Creating a Positive Learning Environment

Tangible evidence of the benefit of capital improvement funds.

Teacher Impact on Student Earnings

So, I'm aware that this study received attention in early January. And it was even mentioned in President Obama's State of the Union. But, it keeps getting cited as further evidence that we need to fire more teachers to improve student achievement.

Here's the finding that gets all the attention: A top 5 percent teacher (according to value-added modeling or VAM) can help a classroom of students (28) earn $250,000 more collectively over their lifetime.

Now, a quarter of a million sounds like a lot of money.

But, in their sample, a classroom was 28 students. So, that equates to $8928.57 per child over their lifetime. That's right, NOT $8928.57 MORE per year, MORE over their whole life.

For more math fun, that's $297.61 more per year over a thirty year career with a VAM-designated "great" teacher vs. with just an average teacher.

Yep, get your kid into a high value-added teacher's classroom and they could be living in style, making a whole $300 more per year than their friends who had the misfortune of being in an average teacher's room.

If we go all the way down to what VAM designates as "ineffective" teaching, you'd likely see that number double, or maybe go a little higher. So, let's say it doubles plus some. Now, your kid has a low VAM teacher and the neighbor's kid has a high VAM teacher. What's that do to his or her life?

Well, it looks like this: The neighbor kid gets a starting job offer of $41,000 and your kid gets a starting offer of $40,000.

Wait, what? You mean VAM does not do anything more than that in terms of predicting teacher effect?

Um, no.

And so perhaps we shouldn't be using value-added modeling for more than informing teachers about their students and their own performance. Using it as one small tool as they seek to continuously improve practice. One might even mention a VAM score on an evaluation -- but one certainly wouldn't base 35-50% of a teacher's entire evaluation on such data. In light of these numbers from the Harvard researchers, that seems entirely irresponsible.

Perhaps there's a lot more to teacher quality and teacher effect than a "value-added" score. Perhaps there's real value added in the teacher who convinces a struggling kid to just stay in school one more year or the teacher who helps a child with the emotional issues surrounding divorce or abuse or drug use or any number of other challenges students (who are humans, not mere data points) face.

Alas, current trends in "education reform" are pushing us toward more widespread use of value-added data -- using it to evaluate teachers and even publishing the results.

I can just hear the conversation now: Your kid got a "2" teacher mine got a "4." My kid's gonna make 500 bucks more a year than your kid. Unless, of course, the situation is reversed next year.

Stop the madness. Education is a people business. It's about teachers (people) putting students (people) first.

I'm glad the researchers released this study. Despite their spurious conclusions, it finally tells us that we can and should focus less on a single value-added score and more on all the inputs at all levels that impact a child's success in school and life.

So, that's 25%

In a follow-up to this post, I wanted to find this post, from Nashville Jefferson. Here's why. I wanted to see how much school-based variables impact student achievement. His post makes clear: 50%. That means 50% is beyond a school's control. But it also means that if we assume that teacher quality accounts for 50% of the school-based variables impacting student achievement, it means it only accounts for 25% of the total impact on student achievement.

Sure, that's a reasonable amount. And yes, we should be concerned about attracting and keeping the best teachers in the classroom. But we shouldn't forget about other factors.

Getting the "Teacher Quality" Talk Right

In this article, President and CEO of SCORE (Tennessee's Statewide Collaborative on Reforming Education) Jamie Woodson says, "The number one factor of a student's success is effective teaching in the classroom."

This is the claim made by lots of education reformers these days. The same reformers go on to tell us we need to better evaluate teachers and that means evaluating them using student test scores. Doing so, they argue, will help us identify ineffective teachers who can be fired. And because we'll be getting rid of the least effective (by their definition) teachers, teacher quality will improve and so will student performance.

Here's the problem: The data do NOT suggest that effective teaching is the number one factor of a student's success. At all.

Here's what research on this topic does say. A student's teacher is the most significant school-based factor in determining student achievement. The key word is school-based. Also, the same data suggests that the teacher accounts for up to 50% of a student's success among all school-based variables. The second most significant school-based variable is school leadership. Other factors play a role. The building, environment, peers, resources. All of those make up the remainder of the school-based variables.

Of course, the school-based variables are not the ONLY variables that impact student achievement. So, yes, it is important to have strong teachers.

But, the education and income levels of the student's parents remain the most significant overall predictor of student success. This has been true for some 40 years (probably more, but it's what the researchers have been showing us for at least 40 years).

If you have parents who didn't graduate from high school, it makes it much more likely you won't graduate from high school. If you come from a low-income family, you are much more likely to run into struggles that make focusing on school difficult.

So, sure, we should focus on teacher quality. Because, of all the school-based factors, it is the most significant. But we shouldn't lose sight of other school-based factors -- like prinicpal quality. Or buildings -- it's absolutely not okay to send kids to school in portable trailers. Our kids deserve adequate resources, too. That means the ability to take home text books --and access to texts that are not outdated.

And, we should also realize that there are larger, systemic problems (poverty, access to health care) that impact significantly student outcomes. Sure, this CAN be overcome in some cases, but usually not without a convergence of amazing interventions in a child's life. Perhaps the teacher with low "value-added" scores convinces her struggling student who lives in poverty to keep trying and to stay in school -- and so he becomes the first high school graduate in the family because someone believed in him.

Comprehensive education reform would 1) listen to teachers (they ARE the experts) 2) put in place the reforms teachers suggest 3) adequately fund schools so kids have clean, safe buildings and adequate resources and 4) address the ENTIRE school as well as community inputs.

Shouldn't We Make Public Schools Like the Best Private Schools?

So, I read this article about private schools and the best practices of the leading independent schools in our country. The article makes the point that private schools are themselves market-driven and that if anyone would adopt reforms along the lines of those pushed by "corporate" reformers, it'd be private schools. After all, if they don't produce results, parents won't shell out the cash to send their kids, right?

The article makes some good points -- namely, that teacher pay is relatively predictable (there aren't typically huge bonuses or merit pay programs), that firing is rare and that evaluations are not usually based on student test scores.

Then I had the good fortune to spend an entire day (a full 18 hours) at a well-regarded private school with a high school speech team I help coach.

Which caused me to think about the article. And about education reform in general.

This particular school has nice facilities -- they are not opulent, but they are excellent. And we know from research that school buildings matter.

Parents spend about $15,000 per year to send their children there. While there are also fundraisers and other sources of income, it's fair to say this school assesses the cost of educating each child at $15,000 per year. That's almost double the state average per pupil spending in Tennessee.

The school also pays teachers relatively well. Not long ago, a friend of mine was leaving his teaching job there. When his position was advertised, the starting salary was listed at $52,000. Most Tennessee teachers would have to earn a Master's degree and teach 15 years to earn that amount. But that's the starting pay they were offering. I don't know how their pay scale works over time, but even if that teacher received no raises for 10 years, they'd be nicely ahead of their public school counterparts.

Students and teachers at this and other leading private schools also have access to excellent resources -- including textbooks and materials that are not 10-12 years old.

So, let's review. Excellent education is obtained in private schools without all the "cool" reforms currently being pushed on public schools. The essence is this: Spend enough on students to ensure access to excellent educational resources, pay teachers well and offer them stability, house the school in a nice, clean building that is fully functional (not in portable trailers).

That's it. Private schools have no incentive to engage in these practices if they are not working. Parents would simply spend their money elsewhere.

We simply need leaders with the will to not only demand these things, but also to make them happen.