That's their term for unexpected results from shake-ups in the way students, teachers, administrators or schools are evaluated, graded, rewarded or punished. The study is timely advice because accountability changes are in the works across the nation due to President Barack Obama's "Race to the Top" school initiative. The program is providing $4.35 billion in federal stimulus money to Florida, 10 other states and the District of Columbia for innovative changes aimed at improving student achievement.
Not a single Florida school had failed in 2001 before the grading change, but Norland was among 63 that received an F after the new procedure was adopted. It bases A-through-F grades on gains students make on standardized tests from year to year rather than simply on that year's scores.
"The increased pressure probably produced some benefits but also led some teachers to move away from low-achieving schools," said Florida State University economist Tim Sass. "The general lesson there is you have to be careful about potentially unintended consequences."
A key provision in Florida's Race to the Top plan, as well as part of a new accountability law, is teacher merit pay that will be closely tied to how much students improve on the standardized tests. Joseph thinks the changes will again cause more teacher transfers.
Joseph transferred in 2002 to William H. Turner Technical Arts High School, which received a C that year, and he's still teaching there. Besides the school grading change, Joseph said a conflict with Norland's principal and personal issues, contributed to his decision to leave.
Saul Berenson said the new grading system also was a factor, but not the only one, in his departure from Miami Jackson Senior High School. He said he decided to retire after 40 years in part because of the focus on testing and computerization that was taking up more of teachers' time.
"Anybody who stays in teaching needs their heads examined," Berenson said. "You are no longer a teacher. You are a glorified baby sitter or you're teaching to the test."
The Associated Press contacted seven other Miami-Dade County teachers who left failing schools in 2002, but all said they did so for other reasons. Robert Black left Norland for Lake Ariel, Pa., so he could be closer to his aging parents, but said he found the researchers' theory interesting.
"They may not be off by much," Black said. "I know that teachers get very frustrated."
Sass collaborated with Li Feng of Texas State University-San Marcos and David Figlio of Northwestern University. Their study was published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization based in Cambridge, Mass. All three also have done other research on school accountability and performance measures.
They found teachers at failing schools were 1.4 times more likely to leave than those at schools with higher grades.
"The evidence is pretty clear that teachers tend to move toward schools that have higher achievement, fewer kids in poverty, fewer discipline problems," Sass said.
Besides the stigma, Florida's F schools miss out on financial rewards given to those that get an A or show significant improvement. Failing schools, though, do get other help such as additional reading coaches and they may undergo staffing changes. They also could face closure or conversion into charter schools. This year, 31 Florida schools received an F — 1 percent of the total.
While some poorly performing teachers left in 2002, the study indicated that wasn't entirely the case. The researchers found teachers who left for other schools as well as the ones who remained showed improvement. The extra help given to failing schools may have been a factor in the improvement shown by those who stayed, Sass said.
Figlio agreed with the unintended consequences lesson that can be drawn from the study, but said the results also showed "it's really challenging to design a system that takes everything into account."
"The big takeaway message for Race to the Top will be that the schools that serve low-income kids are going to be particularly vulnerable," he said. "Any system that's going to provide incentives for good teachers needs to be particularly focused on these most vulnerable schools."
Florida school officials realized they had a problem with teacher mobility in failing schools soon after the 2002 grading system change.
Wayne Blanton, executive director of the Florida School Boards Association, said some districts gave extra pay to teachers who stayed.
Florida House Education Committee Chairman Bill Proctor, a St. Augustine Republican who is a career educator and chancellor of Flagler College, said he wasn't surprised by the findings.
"We need to take cognizance of it," Proctor said. "We probably need to be sensitive to it, but the question with each school may be a different."
Former Florida K-12 Chancellor Frances Haithcock said the findings are correct but that she's confident the state will avoid another accountability shock from its $700 million Race to the Top plan
The merit pay provision in that plan could keep teachers from leaving shocked schools, Sass acknowledged, but he said there are plenty of pitfalls in designing evaluation systems. One is test scores. He called it a "noisy" measure due to outside influences such as illness or even a fire alarm going off.
"You give the same test to the same kid a couple days apart and the score won't be the same," Sass said. "They get lucky guessing on a few questions or misinterpret a question."
Haithcock said that's why Florida isn't relying on a single test but will use scores from a three-year period.
"That lessens the noise to the point that it's fair," Haithcock said.
Sass said the research also shows student testing can do a good job of identifying teachers at the very top and bottom of the performance scale, but not for those that are "a little better than average or a little worse than average."
The researchers expect Race to the Top will give them more opportunity to study accountability shock and related issues.
"Researchers love when there are policy changes," Figlio said. "Every policy change is going to introduce some type of good and bad luck. I mean, that's just the nature of the beast."
http://www.dailyjournal.net/view/story/642acc6b96ea48d0bcbeab61a6f6bd32/FL--Accountability-Shock/
No comments:
Post a Comment